Yesterday, Matt and I ran the Primal Mud Run in nearby Selma, NC. 4.75 miles through the mud! Obviously the perfect way to spend one of our last days in NC.
I love this picture – and yes, that’s barbed wire he’s crawling under
Man, I love mud runs. They’re such a ridiculous blast (and an awesome workout, too – my arms/back/shoulders are SO sore today)!
Like the other mud runs I’ve done in the past (The Original Mud Run 10k last September and the Rugged Maniac 5k last April), we signed up to start in waves. Our wave was 10:30 a.m.
We all lined up at the start just before 10:30 and I was surprised to find that instead of letting everyone in the wave go at 10:30, they were sending people out in 4 person groups, 1-ish minutes apart. This actually made more sense because everyone was nicely spread out! The past mud runs we’ve done we ended up waiting at a lot of the obstacles, especially early ones.
Before we knew it, we were off!
Our first obstacle – over we went and on to the rest!
And then came the mud. 
Our third obstacle was by far the scariest – balance beams over a pit of muddy water! I made it half way across before someone got on the beam behind me and the while thing started to shake wildly. I quickly got down so I was straddling the beam and shuffled the rest of the way, like the person in the red shirt in the photo below is doing.
That net you see after the balance beams doesn’t look like a big deal, but in person it was super high and very unstable with everyone else climbing on it at the same time – gah! This was the one time during the race I was legit scared. I was proud of myself for making it over.
Next up – climbing ropes! You had to climb up high enough to touch the orange tape.
Attempting to make my way up…
Success!!!
For those who couldn’t make it up, the penalty was 15 burpees. Hilarious!
This next one was hard, too – I only made it half way, but Matt scurried right across.
In between all of the obstacles, there were stretches of running on trails through the woods. Had to get that almost 5 miles in somewhere!
High knees!
Ahhh, monkey bars. I wish I were still good at you like I was in middle school.
Luckily, this guy was giving the girls a little help across.
Thanks for the lift, dude!
On to swimming! Under, over, under, over…
Plus carrying a heavy log around a big loop, obviously.
High walls followed:
More under over:
Wheeeeee! Matt is such a Tigger.
Mini-mud water slide!
And then, the finish!
Matt got some cheers from the crowd for his rope maneuvers.
The grand finale was crawling under some more barbed wire.
Success! We finished in 1 hour, 11 minutes.
They even gave us medals – although Matt and I thought this should have said “dominator” or “survivor” or something instead of “finisher.”
There was also beer. Matt was pumped.
Have you guys ever done a mud run? They are such a blast!
p.s. For those of you wondering how I got pictures during this race – I used my Kodak waterproof digital camera. I bought it last fall and it’s pretty much a champion. I carried it when we were running and during the obstacles, I stuffed it in my sports bra. Classy, I know.
And regarding clothes, I wore old shoes that I was going to get rid of anyway and tossed them after the race. If you want to salvage what you wear during a mud run, I recommend wearing dark clothing. The mud will stain lighter colored clothes!