It's Me Vs. Me

When Dave and I signed up for this mud run, I had grand plans to train and get buff and I wasn’t going to need help and I was going to do every obstacle and…and…and…

That didn’t happen. I finally decided that I would attempt everything, but skip what I couldn’t do with no guilt or regrets. I was truly just doing this as something fun with Dave…our version of a date.

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day for our first ever mud run. It was mid 60s, sunny and no wind. We were the last wave of the day, so we had the benefit of having a relaxing morning before heading to the event. Parking was easy peasy and we had a chance to walk around and check out important stuff like…you know…how important would duct tape be? Would we be the only dorks with gloves? Exactly how muddy are we talking about, here?

We were able to see the first obstacle very close to the start line and the wave before us was just getting ready to go when we go there. It was nice to be able to see how people handled the first obstacle. It’s kind of hard to tell from the picture, but we had to go down an embankment, jump a creek to the other embankment, then go down a 2nd embankment, wade a creek, then go up the opposite embankment.

Sounds easy enough, right? Yes. But I started freaking out a little bit, to be honest. I got a major case of the “What if…” and basically warned Dave that there would be dire consequences if he left my side.

We lined up at the start line, they led us through a pretty simple warmup, and we were off. Here’s an obstacle by obstacle recap…

1. crossing the creeks – the embankment seemed much steeper once we were actually on it. We made the first jump, no problem and then we headed into the water. Holy Mother of Cold Water, Batman! Seriously, the temperature was a little more shocking than the water itself. It was about shin/knee deep…until I took a step and Dave stayed at the same level but I was up to my butt in water. Good times! We got out, ran a bit and got to…
2. over pylons/under 2x4s – This was pretty easy, we had to jump/climb over a plastic road construction pylon and then duck under a 2×4 set up on a sawhorse…times three. Handled that easily, jogged a few feet and we came to…
3. over barrels – Kind of a silly obstacle. One barrel, on it’s side, that you basically could sit down on and swing your legs over. Jogged a few feet more to get to…
4. army crawl under wire – Yay! Mud! Actually the wire was high enough that I was actually able to just go on my hands and knees. True to form, I made it out of that obstacle and almost slipped and fell about 3 feet after it. Jogged a bit and got to…
5. crossing logs over water – Pure balance here, easy peasy (although Dave cheated and actually straddled the water and used one log for each foot). That was right next to…
6. water pit #1 – Slide down one side into a pit of muddy water that I inevitably fell in because the drop was so sudden. Nice and wet, we jogged on to…
7. water pit #2 – Pretty much a carbon copy of the one we just came out of. Up an incline, around a corner and we reached…
8. army crawl under net – This was manned by two not at all thrilled to be there teenagers who threw powder on you as you passed by. Dave said he would pay them to throw than the normal amount of powder on me. They didn’t even crack a smile. Not fun to breathe in and it tasted like crap. Yay! Crap in my mouth! There was a bit of a longer stretch of jogging here (breathing was a real issue for me a lot of the time) and we got to…
9. jump and crawl over hay bales – This one took me a few tries. I just couldn’t quite get myself high enough and far enough onto the bales to make it over. I kept trying and Dave pulled from the other side and we headed on to the next thing…
10. climb over two walls – This scared me, I’m not going to lie. This was the first obstacle that was a little more on the mental side. It was two A-frame type walls placed next to each other (it looked like an M looking at the side). Each side of the wall had little, narrow slats attached. The slats were not deep enough to use your toe as a hold. You had to go up sideways, without a lot to hold on to. Each of the 4 sides was the same. BUT! I did it the first time I tried…although I was very scared I was going to bite the dust. After that was the longest stretch of running that led us to…
11. crawl through a tunnel – Maybe an 8 or 10 foot tube is all this was. Easy peasy, with a nice mud pit at the end (which was perfect for getting our hands really muddy and then chasing each other trying to get handprints on each other). Another longish jog to…
12. climb up a wall/”rappel” down other side – One side was wood palettes which made it like a straight up ladder, the other side came down at an angle with no foot holds, only a rope. Dave went first so he could talk me down the other side. The hardest part was getting into position once I was at the top. There was a girl next to me that I could tell was having trouble with the height so I made her look at me instead of looking down and then talked her through what she needed to do to get in position. Once she was good, I grabbed the rope and down I went. Dave even said he was surprised with how well I did with that one. A short jog to get to…
13. cross pit with tires hanging – This was just weird. You basically had to move the tires out of your way and walk across. It was harder to get out of the pit than it was to actually cross the pit. A short jog then…
14. wade in creek – Easy… Then…
15. wade in creek – Easy… Then…
16. bungee cord thing – It was basically set up like a spider web. They pulled bungee cords going in all directions across a hay cart. You just had to make it from one side to the other. This required some high knees with left me a little tired, but no worse for wear. Short jog to…
17. water slide – O.K. Dave opted to go down on his stomach, but I’m not that adventurous. He flew down at warp speed. I sat down on my butt and was having trouble getting going until suddenly I had no trouble at all. In a split second, I was flying down the slide, but somehow managed to get spun around so that I was go backwards down the slide. I freaked out, cussed really loud, swung myself back around, and almost took out Dave who was having trouble getting out of the pool at the bottom. When I looked up at the top of the slide, they were all clapping for me and laughing. I’m sure I looked the fool, but that’s half the fun. It was a short bit to the…
18. up/down cargo net wall – This was another mental one. And it ended up being the one that actually scared me. Every time I thought I had it and was good to go, someone else would make a move on the net and the net would shift. Every single time that happened I thought I was going to lose my grip and fall. I had a hell of a time getting up and over the top. But I did it. On to…
19. mud pit /climb incline #1 – O.K. This was just comical. Finally, after noting the entire run that there was no real get-dirty-and-get-stuck MUD, we finally got more than we bargained for. Huge pit of sucking mud that you had to cross, and then climb up a slippery mud embankment aided by a rope covered in mud. I tried, I really did. Dave made it up first try, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it. I tried twice by myself, then I tried with a couple people at the top holding on to the rope to help me. It was on that attempt that I lost my footing and balance and slid down the mud embankment on my side and landed on my back in the mud pit. What else could I do but start laughing like an idiot? It was mud that I wanted, and it was mud that I got. I had a hard time getting myself upright again (laughing the whole time), but when I finally did, I heard someone say “Come down here and grab my wrist”. I looked up and it was the couple where I helped the girl who froze at the top of the wall. I walked to a less steep part of the mud wall, grabbed on to the guys fingers and just sat there. He said “What we’re going to have here is a bunch of dislocated fingers. You’ve got to grab my wrist.” With me grabbing the guys hand and the girl kind of pushing me from behind, I managed to get up. Then Dave said “Listen, you can hear the music. We’re almost to the end!”
20. mud pit /climb incline #2 – Yeah right. I wasn’t even going to try it. This one was much worse, too. The opposite mud embankment wasn’t as steep but was longer and there was no rope. I followed other people to a path of least resistance. Once we got to the top, we could see the finish line. We knew it was just around the corner and….
21. jump over burning log – More like low flame smoldering log, but you get the picture. That was right next to the finish line then we were DONE!

We both came out relatively unscathed. Dave banged up his hand on the water slide, and I got some scrapes and bruises on my forearm, but that’s about it. I am super, super proud of how much I was able to do physically and what I was able to overcome mentally. It was so much stinking fun, and we will definitely be doing something like this again!

Four down, nine to go.

Mud Dog Run 5k, April 27, 2013 — Unofficial time 1:15:00