Irvine Lake Mud Run 2019

Or the mud run that wasn’t.

The Irvine Lake Mud Run holds a special place in my heart.  It was the first mud run I did back in April of 2010.  While I haven’t done it every year, I’ve done it at least 10 times because I did it multiple times some years, and I think I only missed one year.  The last couple of years, they’ve only done it once, and the numbers have been dropping, so I was afraid the day would come when they would discontinue it.

Never the less, when they announced the mud run for this year, I signed up at the cheapest discounted rate – back in July of last year.  That race was supposed to take place this last Saturday.  I was still getting promo e-mails like I usually do from them; in fact, I got one over Memorial Day weekend.

So you can imagine my shock when I got an e-mail two weeks ago, a week and a half before the event, saying they weren’t going to be able to put on the mud run this year and it was postponed until March of 2020.  That’s right, another 9 months away.  My registration was good for the new date or I could have my registration switched to someone else.

Naturally, I wasn’t happy about that since I had been planning some other things for that day since I would be down in Orange County any way.  However, I’ve managed to work things out so I can do those activities on other days, and I was able to get together with some friends on Saturday I would have had to pass on otherwise.

But what really makes me mad is that I am going to have to fight them for a refund.  The weekend they have rescheduled for I have other plans for already, so I can’t do this run.  They didn’t offer a refund, so I am going to have to fight them for it, and I will.  It’s not a lot of money, but it is the principle.

What makes me even sadder is I bet this is the end of this particular mud run.  No one is very happy with them right now, and I doubt others are going to sign up after this stunt.  It was truly a very fun event, and I’m sad that last year was my last time doing this run.  Even if they do come back from this, it is going to be hard to trust them and sign up again.