I hadn't planned to do this 10K mud run event, but Vince had offered me the opportunity to fill in for a vacancy in the 5-person team that he was on. I didn't have much more information than that at the time he offered, so I was slightly worried...scratch that...very worried that a team involving running with Vince on it might not be a good idea. After all, the guy runs circles around me, and I KNOW this. After a little convincing, however, I figured I'd give it a shot. The worse case scenario would be that he'd hate me after for slowing him down and probably find some nearby future venue (like our lunch rides) to make me suffer. In other words, nothing new here, folks. Unexpectedly, it was a rather challenging event and one that I'd hope to do again someday...especially with some of the folks on the team.
Rather than go into detail of my personal account of this event (zzzz), I'll just talk about the venue as a whole. Hopefully it will give people enough insight as to what the event was like and encourage them to sign up for it next year. Hopefully. This was no ordinary mud run in my opinion and is definitely worthy of the" world famous" inclusion in the event title.
The event says to try to get to the main gate by 6:30, but what we didn't expect was that there would already be a line on the freeway waiting to get in by that time. Despite several cycles of waiting to get onto the road leading to the gate, however, we still managed to get to the designated parking area (the first of 3-4) fairly early. From there, you're bussed to the event another few miles away. I guess with 6000+ participants (not including friends and family) for the day, this was definitely the way to go.
The bus drops you off by a lake and a miniature golf course (on a Marine base...wha?), and immediately upon exiting the bus you're greeted by live music playing and are ushered to an area they setup just for the event. I think the best way to describe it would be like going to a county fair but for athletes. It was quite the setup too with multiple trailers that sold food and drinks, vendor booths, a large stage where the music played, a grassy area to relax, showers, changing areas for males and females, bag check-in, a beer garden, etc. Their VIP section was even more plush but not characteristic of something our team would likely indulge in based on past experience. It's definitely unlike any sporting event I've participated in previously, so kudos to the organizers and the Marines. Century and bike race organizers, are you taking notes here?
The race was setup to go out in three different waves with the first wave, I believe, to be for those racing it individually. As a team of 5, we went out in the 2nd wave along with I guess the less fanatical where I'm assuming wave 3 was just for the people who wanted to say they just did it. Had I signed up on my own originally, I'd likely have gone out on the 3rd wave. However, next year it may be more fun to either get to the front of wave 2 or actually get in the first wave and see what that's like due to the amount of traffic we encountered upon the start of our wave and at some of the obstacles.
I wish I could have used GPS stats to help describe the course, but it seemed too risky to bring a phone or Garmin. I suppose a small 500 sealed in a plastic bag and held in a velcro'd pocket might work, but none of us did that, so my words will have to do.
As I mentioned, the route was 10K (or just over 6 miles for the metric-handicapped) and for the most part, it was primarily on dirt trails or fire roads. What made it interesting was how there seemed to be a significant amount of climbing on these trails. I suppose one could break it down to 2-3 sections of solid climbing with the last solid one being where they're running water down a high hill with a steep grade. Cool! There may have been some small climbs after, but I just remember thinking to myself "when will this hill end?!?" Okay, so again...nothing new here, folks. Of course, with a significant amount of climbing comes a significant amount of descents. While the climbing was definitely challenging, the descents were no walk in the park. Some were rather steep and had a lot of loose gravel as well as ruts and rocks, so losing traction could have been really ugly at some points. For me, rather than warning people ahead of me what side I'll be passing on I'd call out "No brakes! No brakes!" While it seems funny to me now, it was actually not far from the truth at the time.
I've done a mud run before in Irvine where the obstacles were laughable at best. When we arrived at the first obstacle and I saw it was just a steeplechase that one would have to scale over, I thought to myself "uh oh, too easy. Here we go again." When I landed on the other side, however, I was greeted by what I would call a legit mud pit. It was a pit about 10-20 feet in length of slushy ankle deep mud that immediately had you hoping that your shoes stay on as you make your way out of it. Vince and his friend, Scott, brought duct tape to secure our shoes to our ankles that worked perfectly to prevent this. One poor soul we ran past later on was a victim of that mud pit as he ran barefoot carrying one shoe.
The other obstacles included a ~10-15 ft. net ladder pyramid (for lack of a better description), some bales of hay that you have to run or jump over (they were setup either like steps or as a wall-think high jumps), some bigger walls to scale over in the middle of large mud pits, some camouflage netting and/or rope with flags to monkey crawl under while in a foot or more of mud with some so low you have to get down to elbows and knees to clear them, and lastly some large tubing to crawl through. The crawling added another dimension of intensity, especially with the amount of mud they setup in those areas, that it ended up making for a fantastic workout overall. Again, kudos to the organizers.
The last mud pit section was probably the deepest where if you didn't get muddy in there, you weren't doing it right. The water that was running out of the pipes right after it was perfect to clear a lot of the mud that was in your face to help you be able to see again. Of course, you could use it to clear off more, which I did, but I think next year I'll finish the race muddy just because it looks cool. Plus, the showering area they setup by the changing area is perfect for getting the rest of the mud off.
We had to take off right away and couldn't partake in the post-race festivities due to Vince's schedule, but that was perfectly fine with me. I can only imagine what it might be like leaving later with the masses that were there, but we didn't have to wait at all to get on the bus back to his truck. What was nice to see was the armed Marine patrolling the parking lot, so there would be no unexpected break-ins to the cars or trucks for this event. Kudos to the Marines (i.e. Semper Fi...oorah!).
Thanks to Vince for inviting me and providing me transportation to/from as well. It was definitely a great experience and one I'll have to re-do. Vince would even wait for us after each obstacle, so what a great guy. In the near future under better personal circumstances, I'll have to return the favor somehow. Alternatively, we could wait until next year's event, and my pay back to him would be to find someone who can actually compete with his running abilities. Stud!
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