I got to do this one with my husband! Nothing says “fun date night” like “pool of urine”!
You guys! I have BIG NEWS! I finally did it! I got to live out my lifelong dream and pee in a lake! (Okay, more like a pond.) And I didn’t even have to do a triathlon for the privilege! It wasn’t so much of a decision to go rogue with bodily fluids but more of a reaction to being scared jumping off a wall, falling 12 feet and hitting c-o-l-d water. Not gonna lie, I was slightly embarrassed. Until I got to the finish line and half my friends admitted to doing the same thing. Which was all fun and sisterhood-of-the-baby-weakened-bladders until we realized that we ran in like the 15th heat of the day… so basically we jumped off a wall into a pool of pee. Strangers’ pee, to be precise.
Lesson #1: Races are not for the squeamish.
While the urologist’s dream jump was the highlight of the Camp Titan obstacle race, there was entertainment from the get-go, starting with registration. “10 dollars for parking please.” “$15 per spectator. Yes, even children count.” “$2 per bag for the bag check.” “No, we’re not providing beverages but there’s a vending machine around the corner.” “Would you like to make a donation to our sponsor?” “We’re selling $5 raffle tickets to win a TV!” And that was after paying for our entries! When my friend asked where the bathroom was I immediately hushed her, sure that the race promoters had found a way to make port-a-potties coin operated.
Lesson #2: Never assume salted nut rolls and bananas are your finish-line right. Why should you get post-race goodies when kids in Africa are starving?
Pre-Race: The girls got our game faces on! Mad squirrel!
But the miserliness of the organizers was made up for by inventiveness of the course designer(s). (I’m told it was done by a local CrossFit gym – nicely done guys!) This being my first official mud run I have nothing to compare it to but I was not disappointed in the course challenges! It was just a 5K run but it was held on the local ski slope, Buck Hill. (Which, much to our Rocky-Mountain-born-and-bred amusement, actually sports an avalanche warning sign. It’s 500 feet tall.) Still, we went up and down that 500 feet a lot. We started out with a run up the hill, naturally, to climb a wall of hay bales, hot step it through a chute of tires, crawl on our stomachs through mud and carry a log on our shoulders for awhile.
Lesson #3: Unless it’s barbed wire above you, crawling on your hands and knees through the mud is sufficient.
Then we had to run around 2 miles of single track on the forested backside of the hill. Thanks to the hot, muggy weather, swarms of mosquitoes and unmarked trails that all seemed to go uphill in circles it would have been unmitigated misery if it weren’t for the hilarity of watching all the runners pop and in and out of the underbrush like demented prairie dogs. Some people gave up and cut through the suburban backyards that abutted the trail while others just ran faster hoping that they would eventually make it out of the warren through sheer force of will. (For myself, I was too afraid of getting lost in the neighborhood so I stuck it out. Pretty sure I ran past the same stump at least 4 times though.)
Lesson #4: Next time I should train for what I’m actually doing. Running 5K on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym is nothing like trail running hill repeats in the Amazon. I gots the shin splints.
But the best was yet to come. Finally out of the forest, a steep paved trail took us back to the top of the mountain (you like how it started out as a hill and has now morphed into a mountain?), of which I walked the entire way. I’d be ashamed but not a soul passed me. Even the hardcore CrossFit dude walked it. (You can tell he’s hardcore because he wasn’t wearing a shirt but had on $80 mountaineering gloves and $200 technical shorts. Protect the moneymakers, baby.)
Lesson #5: You can see mirages of water stations. Sadly that’s all it was.
At the top, we got to enjoy the beautiful view by scaling a 30-foot “Jacob’s ladder”, hopping across some gigantic hurdles/balance beam thingies and vaulting over a series of progressively taller walls. The walls tripped me up a bit. They had no real hand or foot holds so all you could do was run as fast as possible and then do one of those cartoon runs up the side hoping your momentum would carry you to the top and over. That worked for two of them. For the third wall however I needed a little help. It’s times like these when you see who your true friends are! My friend Nate took one for the team and played step stool for me and another girl. (I later found out that my thoughtful husband had done the same for several women in his pack.)
