Go"Pro" - or in my case "Amateur"

My 4th grade students did some heavy convincing for my Las Vegas race. I always show a short clip of mudder races, clean versions of course, to my students about a week before the race. They like to know where I am going and why; in this case most of them couldn't wrap their heads around the why..."Ms. Mooney, you are PAYING to do this?!"

Anyhow, after watching clips they insisted I filmed my endeavors. This is where I made my first mistake, I mentioned I had access to a GoPro. According to them, I was to race with it on and when I got to Electroshock Therapy, take it off and tell the camera "This is for my 4th graders!!" then charge through the 10,000 volts of electricity.  

Needless to say, they almost got what they wanted. I borrowed my neighbor's GoPro (Thanks Chad!). I tried it on before leaving, jumped up and down with it on my head, decided it would stay. Perfect. 

Vegas race day: Go Pro is on and ready to go! Pretty excited about capturing some fun footage. The race started, a few obstacles went by and about a mile of running.

My second mistake...it was about the 3rd obstacle...Arctic Enema, a.k.a - an ice bath with barb wire. I jumped in, held the Go Pro with one hand as I swam under water. The GoPro hit the board I was suppose to swim under and detached from my head. Great. 

I resurfaced on the opposite side, hardly breathing due to the extreme cold. Now I was forced to weigh my options. Stay in the ice and dive for this GoPro as hundreds of racers try and avoid me and the TM staff yells at me to get out of the way or lose my neighbor's GoPro and keep racing since I was attempting to qualify for World's and couldn't waste that much time. 

I chose to keep running. 

Fast forward a few hours...After the last heat had passed the third obstacle I went back to it. The water was still freezing and I really didn't want to fish around in there for the camera. I opted to find some willing people to do it for me, of course offering to pay them. A group of local Vegas boys stepped up to the plate and waded around in the waist deep ice until they recovered the lost GoPro! Thank you Zach and friends! 

Upon returning to Missoula I was pleasantly satisfied to find out 1-the GoPro still worked, 2-it was actually my neighbor's GoPro, and 3-the mere mile of footage captured was decent. 

New Goal - persuade Chad to let me use the GoPro again for my February Arizona race. Two  options: 1-take if OFF for each water obstacle or 2- duck tape it to my head (I'll go with option 1). Eventually I will move past the amateur head camera wearing stage and become a true Go"Pro" user!

Here is the 2 minutes of video captured from Vegas...Enjoy!!