Pictures of the Xtreme Mud Run

Click here to read the write up about the run

The opening few seconds of the race. I'm out in front.

 My big lead. I enjoyed it while it lasted.

 Crawling through the mud underneath barbed wire.

 Exiting a muddy pond.

 Another view of a muddy pond exit. There is no traction getting out of that!

 The log was so low I had to get my face wet.

 At least I'm having fun, right?

Approaching the final obstacle.

 Here I still think I can do it.

 I'm beginning to realize there might be a problem.

 A few seconds after I crashed to the mud and lost my shoe.

Almost done!

 You can pretty clearly see my shoe in my hand in this one ...

Just a bit muddy.

 Another view of the mud caked on me.

 My uncle had to shake my hand after that.

 My wife, on the other hand, wouldn't get any closer to me than this.

Finally time to clean off. Just have to wait in line with the other finishers.

10 Mile Xtreme Mud Run Part 2

If you haven't read Part One, you can do so here.

I took off fast, leading the small pack through the first obstacle, which was through the straight-aways of a horse stable with bales of hay to hurdle over. As we got through that, the course didn't have any obstacles for the next mile or so, unless you count the terrain. Most of it was soft sand, hard and tiring to run through. My legs ached, and though I didn't stop running, my speed dropped considerably. Of course, so did everyone else's. As we finally made it to harder-packed dirt, I found myself in third place, with a much younger competitor not far behind me (he passed me not too much farther into the race). I wasn't racing anyone but myself, but it was fun to keep track of such things.

The next part of the race had plenty of obstacles. The first one was a ten-foot wall with hand and foot holds of an indoor climbing course. I'd never done that before, but I scaled it pretty easily, which made me happy. Mud finally made its way into the course with the next obstacle. It was monkey bars over a mud pit. I'll be the first to admit my upper body strength is severely lacking, so after attempting the first few bars, I decided to simply drop down and run through the mud. Hey, gotta get dirty at some point, right? Other obstacles in this part included pushing a large wooden cable spool up a 2x4 ramp, crawling in the mud under barbed wire, running up loose piles of dirt and into watery mud pits, and, my favorite, plunging head-first down a slick tarp into a huge mud pit. That one was refreshing!

After that group, some real challenges came. There were big hills of soft dirt, probably 20 or more feet high, to run up. This was tiring! Luckily, some had ropes dangling down to help us pull our way up, but the others were there for climbing without help. I'm not used to such challenges, but I found myself going up and down these big hills easily, which made me happy. Tired, but happy. After the final big down, which luckily had a rope to help, it was time to crawl through more mud under barbed wire and other things.

By this time, I was in sixth place in my group, and I think that's where I stayed throughout the race, but it was hard to tell because I came upon fifteen milers who started at 7:30. I lost track of my place, and I've yet to see any sort of final posting online. So I'm going to go with I finished six out of thirty or so competitors.

Next I came up to a rope dangling across a big mud pit. I've never had to shimmy across something like this, but there's a first time for everything, right? I made it approximately three-fourths of the way across before I decided I'd had enough. I let go, splashed down into the mud, and took off for more fun. The next little while was simply running on hard-packed dirt, which was a nice change of pace from the muddy and dirty obstacles. At about the six-mile mark of the race, I reached a volunteer who had sandbags piled up near him. He told me to pick one up (I'm guessing it was somewhere around twenty to thirty pounds and quite awkward) and run down the path until I saw the used sandbags piled up. I picked it up, looked where he was pointing, and saw it was about a quarter of a mile - quite a distance with a sandbag in tow. It wasn't an easy jaunt, but I managed to jog most of it. Let me tell you, it was a nice feeling when I made it to the end and put down that sandbag.

Next was another mud pit with barbed wire over it, and then it was another long run to the next set of obstacles. These consisted of an eight-foot wall (which I tried, but couldn't get over - again showing off my lack of upper-body strength), a ten-foot wall made for teamwork (I didn't even try this because I was out there alone), and a ten-foot wall with a knotted rope to help traverse (which I again tried, but came up with the same result as the eight-foot wall). There was then a set of three mud ponds with a log across the middle. There was little room between the log and muddy water, so I had to dunk my head under. Yuck, but also refreshing. To get out of the mud ponds, there were large mounds of mud, and since there was no traction, this was the toughest part of the obstacle. Each of the ponds had a bigger mound than the last, but after a few false starts with each, I exited and headed for the final major obstacle of this group, another mud pit with barbed wire to crawl under. This one was the toughest of the course because, although it was muddy, it wasn't muddy enough to slide right through. I had to actually crawl the whole way though muddy but rocky ground. I'm proud to say I stayed low enough to not get nicked by the barbed wire once. After that, it was a pretty straight shot to the finish building, with only a few four-foot walls to hurdle over, which were easy enough to clear even in my tired state.