Lesson #6: Sometimes you have to step on some people to get to the top. Er…
And then came my Waterloo. After running down a steep hill you had to run straight up the side of a halfpipe and then jump off the other side 12 feet down into a pond of indeterminate depth. My plan was to run up it and immediately jump. My plan sucked. I totally panicked when I got to the top and stood there for a good five minutes contemplating life, the universe and ponds that might only be 4 feet deep since we’re in a drought this summer. Finally Nate said “Come on, you only live once!” and tipped gracefully over the side. My fear of being left behind conquered my fear of heights and I jumped. Then I hit the bottom. But I swam out and all was peachy.
Lesson #7: 12 feet feels a lot higher than it looks from the ground.
Everything was downhill from there. Literally. We ran to a giant slip-n-slide where I belly flopped into another pond. Then we carried sandbags halfway up the hill and back down, flipped a tractor tire, got sprayed down with a hose and crossed the finish line! Best part of finishing was when the woman announced our times. “4:11!” she proclaimed as I crossed. “What does that mean?” I asked, baffled. It couldn’t be 4 hours nor could it be 4 minutes. “That’s what time it is now,” she replied. “It can’t be. There’s no way it took me over two hours to run 5K, even with obstacles,” I huffed. “Well it is!” she huffed back, holding up her iPhone that was apparently the official race clock. “Your phone’s on military time,” my friend Beth explained. “You subtracted wrong.” “Oooohhh,” she sighed looking at her clipboard. “That means I’ve written down everyone’s times wrong then.” By Beth’s best estimate (she can make a sundial out of twigs and point due north even in a pitch black cave so I trust her) we finished in about 40 minutes. Well that will teach me to get all competitive and try to compare times!
See me clutching my dixie cup like it’s an Oscar?? I never realized before how much I take water-table volunteers for granted.
Lesson #8: Race bag swag is a privilege. One that we did not earn apparently as there were no race bags. Nor was there anything post-race except water in a 5-gallon jug with dixie cups. We had to drive to Best Buy – soaking wet and reeking of pond pee – to pick up our plain white t-shirts.
Final verdict: The race management was a mess (by far the worst of any race I’ve ever done and I include my kids’ elementary school walk-a-thon with 50 kindergartners in that) but the race itself was solid. I was seriously challenged in a variety of physical and mental ways. But if any of you decide to try this one next year just make sure you bring your own water bottle. And lots of cash!
Right after this pic was snapped, I accidentally flipped over into a backbend. When I stood up, my shirt came up a little. So when we walked past a group of guys on the way out they thanked me for the free flash (seriously). I’d have been bugged but hey, at least somebody got something at the finish line!
Have you ever done a mud/obstacle race? Have you ever done a race that was not at all what you expected? Are you the kind of person who would let people use their back as a springboard to get over a wall??
I’ve never done such a mud/obstacle race, and probably won’t. I’m a wimp.
My last race, back in May, was originally labeled as a 12k, then a few weeks before race day, it was changed to 10k. The course was surprisingly challenging, and I wasn’t happy with my result at all. Shortly afterwards I found out that the distance had been changed again, so in the end we all ran an extra mile. An entire mile! What a mess!
At least I got free ice cream at the finish.
Oh man, I love that this race was held on Buck Hill! Wish I would have been watching it (okay, maybe not for the $15, but whatever). Sounds hilariously awesome!
Hee! This is great. A yoga student who sometimes ends up in my class when I sub is training for a half marathon mud run! I think she’s nuts, and I told her that – but she seems unperturbed. I did ask her how she is training and she kind of just shrugged. Uh oh. Maybe I should send her this recap! 🙂 All in all, I love reading about mud runs, but I’m pretty sure I’d pull a muscle in the excitement. Or cry…or both.
