4.2 mile obstacle course w/ 4-person, all-female team. Team Ridin’ Dirty 
Time: 1:06 (15:43 pace)
Awards: Satisfaction of finishing and a bar of soap to wash off!
Ok, so much for my blogging skills. A LOT has happened in the past 6 months, mainly my marathon training which I’ll talk about in a future post but for now, I’ll back track to September to record one of the most fun racing events I’ve ever been to – the USMC Mud Run in Columbia, SC.
Going into this race I was coming off of a 23-mile training run from the weekend before, so I was in the best shape of my life, and I knew I was ready for the challenge. My teammates were two other girls from my running group and my roommate. If you live in the South and you like a fitness challenge, DO THIS EVENT! I had a blast! It’s a 4.2 mile course with 30 obstacles on the course. Most of the obstacles take place in, you guessed it, MUD! You must start and finish the race as a team, and a few obstacles require major teamwork to get through.
The course starts off with a 1.2 mile run up and over grassy hills and through the woods until you stop dead at a concrete drop off. You jump off of a series of these concrete walls continually until you get to the first big puddle of mud which you have to jump into and trudge, swim and fight your way through. After you get past the first invitation to get dirty, you never look back. Obstacles include rivers of mud with logs that you must jump over and crawl under, wire fencing over a mud puddle that you have to crawl under for about 30 feet, a 14-foot mud puddle that you jump off of a “cliff” to get into, and so on. The race finishes with three teammates carrying the 4th teammate over the finish line in a stretcher. I’ll let the pictures below tell the story.
This was my first race since June and I had that competitive edge with me as always. I wasn’t prepared to be forced to slow down due to my roommate not being in great shape. I guess I should have thought about it more before going into the race, but I just couldn’t understand why she would stop and walk. That said, there was a little bit of squabbling throughout the race as what I thought were “words of encouragement” she took as me pushing too hard. One thing that was stressed in the newsletters leading up to the race was finishing as a team and the importance of patience and teamwork. Two virtues I need to try hard to work on. It can’t always be about winning, but it sure is a whole lotta fun when you do win
