the muddy buddy race

So. I just did a muddy buddy race the other weekend. With a buddy. And yes you get muddy. Really muddy.

Its a little over 6 miles of run and bike and obstacles with a mud pit obstacle at the end.

First. As long as you don’t mind getting passed at some point by some female (young) woman wearing a Thing 1 costume (or it could have been Thing 2 but I get them confused) or maybe a woman in a wedding dress it is a boatload of fun.

Second. If you have not done any running at the same time as biking (not consecutive days but consecutive hours) you are screwed. If you are a good runner the minute you put the bike down and begin a run segment your legs will encounter memory loss. (i.e., what are the fuck are we doing now and I don’t want to do it). Unfortunately there are five segments and you alternate biking and running with your buddy.

Third. Oh. That’s right. There are obstacles as you shift into a different bike/run segment. Haven’t climbed a wall lately?  Haven’t done a wall rope ladder lately?  How about crawl thru a mudpit!  Oh. Yeah. That slows you down too.

Fourth. The in race mud segment. They tell you there is one at the end but WTF. They water a section down in the middle. So. You are already a little tired. Legs already confused whether you’re biking or running. Already slowing down a little. And they put a fucking quagmire spot in the middle of the race. This mud segment isn’t difficult to get thru but when you come out you have sodden sneakers covered in a thick layer of mud.

So. Only 6.1 miles but the Muddy buddy was awesomely difficult. It’s not the distance it’s the combination of running and biking and obstacles and sandy sections and muddy sections and all of a sudden having your shoes weigh 5 pounds more midway through as they are soaked and muddy and crap like that. I fell off the fucking balance beam obstacle and had to start that over (I am applying to a girl’s gymnast school in preparation for next year). I got that going for me.

And I slid the bike through a gravel sharp turn basically ending up in the woods (hey. I probably haven’t ridden a bike in 10 years).

But, beyond that, no real mishaps.

Sure. There are the serious “athletes” and they blaze their way past the muddy ‘athletes’ dressed in their Avatar costumes and Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes and Cat costumes and party hats and the bride and the groom team (oh, and me) and … well … it can get a little wacky weaving your way through a pretty diverse menagerie of animals and kooky characters throughout the race … but you are so focused on getting to that frickin’ mud pit just in front of the finish line you really don’t pay much attention to all the stuff going on around you.

Ah. Then the mud pit. The beauty of the Muddy buddy is that regardless of the speed of one buddy versus the other the two of you have to crawl through the mud pit at the same time. So. One inevitably awaits the other for even a little time and then you go under a rope thing and crawl into a foot and a half deep mud pit with banners strung across it that you have to duck under. Yeah. You get muddy. And laugh your ass off. And get mud in places you didn’t even know were capable of storing mud.

Fortunately they have a hose down section where you can wash off moist of the mud afterwards. And even better you get two free beer tokens so you can pound a couple of beers at about 8:30 in the morning. We finished 9^th in our age group (which I won’t tell anyone because they add the ages of the two buddies. We finished alive. And we would have finished much higher if I hadn’t fell off the balance beam, took a detour into the forest on the bike one turn, there were no obstacles and I had actually run & biked a couple of times so my heart didn’t explode out of my chest the first time I got off the bike and started running. Beyond that. We kicked ass. You will have a blast … do it if you have an opportunity.