The Mud Squad

Many months ago, I agreed to do something absolutely ridiculous today. My friend Deb asked me to do the Big Sur Mud Run with her. I immediately responded, "Sure! Why not?"

I should have looked at the video of previous Mud Runs before registering. The videos showed hoardes of runners wading through four mud pits, vaulting six and three foot walls, crawling through mud under camouflage netting for a total distance of five miles. Totally covered in mud. Yuck! On the positive side, there would be cute USMC drill instructors cheering us on (yelling at us, actually) and a beer stop. (A beer stop in the middle of the race? I guess dehydration isn't a big issue...)

But it was too late! I was committed. Worse yet, there is not a single obstacle course to be found in the South Bay on which I could practice. How would I get over a six foot wall? I tried to push it out of my mind. Fortunately, it was January so this was pretty easy.

Nevertheless, I have been going to 24 Hour Fitness several times a week in an effort to lose weight and be more physically fit. But would this help? I'm not a runner. Not even remotely. With a bad Achilles tendon and a bad knee on on my right side, I felt doubtful I could do this. I could definitely walk it. But then there would be no way I would ever keep up with Deb or even Karen, who also registered to run with us.

Making the best of a ridiculous situation, I resolved to make us matching tee shirts, even though we were two people shy of a team. Duane decided we would be the Mud Squad, and it stuck! (Remembering Clarence fondly, I wondered which one of us would don an afro through the mud pits.) Of course, the only available color for our tee shirts was white. Mud. White. Good grief!

I also made reservations to stay in Marina, the night before the race at the Ramada Inn in order to avoid the long drive to Monterey on race day, March 27, 2010. After that, I tried not to think about it for the next three months, more or less successfully.

But time passes and before I knew it, it was the week of the Mud Run. I went to DSW and bought a cheap pair of running sneakers, with webbing instead of canvas or leather so that water would pass through them and they might stay on my feet. I packed some duct tape to tape my shoes on my feet. I had heard that people lost shoes running through the mud pits. Yuck! I packed my nylon/spandex gym pants, a workout bra tank top, extra clothes and a towel. I taped my magnetic clip on sunglasses to my glasses and attached my glasses to a strap in order to keep them on my head. I packed the oldest sun visor I had. It happened to be a Cal Bear visor. It was going to get muddy. Sorry Dad!

Deb drove down ahead of us, and I picked up Karen at the Sons of Norway hall in Los Gatos at 9:00 pm before heading down. That worked out fine as the kiddo had a Little League baseball game at 5:00 pm. We had just enough time to pick Karen up before leaving town. That was probably the most fortuitous part of the event. Duane happens to be Norwegian and in all the years he has lived in the South Bay, he somehow never found his way to the Sons of Norway. (I distinctly remember being promised a lutefisk dinner shortly after we were married, but this somehow never came to pass.) We were pretty tired by the time we got to our hotel, so we went to sleep immediately.

The next morning, I got up and got dressed and ready to go. I skipped the shower. Why bother, given what was to come? I went down to the lobby and had a waffle, a glass of orange juice and some coffee for breakfast. We saw a team of pirates, complete with swords, having breakfast. I wondered how they were going to get through the mud pits with their swords. Some of them had come all the way from Oregon to run this race! That's a long way to come to get muddy.

We drove out to the California State University Monterey Bay campus. The starting gate was in a parking lot just off the highway. It turns out that the orange shoe tag that I received in the mail, along with my bib number, contains some pretty nifty electronics, probably an RFID chip, that identifies start and finish times. And perhaps times at a few other locations as well.

I had only a few minutes to run to the porta potties before proceeding to the starting area, so I took my opportunity. Deb and I were in the first wave of 500 runners. Karen was in the second wave, but she joined us anyway. No one seemed to mind. All of the participants then did warms ups in the starting area. Sit ups, push ups, etc., all to the commands of our drill instructor emcee who didn't hesitate to tell us we were doing it wrong.

3... 2... 1... and our drill instructor fired the starting pistol! Off we went. I started off jogging at a decent clip. I jogged until I ran out of breath and then walked for a while, then started running again. Deb stayed with me and we decided to do intervals: running for a while, then fast walking for a while. The first part of the race was on a paved road over rolling hills. So far so good.

