Gladiator Rock 'n' Run - May 2011

aka 2011 mud run #2.

This last Saturday was my second time doing the Gladiator Rock 'n' Run down in Irvine.  I was anxious to do it again because it has the thickest mud I've ever encountered at a mud run.  And I wasn't disappointed at all.

I did this with Sanjay, a new friend I am doing the Tough Mudder with in two and a half weeks.  (Yikes!)  This was his first mud run, and one reason I thought it would be good to do it is to give him a taste for events like this before we set out on a 10 mile mud run.

They had changed the course some from last time.  Gone were the stairs up through the stadium next door.  They had tires several times on the course.  But they still had us run up and big hill and slide down a slip and slide to the bottom.

There was a big bottle neck this time around at the net crawl.  Not quite sure why it got so backed up either, but we probably waited 15 minutes or so to get over that one.  While we were waiting, we got to talk to some people who had been contestants on an upcoming episode of Wipeout.  Sounded like two of them went pretty far.  Can't wait to see them.

Once thing I liked about this run the last time was the fact that they wait until the second half to get you muddy.  I mean, if you are only going to have three mud pits (and one hardly counts), don't get me muddy from the start when I still have all this running to do.  Wait until the end.  That was the case again here.  (Although, for the record, I really don't mind getting in and out of mud and water the entire time I'm racing.)

Anyway, we came to the mud pit you crawl through.  I had planned to get muddy from head to toe this time around in the nice thick mud, but for some reason I thought we'd be crawling through another mud pit, so I waited.  When I realized that wasn't going to be the case, I was disappointed.

But then we came to the small hills with mud pits between them.  I decided I was going to submerge here.  So running down the hill into the first mud pit, I picked up speed.  It worked.  I lost my footing and went completely under.  It was then I remembered the downside of doing that.  How do you wipe mud off from around your eyes when you don't have a clean spot on your body.

Still, it made for an awesome after picture, wouldn't you agree?

Sanjay had fun, and we're both anxious for Tough Mudder now.  As long as my running keeps up, it will be a fun race.