I can remember teaching fifth grade and leaving school one day after a big rain. A girl in my class noticed a huge muddy puddle and quickly ran home to get parental permission to take a flying leap into the puddle. After about three or four dives and slides in the mud she seemed much happier.
I noticed the same level of happiness and smiles on the faces of the runners at the Madison Mud Run at Badger Prairie this past weekend. Participants of all ages were forced to crawl through a mud pit that had been fire hosed for about 10 hours the day before. In addition, the race involved multiple tire obstacles, two five foot wooden wall climbs, and a 53 foot inflatable obstacle course with a ladder and slide.
THE INFLATABLE GETTING TESTED OUT BEFORE THE MUD RUN
The run itself was cross country style-wide start, grass surface, and was about 4.5 miles. I decided to run after helping set the course and borrowed some shoes and shorts to race. We started in a wide field and narrowed onto one of the trails. The multiple obstacles helped take my mind off of running and I couldn't keep the mud pit out of my mind during the race (kept looking forward to it). The mud pit is about 50 yds before the finish. The mud pit was water was really cold but crawling through the mud was a blast. It got a lot muddier as more people finished. Some people were covered from head to toe in mud and a lot of people who tried to stand up early tripped on the flags and went face first into the mud. See pics below. This was a great non-traditional race. Many people raced as teams and there was a huge variety of ages racing. I ended up 10th of 474. If you get the chance, I highly reccomend racing the next one on Halloween.
