There comes a time in every racer's life when you participate something that is outside of your expertise and in a different category than anything you have done before. The Spooner Mud Run on this blazing hot Friday evening in August was this monumental event. What I can say about this event is it was a spectacular event. What a race the city of Spooner put on. Sure, there will be those out there who will argue that they have done a Warrior Dash or a Tough Mudder, or some other run based more on engaging in a series of physical challenges than actually doing any running. Well, those are all big name races. The Spooner run was a spectacular race based on these runs, but without all the hype (and usually big fee for registration) that typically accompany these bigger events. I can say without hesitation that the Spooner Mud Run is a race worth putting on the calendar for next year as it is definitely a race worth doing again next year. Let me share the experiences through this post, pictures, and even a couple of videos that I have found showing this race. Be careful, race organizers, as this race could seriously balloon in popularity next year and be the biggest thing the Jack Pine Savage Days have seen.
The Spooner Mud Run had a great series of challenges. The opening obstacle was a series of hay bales to jump over.
The next event was a series of cars to jump over. People don't often get to jump over cars. Then there were a series of hurdles to maneuver around. You had to just over the high hurdles and crawl under the lower hurdles. This was the first event where you really started getting dirty. Following that the obstacles starting getting wet. There was a watered down hill in which runners got there first taste of mud. Then there was the huge slip and slide which was a plastic tarp which was watered down and runners got cooled off and also got to rest as they slid down the hill. My favorite obstacle was the series of long 2-2 1/2 foot in diameter pipes which were partially submerged. There was a pool of water at the start of the pipes and a pool of water at the end of the pipes but otherwise the pipes were about half submerged in water. Runners had to crawl through the pipes from one side to the other. There were a couple of tire obstacles where runners had to negotiate through the tires in a scene typical of something seen in a football practice. There were monkey bars to climp across and this was fine for me but I can see how for some it might have been a tough challenge. The monkey bars were pretty far apart. The final challenges included running through a fire hose, more hay bales jumping, and finally, the big mud pit. The city of Spooner has lined bleachers along the mud pit to allow spectators to watch. This would have been the place to watch the race. A shout out to Spooner for putting a on a spectacular event.
The following website shows some video coverage of the event.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoxOMVbAU5U
I can be seen at 1:01 in the video scaling a set of hay bales. You get to see me jump all four haybales in the video. Being tall has it's advantages as it was a lot easier to jump the haybales since I had a height advantage. Then at 6:55 in the same video you can see me jumping into the mud pit. I was the second place guy in the videe and am chasing after the first guy. Check out the jump into the mud. I had a lot of grace in the mud dive.
Another video of the mud pit can be seen on the website
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A51znCD7mHM
I can be seen right away and was about 10 seconds behind the lead guy on the last challenge.
I finished second overall in the event. The winner was Nick Adams and he finished in 23:52. I am not exactly sure of my finish time as the timing company has me listed as 24:36, however, in watching the videos, I was only 10 seconds from the lead guy in both videos with only about 100 yards to run after the mud pit. I wasn't 44 seconds from first place as listed in the results, but I will be honest that I didn't wear a watch to confirm my overall time. The only explanation I have is that I must have walked back across the finish line by accident after finishing and the timing company registered a later time when I went had to rush to watch my daughter so my wife could do the event. My wife got a nice picture showing this close finish.
All that matters is that I was able to secure a second place overall finish and was awarded with a beautiful handmade plaque for my efforts. I was ecstatic with the beautiful award.
My wife finished 60th out of 167 runners with a time of 35:18.
This event was fun to watch her do so that I could see her get all dirty in the mud pit. I got some great pictures of her doing the event. One thing is for sure. She didn't jump in with the same flying leap that I did. She crawled in.
I like the next couple of pictures, including the one where mud is covering Angela's front tooth. I know a good dentist that could fix that for her.
Kaia didn't like the looks of either of us upon finishing. We got some great pictures of the two of us. All I can say is the before pictures were a lot different than the after pictures.
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