Muddy Buddy Race

After posting about the Henricus Dauber Dash, I realized that I never posted about a similar race I ran a couple months ago. In April, Tristan and I ran the Muddy Buddy race at Pocahontas State Park. It was a 4 mile race with obstacles. The cool part was that you had to run it as a team because some of the obstacles required two people. The muddy buddy has been a bike/run race in the past, but this year they had an option where you could do the course with two runners as a team.

The day of the race was miserable. It was rainy and dreary and COLD. I figured I was going to get weighed down by mud, so I had on minimal clothing- a sleeveless shirt and shorts- and I was pretty darn cold by the start of the race. We got there about an hour early, so we got our race bibs and t-shirts, then found a dry spot under a tent and huddled under there for awhile. We were in the 9am group, so we got to see some of the 8am finishers go through the final mud pit. It was fun to watch people finish!

When they called the 9am group, we headed over to the start. It was drizzling again and we jumped around to stay warm. They started us in a few waves and we were in front of the second wave. We started off fast because we were so excited to be running after waiting all that time. And because we had to keep moving to stay warm! The trails were really muddy so we had to be careful. I kept slipping in the mud and nearly twisted my ankle a few times. Of course I was wearing old shoes that I was going to throw out after the race, so it didn't help that the soles of my shoes were worn out- no traction.

The trails were covered in thick mud and puddles. At first I tried to avoid splashing through the puddles as much as possible, but after awhile I just gave up and went with it. It was kind of  nice to be able to run through mud and not worry about ruining my shoes. I felt like a little kid again!

The obstacles were really fun. My favorite was a huge blow-up slide. There was a cargo net that you had to climb up on one side, then we got to slide down the other side. The buddy obstacles were fun too. There were parallel balance beams that we had to cross while holding on to each other's arms, and we had to walk along a wall together holding on to each other for support. There was also a rope climb, a wall climb, cargo nets to crawl under, and a spider web to go through.

The hardest obstacle was called "slippery mountain". It was an angled wall that you had to climb up holding a rope. The tricky part was that it was soaped down and very slippery! Tristan fell down the slope and cut her knee open. She had blood running down her leg! But she's hardcore and finished the race anyway. The last obstacle was the mud pit, which was really fun. We got down and dirty.

Overall, a fun race and a great day, despite the injury. After we hosed off, Tristan and I were freezing! We changed clothes in the parking lot behind my car and ended up just leaving our shoes there because we didn't want to get mud in the car. When we got in the car, we turned the heat on full blast. Then we stopped at Starbucks to get coffee to warm us up. Tristan got hers free because the Starbucks guy felt bad that she got injured! Yay for free coffee! Almost makes it worth it. We had fun!