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Saturday morning, at the conclusion of the reunion, as everyone else started heading home, Jeremy and I drove to Rexburg (about half an hour from the campground) to participate in Thor’s Mud Run. I’d found the race when I was looking for a 5k to do before my half marathon, and while it was after my birthday and the half, I decided to add it to our schedule. I was even able to talk Jeremy into joining me in the race.
Before we drove into town, we first got the RV packed up and ready to go and left the kiddos with Jeremy’s parents. At the race, we picked up our shirts and joined a group of runners at the start line. Like a lot of mud runs, this wasn’t timed, and I didn’t wear my Garmin. The website says it’s just under 2 miles, but we parked a ways away from the start line and walked to the car twice, so we covered at least 2 miles.
We started in waves, with groups of 10 racing to the first obstacle, a bucket carry. We carried buckets with sand in them (not very full, thankfully), and you could carry them individually or in tandem. We opted to do it in tandem.
The next obstacle was a javelin throw: pool noodles with pvc pipe in them that we threw at a target. You had two tries and we both got it on the second try.
From there we ran a bit further, then the course zig-zagged up and down a small berm before flattening out to a trail with straw bales blocking the way. These were just run-of-the-mill rectangular straw bales, not giant round bales like I’ve encountered in other mud runs, so they were easy to hop over.
We climbed over a couple barriers- one was just a framework, so easy to climb, but one was a wall, so it was harder. I think they were about 6 feet tall- not as tall as they could be, but still a bit challenging for someone as short as me. I climbed the framework barrier without problems, but Jeremy had to give me a boost on the wall 🙂
We then came to an archery station, where we had two chances to knock a circle out of the target with a blunted arrow. There were five circles, but it was hard to aim properly because of the blunted ends that looked like giant marshmallows. I knocked a circle out on my second try and Jeremy knocked one out on his second try, but it only fell out because he hit the target so hard. He only had to do five pushups instead of the ten he would have had to do if he hadn’t knocked it out.
After hopping (or stepping, in Jeremy’s case) over a few more straw bales, we came to a freeze tag with arrows section. People with blunted arrows jumped out from behind trees and tried to hit us as we sprinted past. If you got tagged, you had to stand still for a count of 10 before taking off again. We each got tagged early on, then Mr M got hit again by the last archer, who took both of us by surprise- we thought we’d run past all of them already.
There were more straw bales, then we finally got to the mud part of the race. The first mud obstacle was a series of three mud pits that were too wide to jump across, so you had to wade through them. Next was a low crawl through a mud pit, though the ropes were high enough that I was able to crawl on hands and knees.
After that was a mud pit full of tires that you had to step in or on, and then the final obstacle. For that we climbed up a muddy pile of dirt, then slid down the back side of the mud pile into a large pit of muddy water. The water washed a lot of the stickier mud off, though we did accumulate more mud as we climbed out of the pit.
Then we stopped at the photo op before continuing to the finish line, which was three feet in front of the water line of the small lake we’d run around. There we received our Thor’s hammers, and then jumped into the lake to wash off.
After washing the worst of the mud off, we stopped by the refreshment tables for watermelon, bananas, and an assortment of bottles of small batch root beer. You know you’re in a predominantly LDS area when the post-race refreshments include root beer instead of real beer 🙂 Not that we’re complaining- the last mud run I ran I didn’t use the included wrist band to imbibe in the post-race beer.
In the end, we thought the race was more obstacle run than mud run, but it was fun. We didn’t get as muddy as I’d been hoping for, but we still had fun, and ending with a dip in the lake was a great way to finish. And honestly, it was more fun than doing a mud run while also freezing to death, which has been the case for all the mud runs I’ve done in the past, which are always held in February or March. I mean, that’s fun in its own way, but this was more enjoyable. Though part of that was due to my running partner 🙂 We haven’t had time for dates in quite awhile, so it was nice to get away for a bit and spend some time together. We couldn’t have done it without Jeremy’s parents watching the kiddos- thanks guys!
When we got back to the car we dried off a bit, then sat on our towels as we drove back to the campground. Once there, we took quick showers, then loaded the car on the tow dolly and hit the road, finally heading for home.
If you’re in Rexburg at the beginning of July, add this to your itinerary!