I didn't think much about the Mud Run until early this morning, when my alarm went off and I stumbled out of the house with my bag. Normally I pack the afternoon before the big day, throwing items into a bag from a list I've been thinking about for a few days. I check the forecast obsessively in the weeks before the race. I visit the race website again and again for tips about the course, start times, etc. Because the Mud Run is only 10k (about 6 miles) however, I didn't bother with any of that. This led to a rather more eventful morning than I'd anticipated.
My dad's Mud Run several years ago had an obstacle similar to this one, the final hurrah for this course.
I took a bus, then a subway in time to meet another bus that would take me to the course in Pelham Bay at the far end of the Bronx. A group of about 20 other runners were gathered around the bus stop, and as we waited in the weak morning light it occurred to me for the first time that it was really cold. I'd watched my Dad do a Mud Run in Lemoore in summer several years before. I remember it being hot, and it's been hot here for the past few months. Plus, I don't generally get too chilly when I run - quite the opposite in fact. So under my thin sweatpants and sweatshirt I was wearing a tank top and shorts, and the only shoes I'd brought aside from my running shoes were flip flops. I didn't seem to be as cold as many of the other people waiting (some of whom were bundled up as though it were 10 degrees out and were hopping up and down and "brrrr"ing dramatically), but the air was definitely crisp. Cool. Brisk. Refreshing. When the bus dropped us about a mile from the course and we walked over grass and fallen acorns between leafy, graciously shady oak trees, I thought to myself that this was rather wonderful. There was a flock of Canadian geese picturesquely dotting the adjacent lawn, for crying out loud. Ah, fall.
The scene was less idyllic when we arrived at near the starting line, where a frenetic emcee was babbling at dizzying speed over a too-loud PA system. I collected my bib, D-tag, and t-shirt (a brown, quick-dry number), snapped pictures of the 5kers finishing their race, and put off taking off my sweats. It was downright chilly by now, probably in the mid-50's. The sun was pouting behind a cloud and the wind had picked up - we were, after all, at the edge of a bay. Fifteen minutes before the race, however, there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet, strip off my outer layers and jog to the corral. Because of a monumental cold I was still reeling a bit from, I wasn't sure I was up to snuff, so I chose the 8 to 9-minute mile corral. We waited, everyone around me wearing many more layers than I was and jumping up and down, rubbing their hands, etc. My core felt ok, actually, no shivers, but I was pretty goosebumpy. I used a tall guy next to me as a windbreak without his knowledge or consent. After Dad and I climbed Shasta two summers ago, my two big toes stayed almost totally numb for about a week after we returned to Visalia (mild frostbite, says Dad) and were prickly and partially numb for a few weeks after that. They've not been the same since, and lose feeling pretty quickly. This morning, they took my other toes and the balls of my feet with them. I jumped from unfeeling foot to unfeeling foot and rubbed my bare arms.
"Medals" waiting to be awarded to participants. Cute, huh?
The scene as I arrived. The 5K was underway.
The end of the 5K. The end of the 10K looked pretty much the same, but I was in no position to be handling a camera at that point.
The first wave of runners finally set off, but the official didn't let anyone else go for a while in an attempt to keep bottlenecks from forming at the obstacles. He allowed three minutes between each wave, and I had foolishly positioned myself in the fifth wave. I passed the time by watching my fingernails turn from pale pink, to purple, to a troubling whitish-gray.
We began at last, the first stretch taking us along a paved road next to a closed section of beach. The obstacles were generally spaced about a mile apart, and by the time we reached the first one my nails were back to purple and my smaller toes were beginning to tingle very slightly. It was a series of three hurdles that were about shoulder-height for me. I hoisted myself over them using the support beams for leverage and continued on. By obstacle #2, a high-ish wall which I scrambled over by launching myself off a handy rock, my nails were pink again. Half a mile later, I was relieved to note that I could feel my feet hitting the ground, not just jarring in my ankles as the numb feet somewhere below them made contact with the earth.