I did my second annual Warrior Dash in a row a week ago Saturday (and blogged about it, including my own tale of lake-induced panic. Thankfully I did manage to avoid peeing, but until now I hadn’t thought about the fact that others might not have been so lucky… now I’m extra sad that I ingested some lake water by accident!).
I’m signed up to three-peat next July. So challenging, yet so fun!
We did the color me rad 5k this summer and it was not what we expected. So disorganized. They planned 4 waves all starting by 9:20am. Think our wave ended up being the 10th and it was almost 10am and way too hot. For the most part everyone walked because even that was hard in the heat. They only had 2 water stops and one ran out before we got to it so they shut it down. We thought they’d really be throwing the color stuff at us nonstop and there were only a few stations for it with a couple people tossing a handful at everyone. It was an experience but not a race we would do again. Probably fun for the people who started at 9, ran it and went home.
Mud races are so much fun! I did a spartan race here in VT and part of the course had us crawling underground like a bunch of spandex clad gophers.
Congrats on finishing Charlotte! Proud of you 🙂
I did the Warrior Dash on Oahu. It was pretty freakin’ awesome. And lots of shirtless crossfitter eye candy – do they not own shirts?
Sounds amazing!! I loved visiting Hawaii and I love Warrior Dash! Congrats, Warrior!
I’ve done Warrior Dash at Afton Alps twice and loved it! I’ll be doing it again next year, too.
I haven’t been to any races that were terribly disorganized, but there are definitely races that are better run than others.
This both makes me terrified of and excited for the Zombie 5K in October!
…Man, I really need to start running cross-country style.
Cool. I’ve wanted to do one of these but I have to go to the next province to attend one. This seems like so much more fun than a regualr run. A girl I work with who’s crazy fit wants to go in one next year and I might see if she’ll let me tag a long…
Congrats on finishing, 40 minutes is positively machine-like! I’d love to do a mud run but the few we have in the UK are so competitive and macho I’m a bit put off. I’m really drawn to the idea of getting involved with a bit of nature though!
Px
Congrats:)
A good one to look out for is Warrior Dash as they are not only well-organised and challenging but use the collected funds for charitable purpose.
I’m not sure if they have Tough Mudder in America but that’s another good, fun one.
This is pretty much the inverse of the experience I had with Warrior Dash – great organization, good swag, not that challenging. In fairness, however, when I did it last summer (in MA), we’d had a great deal of rain in the days leading up to the race, and some of the obstacles had to be scrapped because of the mud. But the mud, she was epic (and absolutely the most challenging element of the race by a wide margin).
In honesty I’m doing Warrior for the first time this year (I’m in Australia) but had the word from others that have done it that it was a good challenge. I guess it depends on the location as that would offer different variables. You also may be ridiculously fit:)
I have not done an adventure run or mud run but they are on my bucket list. I like to think I’d help anyone near me on an obstacle. I’ve cheered on other runners in half marathons so why not offer my back?
I’ve done 2 mud runs this year and have 3 more coming up. My first experience was the Lozilu and it was amazing. So much fun, and was a great introduction into the mud run world. The second was the 5k Foam Fest and it was a nightmare. From the parking (or lack there of), lack of race swag (even though promised a goody bag), no foam anywhere and no water, it was not fun at all. There was no water to drink at all, in the Arizona desert in May. The poor Sam’s Club guy ran out of water bottles and he ended up catching all the blame from the promoters! However, the team work out there was amazing. Strangers helping others over the wall climbs and thru the mudpit/quick sand. Both races had quite a few people helping others. I even had to be helped across a high balance beam (terrified of heights) and it was great to know that I didn’t have to be embarrassed.
I did my first obstacle race last year. My friend cancelled on me at the last second so I had to do it alone. I had fun but got totally torn up by the rope. I hear they are making changes this year so I’m tempted to go do it again now that I’ve started crossfitting and see how many more strongs I have.
Charlotte! How high can you get your leg in the air! And you do handstands. I’m not worthy…
Haha, mud-runs are awesome, great job!
I think a mud race is the only kind I’d ever be interested in. It definitely sounds like an adventure!
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