The final obstacle was housed in the start/finish building - a mud pit with rings over it to cross. I tried, but after two rings, I couldn't hold on and plummeted to the mud below. I landed awkwardly and though I didn't hurt myself, one of my shoes came off. I had to pick it up and dash to the finish line in one shoe and one muddy sock. I finally crossed with a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 24 seconds. I had no idea how long this would take me, so I was proud of that time.

Once finished, I picked up my race t-shirt, my finisher medal, my wristband, and a cold bottle of water, which I downed greedily. My family took many pictures of my muddy self, and I headed outside to join the line for the hoses. I tossed my shoes and socks into the trash, and then decided my shirt could join them. And then it was time to go and continue our vacation.

I thought for sure I'd be sore for days afterward, but I really didn't feel that bad. My wife and I did a lot of walking, both while we were staying in Arizona with my aunt and uncle, and when we went back to Las Vegas, and I felt good. There was one point a couple of days later when we were walking through one of the casino malls in Las Vegas that my upper body started to feel stressed, but luckily there was a five-minute shoulder and neck massage booth handy, which cured me right up for the rest of the trip. All in all, it was a great experience, and I'm looking forward to doing another mud run in the future. Maybe I'll tackle this one again next year!

Pictures of me during and after the race coming soon!

10 Mile Xtreme Mud Run - Part One

A couple of weeks back, my wife and I went on vacation. The plan all along was to hit Las Vegas for a few days, and visit my aunt and uncle who live in Bullhead City, Arizona (right next to Laughlin, Nevada on the Colorado River below Davis Dam). When I saw there was a mud run in the neighboring town of Fort Mohave, AZ right around the time we'd planned to go, I decided to plan the vacation around that. We went for a couple of days to Las Vegas, headed to Bullhead City for the weekend, and then returned for two more days of Vegas fun. Turned out it was a great vacation on all fronts! For this post, however, I'm going to focus on the mud run, since I've had so many people ask me what in the heck it is. I haven't made any posts about running and exercise in awhile, so consider this a foray back into the topic.

The name of the mud run was the Xtreme Mud Run, and it was touted as the longest mud run in the nation. It had distances of 15 miles and 10 miles, as well as a 10 K and 5 K (6.2 miles and 3.1 miles respectively). I ran the 10 mile course. A mud run isn't run in the mud, but on trails, which are dirt and sand for the most part. It's basically a distance race with obstacles. The mud part of the name comes from those obstacles, which are often filled with mud. And since that's the most visually striking part of the run, both during and after, that's where the name comes from.

I've done a few races over the last couple of years, including one mud run (the 5 K zombie infested mud run called Run For Your Lives - I really should have told that story, but I blew it. I'll be doing it again this year, and I'll make sure you all hear the story). Most races have thousands of people, but this one, being in a small community in the desert, had only 300 or so participants. I originally signed up for a 9 AM heat, since the earlier ones were touted as competitive heats. I'm not a competitive runner (except with myself), so I had no need to go against the hard-core running adventurers, especially since I was technically on vacation. When I got there, though, luckily an hour and a half early, I found out there was only one heat for the 10 mile run - the 8 AM one. Good. I wasn't looking forward to standing around for an hour and a half anyway.

The run took place on the Avi Indian Reservation in Fort Mohave, AZ. From what I could tell driving in, it looked to be on farmland, and there was plenty of that to cover 15 (and in my case 10) miles. I spotted a few runners from the 7 AM heat for the 15 mile run, and saw them running on the dirt with no obstacles in sight. So it wasn't the strategic view that I'd hoped for (there were almost 40 obstacles set up to go over, under, and through, and for my distance, there were almost 30), but I was glad to see the event had started in a timely manner. I arrived to a large building that housed the start and finish line, as well as the final obstacle - rings to cross over a mud pit (like monkey bars, but rings on ropes instead of bars). I could feel the excitement in the air as I checked in and got set to race. The other competitors also had energy and nerves flowing off of them, and I could tell just by looking around that there'd be great camaraderie on the course, something which is a ton of fun in these races.