Obstacle #3 was a web of netting that we had to climb over, and I was happy to have full use of my hands and feet again. My joy was short-lived, however, because less than half a mile away was a mud pit with "razor wire" to crawl under. I was scolded by the supervising soldiers for smiling as I dove into the mud (they flicked water at me from buckets, as if that was going to make a lick of difference), and further scolded me for staying on my hands and knees and not doing a "military crawl." So I groaned, and belly-flopped. The mud was chilly, but my body temperature was up so I didn't mind, and later in the race it would actually dry into a toasty layer.
Now my socks and shoes were filled with mud and my feet felt heavy. There had been very coarse sand/small bits of gravel in the mud, and my knees and elbows felt torn to shreds. My feet were being scraped inside my socks with each step. Nevertheless, this is the point at which I began to pass people pretty handily. Some "runners" stopped to walk, which I found exceedingly unimpressive, and others were moving at slow jog, whereas I felt fine in spite of my feet and my scrapes. I quite enjoyed the rest of the run, although my unladylike honking as I tried to clear my trachea of residual phlegm from my cold must have made it seem otherwise. We went in and out of quiet woods and it was lovely. Obstacle #5 was the most difficult for me. It was a pyramid of straw bales-turned slide that I slipped down the side of twice before I was able to scale it. The mud on my clothes stayed wet, but it dried on my skin. My pasttime of admiring the hue of my fingernails was over - they were brown now, along with both hands and arms past the elbows - but I was warm enough that I didn't care. The race went by quickly, and before I knew it I was near the finish line.
The course veered to the side suddenly, leading us into the bay where we slogged through three-ish feet of water for about 75 yards. This cleaned some of the mud from my legs, and I was able to admire the bloody scrapes on my knees. Then we crossed the beach to get to the next obstacle, a soapy slope with ropes you had to lunge for and seize before you slid back down. Finally, I dove into the last mud pit and began shimmying my way to the end. This was by far the worst part. I swear the bottom of that pit was lined with broken glass. My tender knees and elbows were further assaulted, as were my hipbones. But, as I'm sure you've guessed, I did make it to the end and was soon having my face and hands hosed off by a volunteer.
The soapy slope. I slid back down on my first try attempt and had to go back at it with more momentum for Round Two.
Getting hosed off so we could a) locate our bags, and b) handle them.
Showing off my medal, which I haven't unwrapped yet because I don't want it to get muddy.
My socks were white just an hour before.
The "showers" were hoses that sprayed lukewarm water in an open meadow. It took more than five minutes of hosing to get most of the mud off; it just kept coming out of every fold of clothing. I joked with the girl next to me that I was pretty sure I could plant a garden in my sports bra. I'd have loved to strip all the way down, but this part was co-ed and so I wasn't too successful in getting the mud out of the inner layers. I had not brought a towel, which I would probably have thought to bring had I checked the race website, but I was able to use my extra, clean t-shirt as a towel and wear the Mud Run shirt home. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it worked well enough.
I left the women's changing tent with wet hair and a damp body under damp clothes. My toes, not impressed with the flip flops I'd changed into, quickly checked out again, and I hobbled to the post-race BBQ. My fantasies of a warm meal were shattered, however, when I was told upon arrival that there were no more veggie burgers. I contented myself with a bag of Cheetos and some Oreos and headed back to the bus stop. I wanted to chop down each and every one of the gracious oak trees that prevented the sun, which was now out in full force, from warming me. The picturesque flock of geese had moved on, and the lawn which I crossed now was a minefield of hazards. I contemplated the spot-on veracity of the phrase "like shit through a goose" as I shivered and waited for the bus to arrive.
Once on the bus, my spirits rose, and a little more than an hour later I was home, showered, and sipping hot tea. My knees, elbows, and hips will take a bit more time to recover, I fear, but I had a fantastic time and would certainly run one of these races again.
Hurts so good. This actually looks worse now than it did then, as it has swollen up considerably.
Times are not yet posted and I have no idea how I did, but I felt good throughout and think my pace was decent despite having had a fussy hamstring and a cold interrupt my training for the last month or so. This will be my last run before the Staten Island Half-Marathon next Sunday. I'm thrilled to run that one because it will mean that I've reached my goal of running one half in each borough!
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