At long last, I made it to the local Picnic Island Adventure Run last night, which is actually a series of three adventure races held in Tampa each summer at Picnic Island Park . I had been out of town for the previous two races of the summer, so I was determined to make this one. Although the race was not set up to be intimidating or particularly brutal (think Tough Mudder ), it was the first race I would run that had intentional obstacles--things I typically try to avoid. I knew parts of the race would take place in sand, water, and mud, and that there would be a hurdle to jump over, some tires to run through, and hills to zigzag up and down. For someone who does not typically run on anything but flat pavement, these obstacles caused a bit of concern for me beforehand. But because I was trying to fend off an injury to my right lower leg, I vowed I would not actually race but just run "for fun" (seriously, who really does that?). I've declared this before about previo...