Playing in the Mud

The day after we got back from Bear Lake (August 20), I was signed up to do a mud run with my friend, Katie. Her 2 girls decided to do it with us, too. We all drove up to Ogden together. (The Boyden's were brave enough to offer their car to carry all the filth home.)

This is a nice picture of me and Katie, but really Shawn took it because of the girls in spandex behind us.

Fixing shoes and attaching race numbers.

All lined up at the start.

Next year maybe we'll be in costumes too. I think Lindsey and Lauren may already be planning something.

And we're off! Lauren took off at the start and none of us could catch her for the rest of the run. (She's the one in orange.)

There were obstacles ranging from hay bales, to puddles, (or small ponds,)

pipes to jump over, and crawl through,

nets to crawl under,

and over,

and under again, (all through the mud of course,)

and just lots of muddy slop that stuck to your shoes and sucked your feet in.

At the finish there were lots of bubbles, although, they didn't really do a thing to clean you off.

Shawn's feet got pretty muddy too, just trying to take pictures of us.

This is the first finish, but it was determined that we weren't dirty enough so we went back to the big mud puddle to make mud angels.

We were sufficiently filthy after this.

Can you see Lindsey getting ready to throw that mud?

It's been a really long time since I've willingly played in the mud, but we had so much fun!

There was mud everywhere. In our hair, in our ears, under our nails, inside every article of clothing...

Still smiling...

They provided hoses so we wouldn't have to climb in the car with all the dirt, but even the hoses couldn't come close to completing the job (and they got a little cold.)

This was a multi-person process since there was mud in places you couldn't reach on your own.

This is how Shawn tried to help.

There was pretty much no chance of ever getting those clothes clean again, so Lindsey just dropped hers in the trash. (That is one caveat - if you're going to do a mud run, you can't wear anything you care about.)

To top off our great experience running through the mud, we saw this vehicle on the way home.

I'm not sure if it was really freeway worthy, but at least everyone was in a sturdy helmet.
We had enough fun that we plan to do it again next year. And as soon as we got home, Shawn started looking up mud runs on-line. Coincidentally, Shawn and I are signed up to do the Dirty Dash on September 24th with a few of his co-workers. Can't wait!