Slogging Through the Mud

Posted By elissa on May 9, 2010 | 1 comment

Betcha you’re thinking that the title of this post isn’t to be taken literally… ‘cept you’d be wrong.

It’s about the “RunAmuck Festival” – which is about slogging through the mud, Big Time.

RunAmuck is a good, hard 5K trail run with a difference: three crossings of the muddy lake in hip-deep water and shoe-sucking muck, two man-made mud pits, a few wooden barriers to climb and a couple of those agility grids that football players run through during training camp.

…Sunday’s event was divided into six races — individuals, couples and teams, each with and without costumes — and was no walk in the park. I was in the first wave, which began at 9:30 a.m., so it was still relatively cool. After some hard running on the hilly first half of the course, I was ready for a plunge into the lake.

It wasn’t too cold, but I quickly sank ankle deep in the slime and slowed to a halting walk. There’s no question I would have left a shoe, maybe both, on the lake bottom if I hadn’t decided at the last moment to tape them to my ankles, as the RunAmuck Web site recommends.

I gotta give the race organizers credit for imagination… the RunAmuck certainly isn’t your typical 5K fun run. I expect it’s fantastic exercise, too.  Nonetheless, I think I’ll pass.  I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, but I don’t think I’d enjoy exercising with gloop dripping off my hair and/or packed in my underwear. I’d have taken up mud wrestling a long time ago, if I thought that sort of thing was appealing. 😉