Man, did it ever feel great to get out there and finally get dirty!
I refer, of course, to the
Camp Pendleton Mud Run that I ran with some fellow Yo San folks--buckets of fun had by all!
Per true adventure-type race form, the drama began hours before the race even started, when our teammate Miles called out sick the day before the race. Teammate and fellow instigator Ali called me immediately to tell me and we hit the phones trying to find a replacement. At one point we even figured the four of us left standing, so to speak, could just do the race and finish unranked. The internet came to our rescue, however, at about 6PM that evening. It was fellow
Scarab and all-around super-cool trooper Leslie (she's an adventure racer, so natch!) calling to see if the spot had been snapped up yet (boy had it ever not been). Plus, it turns out she's a pre-vet student, so she fit in with us even more. I emailed her all the info and we made arrangements to meet up at the race site the next morning.
I wasn't nervous, but I couldn't sleep anyway--slept about 4 hours before my faithful furry alarm clock Zooey began rooting around behind the window shade and knocking books over, which was lucky because I forgot to turn on my alarm. Brady picked me up at 5AM sharp, and it turned out he had only slept about 2 hours, and he finished the AIDS ride yesterday to boot. Ali and Teo followed us down, and after calls we finally found each other at the race site, Leslie included.
We set off for the reg area with Guns 'n' Roses blaring (so 8th grade summer swim meet for me!) and got numbers, t-shirts and the like, then set about greasing up feet and taping on shoes. Teo apparently missed his calling, because he can make a mean wrap! I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish the race until about mile 3 when my tape finally loosened. And people walking by saw our tape and started queueing up to borrow some--enterprise idea for next year, maybe. And then it was off to gear check and over to the start/finish, where we saw fellow Yo San classmate Traver with his team from his gym, and this guy wearing the most awesome costume evah--a hot pink pleated cheerleader-style skirt with a sparkly chartreuse blouse. I wished with all my heart (not the only time today) that I had thought to buy a disposable waterproof camera to bring with. Maybe next year we can all dress up in extravagant finery too--sort of like Bay to Breakers only with mud, and no naked people (more's the pity, I say...but I digress.) They sent off the individuals, 15 minutes after that they sent us off too. Like a lot of mass-start gi-normous field events, it was a bit of a bottleneck as we calmly walked out of the starting chute trying not to give the racers in front of us flat tires (those without tape, that is...).
Finally by the firehoses after the first half mile or so we picked up into a trot. Compared to 6 years ago when I did it, there was a lot less mud, I have to say, and no crawling through sand after wading through a water ditch so you looked like one of those peanut-butter bird feeders with seeds caked to the outside. Oh well. In fact, the first 4 miles were pretty dry--a couple of ditches, that's it. We pretty much ruked the course--power-hiked the uphills, loose sand, etc. and shuffled the flats and downhills, and made a concerted effort to stay together, which made it more fun. Brady taught Ali how to squeeze and pinch the water cups so she could be racer cool and drink and run without spilling all over her front. Once we got down from the big sustained climb, there was another knee-deep water ditch, followed by the first of two stinking (and I do mean malodorous--pew!) knee-deep mud pits with walls to scale. Then we ran down to a large chest/shoulder-high lake that we had to run (I found sidestroke swimming was much more efficient, but wev) through about 100 meters to the other side.
After the nice bath, it was back around to the last mile, featuring the 2nd stinky mud pit, the crawl through pipes, the run through tires, the steep greasy slip-n-slide hill, and the final alligator crawl through more stinky mud to the finishing chute.
We got a brief rinse before Leslie surprised us by punching it and sprinting to the finish line, making us work for it and look good doing it (thanks Leslie! you have the spirit of a true adventure racer, and I look forward to hearing future race reports from you!)
And then it was over. And many people just threw their stanky shoes and socks into giant trashbins.
And then trying to get changed and find each other again in the morass of 4000 people was a total clusterfuck. But we did manage to find Traver again, who brought us over to his friend Andy who is actually a good friend of Teo's and brother-in-law of a friend of Ali's, and of course a good friend of my A-racing idol Kathryn who puts on the
funnest races in the world. Small world much?
We said goodbye to Leslie who had to head back to San Diego, and the 4 of us made our way to the end of Mission in Oceanside where I have never forgotten the thoroughly kick-ass
Johnny Mañana's that I first enjoyed 4 years ago when Mo and I tried to camp at San Onofre and surf Old Man's. Seriously the best fish tacos since that random little stand in San Quentin on the way down to Sierra de San Francisco for that WEA trip so long ago. It made me super fun happy smile too much. A perfect end to a very fun day.
Oh, and we finished 134th in our division of 151, and 274th? overall I think. Not bad at all for a last minute composite team who has never run together until race day! Photos can be seen (as I get them, I'm relying on others for some of them) at my Flickr page, link at the menu on the right. Run on Piglets!!
