Down & Dirty Mud Run

Although I have a few trail runs under my belt, some of which have involved more than a little mud, this was my first official Mud Run.  Mud Runs seem to be exploding these days; they're one part run, one part obstacle course, and one part - spa treament?  What made this one fun and different for me is that I actually did it with friends.  This was a nice change of pace from going off alone, running alone, and coming home alone - not that I really mind any of that, but it was great to have someone to chat and laugh with after all was said and done. 

I headed out with my karate sensei, his wife, and another student from the dojo (A) at 5:30 am.  Our scheduled race time was 7 am, and some of us still needed to pick up our race packages.  A and I had gone the day before, and both that pick up area and the one on race day were quick and well organized.  I am actually the only one of the group who has been putting in any real miles lately, and while everyone encouraged me to just go ahead and run at whatever pace I wanted, what I actually wanted was to run WITH people, so we agreed to start together and to run more or less together through the race.  As it happened, it was actually A's first race ever!  She's an experienced soccer player so it's not like she's a stranger to competition, but picking a 10K mud run as your first race is, IMO, pretty cool. 

The start was very well done.  The sent groups of runners off in three minute intervals, presumably to avoid "bunching" at the obstacles.  That worked very well over the course of the run; I don't think I waited more than half a minute anywhere to do an obstacle, and generally didn't have to wait at all.  We started fairly well back and probably weren't off much before 7:30.

The first obstacle was netting, set about 2 feet over the ground - you had to crawl under the netting.  Good warm up, and a hint of things to come!  The second obstacle was a ladder-style climb - the thing looked like a saw horse on steroids with extra slats.  Again, somewhat of a warm-up obstacle.  Then it was off into the woods on a pretty nice, wide trail. Even though the hour was early and the weather was, relatively speaking, pretty comfortable for July - the current heat wave hadn't started yet - it was nice to be in shade!  In the woods it was up and over a four foot wall, then back on the trail. 

At this point, the trail was pretty open, compared to what I've been running on in actual trail runs.  There was all kinds of room to move and groove, and it was even split for a while, as you used a small section  of the trail as in out and back fashion.  After a pretty good climb, there were that they described as "Marine hurdles."  These were three connected, very large saw horse style things with no slats, just a series of three crossbars.  I think you were supposed to cross over the bars; however, as they were all well over my head, I crossed at the connection, as did many other people.  In fact, at first I thought that was how you were supposed to do them; half way over, I realized it wasn't.  Oh well; there were no points for style, so it was what it was.  Up until this point, which was nearly halfway through the course, I had been running with sensei; here we switched off, and he ran with the Mrs. and I ran with A. 

The race continued on more traditional single track trail, with the types of "obstacles" you generally can expect to encounter on a normal trail race; some downed trees, and a couple of creek crossings.  Next obstacle was a pile of straw bales; we had been warned that this was a particularly tricky obstacle, but as an old farm girl, I didn't find them so, and it didn't seem that many others did, either.  Then came what was easily the dullest part of the course - a straight flat stretch out maybe half a mile to a set of crawl-through tunnels (which I hated! I kept finding the wires with my bony knees - not fun) then back in along side the out trail.  Dull, dull, dull - but A and I were having a great chat, which totally saved it.  From there it was back into the woods and over a cargo net set over an a-frame, which, naturally, brought to mind Ninja Warrior.

And then we got muddy, part 1.  This was a crawl through a mud pit, under ropes set about two feet over the mud.  It was fairly short but you came out covered; fortunately there was a water stop right afterward so you could splash off any really bad bits (mud in the mouth, for example).  Then it was back on the trail, and headed for home, where there were four quick obstacles before the finish.  First was a 10' rock climbing wall.  I've never done one, other than a little kiddie one at the playground (and only then mostly to act as a safety net for one of my nephews), so that was interesting, but not really a problem.  From there it was on to mud pit #1 - this one was a waist-deep muddy water crossing that actually served to knock off some of the mud you still carried with you from the first mud crawl.  A and I paused at this point to wait for sensei and Mrs., who were a couple of minutes behind us, so we could all cross the finish line together.  Group intact, we headed for the next to last obstacle, a slippery wall set at a low (maybe 30 degree) angle.  The idea was to use ropes to pull yourself up and over; you probably could have walked it, but there were volunteers (in military garb!) there yelling at you to go over it, belly down, so you did. 

Last obstacle was, of course, the long mud pit!  Here the ropes were set only six inches or so above the muck, and as you will see in the picture, we basically complied and got the thorough mud treatment:

Us, in our post race glory.  I'm second from the right.

Race shirt and finisher medal.

 All in all, it was a great day.  Between the obstacles breaking things up and the camaraderie on the course, the time flew by (although we were most definitely not going fast!).   It was a nice change of pace from more serious racing.  Adding a couple of these things to the calendar each year definitely seems like it could keep things fun and interesting.