I did the San Diego Mud Run a few weeks ago (April 13 to be exact). A few of us from Active did the 10K run, which consisted of two laps around a dirty, dusty, muddy, up-and-down course in East County. The weather was in the high-90s, rare for that time of year. It made for a hot time.
Danny, Marc, Me and Bryan before the start (the cleanest we'll get all day).
After the finish.
Our shoes! Mine is on the left. Notice Bryan's shoe (to the right of mine) has no sole and part of his muddy sock is sticking out. He lost the sole before we even finished the first 5K. He then ran soleless for the rest of the run.
Marc's daughter, held by his sister-in-law Seiko, Emmy, me, Danny, Bryan, Marc.
Marc's wife Mine (who took all these pics. Thanks, Mine) took some video of us finishing (the lunges are in honor of Arch and ActiveX).
The race was fun, though to call it a race is pushing it. We walked a bunch in order to get through the mud, and also because pretty much everyone else was walking up the big hill, leaving no room to run. Some of the water stops also ran out of cups and started reusing them! It was so hot, it didn't really matter much (plus, we were covered in mud, how much more dirty could we get?). But still...
My finishing time was listed as 49 min. 48 seconds. Marc, Bryan and Emmy all had finishing times of 1:13 and change. Danny didn't even get one. Yet we all finished together. Marc even went through the chute before me (this was a hand-the-volunteer-your-bib-ticket kind of race, no timing chips). The only reason I can think of for the faster time is that my incredible good looks distracted the timers.
However, it's a good illustration of what to expect when doing races put on by different groups. This event was run by Skyline Church, and all proceeds benefited its programs. This makes it more satisfying when paying the registration fee. But at the same time, there's that risk that the event won't be run as smoothly as when put on by a professional event organization.
Besides the cup snafu, there were elements of the course promised on the website that were missing on race day, including a giant slip and slide down a hill that we were all looking forward to. Instead, there was a hill that was so dusty, you couldn't see when going down it. People had to cover their mouths not to breath it in.
All in all, it was a fun event. There were ample showers for cleaning up and they had a bag check for your stuff (a great feature and something the professionally-run Muddy Buddy should emulate...). The water cup problem might not have been as bad if it wasn't so hot. We had so much fun, we signed up for the Camp Pendleton Mud Run in October. It'll be interesting to see how different a mud run put on by Marines is from one put on by a church.
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