My Last Mud Run of the Year

Remember back in January when I was hesitating about signing up for two mud runs this year?  Well, this Saturday I did my fifth mud run of the year, and there are several more I would have liked to do.  As tempted as I am to sign up for one on Sunday, I just don't see how I could make it work.

Anyway, Saturday was the Gladiator Rock 'n Run.  I signed up with my friend Dave.  We met up Saturday morning to car pool down to Irvine.  Traffic was amazingly light, and we got down there long before I thought we would.  Turned out to be nice to get there so early so we could check in, get our numbers on, and all that kind of stuff.  We really only had about half an hour to kill before the start time.

Note how clean we look in the before picture.

We had signed up for the noon wave, and it turned out to be the last wave of the day.  It was a three mile run, and the first mile was running.  Then we hit the first obstacles, stairs.  Lots of stairs.  Over the course of the next three miles, we had a giant hill and a few smaller ones, a slide into mud, a few small walls and a 7 ft. wall.  And mud.

We only had one mud pit to crawl through, although I think there was a second we should have crawled through but the flags were down by the time we got there.  But let me tell you, the mud was thick and deep.  Most of the time, the mud is pretty runny and it's not that hard to get clean.  Not so this time.  We were both caked with mud.  I had to bleach my shirt, and even so there are a couple of spots that aren't coming clean any time soon.

We both had a blast.  I know I've got some mud runs coming up in May and June, but that's probably too long to wait.  I've got to find a way to get muddy before that.

Of course, I haven't run since then.  Something about over sleeping every morning.  I've got to start getting up and running again since I know I won't run over Christmas at all.