This weekend I competed in the Muddy Buddy in Boulder, CO. I had an absolute blast, but it was super exhausting! My buddy for the race was Sue Engels. Our team name was short stack & syrup. We didn't have any thoughts on what to do for a costume so on Friday before the race we went to Wal-Mart. As we started down the craft aisle we came up with an idea ... we were going to TIE-DYE our shirts. We also decided that Jackson (Sue's husband) to draw on our shirts - a short stack of pancakes on mine & a syrup bottle on Sue's. We bought some gold glitter shirt paint to use for whatever. After we got done at Wal-Mart we went back to Sue & Jackson's house, had some dinner, and then got down to business. It all started with Jackson drawing on our shirts. After the shirt designs were finished we started to tie-dye. The next morning we unveiled our t-shirt designs. They were awesome!!!! Once they were washed & dried Sue got to work on painting with the gold glitter. Later that day we put our names on the back. Here's the final product ....
You have to admit, they are pretty awesome!
Sue & I weren't alone in doing the Muddy Buddy, we had a couple of friends participating too. Sarah & Colleen were partners as well as TJ & Abbi. TJ & Colleen had both already done it before, so the rest of were newbies. We had a good idea of what to expect, but that definitely didn't stop the nerves!!
Here's what happens during the Muddy Buddy .... according to me ....
They put you in categories based on you & your buddies' combined ages. Sue is 29 & I'm 27, together we are 56. From there they have larger divisions based on combined age. We were in the grouping 56 to 65. Then, they have it divided into males, females, and co-ed. Each different division is assigned to a particular wave. I believe were 7 waves total. We were in wave 3 along with Coed 96 & Over and Female 76-85. Everyone lines up according to their wave with bikers in front and runners behind. Bikers are always released first within their wave with the runners released 60 to 90 seconds later. Sue started the race as our biker.
Sarah & I were waiting for our turn to start running.
Once they said go, Sarah & I were off running the first leg - 1.3 miles. At the end of that there was a high climbing wall. This was a really easy wall to get over because it had hand/foot grips. Once done with the high wall we switched - Sue starts running, I took the bike. This leg was 1.1 miles long. From the get go, this leg was a slight incline. Then to make matters worse, there was a pretty steep slope that was about 15 ft high that I had to run up with the bike. When I started making my way up my foot slipped and I fell, along with the bike. Once I got back up (with the bike) I tried it again. Failed attempt again. I don't know if it was too steep or the lack of traction on my shoe. Either way it sucked & it was kind of embarrassing. As I was trying to get back up the second time some guy who was running that part felt sorry for me, picked my bike up, & took it all the way up for me. Who says chivalry is dead?! I made sure to tell him thank you. Turns out even when I was running up that thing without my bike I still almost fell. Whoops. Immediately after that we had to go straight down about 15 feet. If there was anyone watching me on my way down I'd be willing to bet they were pretty entertained. I was that awkward. At that point I think I started question why I signed up to do the Muddy Buddy. Clearly biking is not a strength of mine!! Once done with that leg, I passed the bike back to Sue. The obstacle this time was to crawl underneath netting that was horizontal about 1 foot above the ground. After finishing that I took off running - I had another 1.1 miles to go. At the beginning of this leg there was this watery/muddy area, lucky for me I only had to run through it. Sue had to carry the bike through it. That would probably have been another disaster for me! Obstacle 3 was walking the balance beams. That was super easy as well, they were about 4 or 5 feet off the ground and you just had to walk across them. Sue did a really good job of placing our bike. A side note about the bikes ... people like to decorate them too. We didn't really do much, we added some ribbons & tennis balls to the handles. Turns out the tennis balls on the handles were key. No one else had done that so it was really really easy to spot the bike among a lot of bikes. Now back to the course .... I saw the bike immediately and took off. This bike leg was 0.8 miles. It was a lot easier than the first one, the whole ride was flat & followed by downhill. Perfect for me. Once done with that leg, the obstacle was a giant inflatable wall. After climbing up 20 or 30 feet (I'm really not sure) by rope, you climbed over to the other side and slide down. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous right before I went down the slide. But it turned out to be quite fun! I was finally starting the last leg, a 1.9 mile run. At the end of the run we came up onto the Boulder Reservoir, this part of the run was sandy and hard to run in. We ran a little bit on the sand and then had to run through another water patch (in the reservoir). Immediately after that we finished up on the beach and ran through where all the buddies were standing. Sue, Colleen, TJ, & Abbi were all waiting there for Sarah & I so we could go through the mud pit together.
This picture has me in the lead then Sue, Colleen, & Sarah close behind in the pit.
I climbed in & was blazing a trail crawling through it. I was going so fast Sue yelled at me to slow down! After that we ran & crossed the finish line!! We were 18th out of 75 in our division with a time of 55:27. Overall we placed 270. Not too shabby I think. I have no idea how many teams there were, but I did scan the results sheet - the highest I found was 696. So we did pretty well.
Just after we crossed the finish line!!
The group shot - Sue, Me, Abbi, TJ, Sarah, & Collen
After the race was over we rinsed off, went back to the car, changed clothes, & then went back for all the freebies including a nice cold beer.
Here's another group shot minus a couple
If you ever get the chance to do this or something like it, I would totally recommend it. It was a lot of fun & different from just the normal running race. I think that all of my friends would agree that it was an awesome time!
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