I watched the 7:30 heat (the final group of 15 milers) take off, and I slathered sunscreen on (hey, it was a relatively cool morning, but we were in the desert!). My uncle took my pre-race pictures, and I warmed up for the adventure. When it was finally time to line up for the start, I found that there were only two, maybe three, dozen other competitors in the 10 mile distance, a far-cry from any other race I'd ever done. As the guy at the starting line gave us our instructions, we all bounced up and down, working out the pre-race jitters and warming up, all in one. Finally, as the clock hit 8 AM, he shouted "Go!" and we were off.

How did I do? What was the course like? Was I sore for the rest of my vacation, which still had almost 5 days to go? Find out next week! For now, here are some picture of me awaiting my starting time. Enjoy!

Here I am up in the stands awaiting the fun!

 Here are three of the staring/finish line.

 My wife, Amber, and I in front of the promotional poster. I think it looks pretty cool!

 Here's one of the promotional flags. Like the poster, it's pretty nifty!

 Amber and I in the stands.

Beginning to Run

In December, I wrote a post about the importance of exercising to stay healthy. You can view it here. In it, I basically wrote about how as little as 30 minutes of easy exercises a day can help keep you healthy, and how you can do it from the comfort of your own home. But what happens when you want to amp up the difficulty a bit? I didn't think I'd ever want to, as I was quite happy with simply walking, but soon the itch to run began to overtake me. How did I transition into becoming a runner when I've always hated running? I can give you some tips that helped me.

First off, I walked for months before I even began running. When I had five brisk miles down without breathing too hard, I knew I was ready. I began slow. Instead of tackling my same five miles as an entire run, I broke it down into segments. I'd walk to a predetermined point, run slowly to another predetermined point, walk to another, and so on until I finished the route. As my running muscles built up, I lengthened the distance between running points until I could run the entire distance. Another thing you can do is use time to break up your run. Start by walking for a minute and running for 30 seconds. Repeat throughout your route. And, of course, it's perfectly fine to lengthen the time you walk between running sets. As you continue getting out to run, you'll also begin lengthening your running time until you can do the entire route without walking. Don't like predetermined distances or time constraints? Simply run until you're tired, and then walk until you feel like running again. Maybe the first few times you go out, you'll spend much more time walking than running, but if you really want to be a runner, that will change. Keep at it!

Next, you'll want to get a good pair of shoes. Experts say you should plan on spending around $100 for a good pair, but I've found it depends on your feet. Try different shoes at different price ranges. Personally, I wouldn't buy bargain shoes for under twenty bucks that you may find at a Wal-Mart or the like, but experiment. I would suggest you buy shoes that are specifically marked as running shoes, especially if you plan to mostly run on sidewalks or streets. Try 'em on, and if they feel comfortable and are in your price range, give 'em a try. If you're willing to spend the money and know you're committed to running, you may want to go to a running specialty store and have them match you with your prefect fit. It's all up to you.

The final thing I want to touch on here is safety. Make sure you're comfortable with where you run. Don't run somewhere you aren't comfortable. Yes, it may be convenient, but why risk yourself. It'll be better for you to drive or hop on the bus to get somewhere you're happy with rather than risk life and limb because of convenience. Or you may want to join a gym and use their treadmills if that's safer. Also make sure you're aware of your surroundings when you run. If you choose to run in the street, make sure you're running against traffic so you can see oncoming cars. If you choose to listen to music (which I couldn't do without), make sure you don't have it so loud you can't hear what's around you, be it cars, people on bikes, and anything else. Don't shut yourself off from reality while you run. If you'd like to do that, stick to a treadmill, even if you're in an environment where you think you're all alone. Use common sense when it comes to running, and you'll be fine.

That's it for now. There's not really much to getting started. I'll be back in the future to add intermediate tips and other goodies I've learned, but for now, that's all you need. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to ramp up your heart rate (biking, swimming, rowing, etc. etc. etc.), but since I chose to become a runner, that's what I'm focusing on. Above all, have fun!