After about a mile and a half, we left the pavement for a trail that wound through scrub and ice plant. We could hear the yells before we even reached the first mud pit, which contained several three foot high, plastic orange road dividers. We had to climb over these and keep going through the mud. As I entered the muddy water, I screamed at the cold temperature!

We continued along this trail, which was very sandy and difficult to jog on, over and down some steeper hills. At times I was looking at the ground so I wouldn't misstep, but there were moments when I would look up and see a gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean beyond. That was enough to make it all worth it! I continued to do intervals. Drill instructors along the way exhorted us to do better. During one of my fast walking intervals, one Marine drill instructor told me that if I didn't start running he was going to make me do "mountain climbers." I looked at him, picking up my pace as I went past, saying "Sir, I don't even know what those are." But I was sure I didn't want to find out! I kept jogging.

We came to the second obstacle, which was a six foot wall followed by a mud pit. Prior to starting, we had been instructed on how to get over these walls. You put a foot on the step and then lift yourself over, dropping down the other side feet first. Apparently some people were vaulting these walls head first - and landing on their head on the other side. Not very bright. I put my foot on the step, hopped, and didn't really go anywhere. I tried to pull myself up. I tried to lift a leg over. Nope. Too tall. In the couple of seconds that I was pondering just how to do this, someone came up from behind and pushed me over, much to my surprise! I never saw who, but in my surprise I managed to bruise my forearms and left leg going over the wall. Right after the wall was the second mud pit. We were instructed to get down on our knees and elbow and crawl through a foot of mud. I modified this to keep my wrist brace in the air, which resulted in my white tee-shirt not getting quite as muddy as everyone elses. Still I had a good splattering of mud all over.

Now we were back on pavement for a while and near the top of a hill, we reached the "beer stop". Beer on one side, and water on the other. I was really ambivalent about the beer. It was after all only 10:00 am or so. I grabbed some water. Deb grabbed some beer and poured a bunch of it over my head. So I poured some water over hers. At that point, I decided that since I now smelled like beer, I may as well have one. (Mind you, this was not a pint, but a dixie cup of beer!) Not wanting to dehydrate myself, however, I drank another water after that.

We jogged on, leaving the pavement again for another sandy trail. The next obstacle was down a steep hill into some kind of training area with large telephone poles and netting. Whatever this was for, it looked like fun! This obstacle was a 4 inch wooden beam over a mud pit. If you didn't balance, you would fall into the mud. This was followed by another six foot wall. I handled the balance beam in short order, but the six foot wall was a problem. As I stepped up, a very gracious Marine cupped his hands and said "Step here!" I said "Thanks" and did as instructed. This time I made it over the wall and dropped down the other side.

We jogged on and eventually we passed another Marine drill instructor who informed us that we only had about a mile to go. Really!? Wow! I was really going to finish this! I was feeling pretty good and still doing intervals. My ankle wasn't hurting much either. Yeah! Eventually we reached the last obstacle: a mud pit, about a foot deep, with camoflage netting spread across the top of it. We had to crawl underneath the netting in the mud on our knees and elbows, while Marines were scooping up muddy water and throwing it at us. One of them got me pretty good in the face too.

As we came out of this mud pit, there were spectators watching for their friends and family, barely recognizable being covered in mud. I swear I heard Duane laughing, but I wasn't able to find him. We jogged a bit further and did our final lap around the stadium before crossing the finish line and receiving our finishers tee shirts and medallions. My time was 1:21:43. I didn't finish last; there were at least 100 people behind me (and likely more since some people didn't put their shoe tags on correctly and their times didn't register). Karen, who finished about ten minutes ahead of us, found us at the final mud pit and did the final lap again with us, so we finished as a team. Cool!

We ate a few orange slices and a couple of pieces of chocolate at the finish line. I felt a lot better after getting some sugar in me again. Then we found Duane and the kiddo and drove back to the hotel for a nice hot shower - and bath! Needless to say, we were pretty well covered, but of the three of us, I somehow managed to stay the cleanest. There were still several large white areas on my tee shirt. I'm not quite sure how I managed to miss getting mud there too.

We celebrated by going to Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey and having a fabulous lunch at Isabella's, after which we went to the beach for a short while, flew a dragon kite and dipped our feet in the icy cold water.