Epic Mud Run

I ran the Epic Mud Run last week and boy was mud the name of the game! That’s all the running/treading through mud that I did for the week. So we can sum up last week’s Monday Run Day with that event.

This was the first mud run I had ever done and it was a blast. I had an awesome team to run it with too. We–honestly, mostly me with the help of Kyle–made the most legit team shirts ever. We were the Bad Mudder Muckers. Say that 5 times real fast. We got some loving and “good one’s” along the course from some people.
The shirt on the left was the event shirt. The were pretty sweet shirts. The guys lucked out and got tanks. Not every guy likes or looks good in tanks, so that was unfortunate. The shirt on the right is one of the four team shirts that we made. A lot of time and work and time went into those babies. They were about 10 dollars per shirt to make. Nice little deal. I may have to dedicate an entire post to the making of the shirts. It was a blast!

Proudly wearing our team shirts!

Cool back view. It’s important to note that I free handed the “run like a mudder” with the silhouette of the man running to make the stencil. It turned out better than I hoped it would.

We did one of the later waves which worked out well since I had to work so early in the morning. We got there about an hour before our wave started. There were a lot more people than I expected and of course there was mud everywhere.

I mentioned last Monday Run Day that this event was a color/zombie/mud run. When we got to the starting corral, there were little cups of colored powder that accounted for the color run part. We covered ourselves and each other with different colors. That’s as exciting as that part was. The idea wasn’t executed as well as it probably should have. All the color was just going to be covered in mud and washed off later during the course. Sadness.

The course began by running through a barn filled with zombies. Some of them weren’t scary but others got me with the element of surprise. There was one zombie chick that just followed me for the longest time in the world. Since this was the beginning, we were still pretty congested and had no running room. So we got through this part by walking through the barn and climbing over quite a few walls.

From there on, we ran the muddy course. It was fun running up this muddy hill while having a hose sprayed over us.

There were muddy hills, ropes to climb hills, the muddiest trenches ever, walls to scale…and tons and tons of mud. We got to one of the two 15 story water slides which was a blast sliding down. Then we went through probably a quarter mile of the thickest, deepest  mud in the course. This part definitely slowed me down. Each step felt like I was going to lose my shoe! It was crazy.

After coming out of that long stretch of mud, we did a little more running on an incline on a path running through woods. It was difficult getting a running start because my feet felt like lead because of the mud. The sun started drying out the mud as I went along, though, and it was caked on me even more.

We finally got to a pit filled with water. As I ran up to it, I noticed volunteers dumping bags of ice into it. I hadn’t realized that the water would be ice cold when I plunged myself into the pit. The mud washed off and I got to cool off a bit. It felt so good! We did a little more running until we got to the final huge water slide. I slid down with Kyle. I kept slowing down for some reason so Kyle caught my legs and pulled me down along with him.

At the end of the course, there were volunteers ready with water bottles, gatorade, bananas and crackers to snack on. We also received some pretty awesome glasses.

Then we took after photos! We were a big mess!

This event was such a blast! Kyle and I recently registered for the Warrior Dash in St. Louis. That’s in exactly 20 days! Eeek, I just realized that! I feel like this event will be the epitome of mud runs…and blood, sweat and tears. So, needless to say, I’m pretty stoked for that one! Also exciting is the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k that Kyle and I registered for. That one is next week. #CancerSucks!

What’s really funny is that this is the first “regular” 5k that I’ve done in forever; no zombies, color or mud! For anyone keeping track, this will be three events in 28 days. Wow! We sure are getting a good start to race season!

Monday Run Day and Training for a Trifecta

Happy Monday!

What an uneventful week of running. The good news is that I got some running done this past week. Better than none!

Here’s the quick recap of all my running for the past week. I got a total of 3 miles in a single run.

Not impressive for the week, that’s for sure. That single run got me good, though. After having gone almost 2 weeks without running, my body did not welcome that random run. I’ve had worse post-run fatigue and other issues, though, so no big deal. I did have a decent pace for that run, so I’ll give myself that much credit.

The sad thing about my week’s performance is that I have a race this coming Sunday. The Ultramax Epic Mud Run: mud/color/zombie run—all in one! Trifecta for sure.
No training for it has been done at all. I’m planning on climbing on the workout wagon this week in order to get some training in. I don’t plan on doing too much running, though. I think I’d mostly benefit by focusing on strength training. I’m looking forward to incorporating that into my week. It will help make my epic mud run more awesome and hopefully I won’t get my butt kicked too badly.