It’s not often that you get to run through waist-high water, climb over walls and crawl through mud.
Unless you’re a Marine.
Or escaping from prison.
Which is why the Muddy Buddy is such an awesome race. It’s 6.2 miles of running, riding a bike and random obstacles that finishes in a mud pit.
And you get to do it all with a friend.
Hell yes, I’ll pay for that.
The Muddy Buddy did not disappoint.
Being a team race, one person is running while the other is riding a bike. Then, at the end of each leg, there is a transition area where the biker drops off the bike for his/her teammate. It’s in these transition areas where the physical challenges take place.
Right out of the gate, we had to run through muddy water. Nothing like starting off a race with heavy wet shoes that squish with each step. In addition to that one, there were two other water crossings, one just for runners with water up to my belly and another at the end of the race.
The first obstacle was a wall covered with rock holds that you used to climb up with some netting on the back side of the wall to help you get down. Think typical movie military boot camp scenes and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
I thought the obstacles were fantastic because they introduced something different between those miles of running and biking. A great reminder to have fun, each obstacle made me feel like a big kid. When you’re sliding down a huge inflatable slide into a bowl of noodles…well, there’s just something so Double Dare about the whole thing.
In terms of the rest of the race, the running and biking were fairly flat, non-eventful and hot.
The biggest lesson I learned during the race happened at the very end. Fortunately, my husband was able to capture it in pictures.
This race was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it for those who don’t take them too seriously. If you’re uber-competitive, this is probably not the event for you. But if you like having fun, getting dirty and drinking beer before 10 am, I’ll see you out there next year!
(Many thanks to Shelly for the suggestion and for being a great partner.)