This race was a part of the Dominion Riverrock festival which took place Friday night & most of the day Saturday on Brown’s Island in Richmond, VA. The Mud Run was at 6pm Friday night. It was a little humid at the start, but overall, not too hot, and the thunderstorms held off.
The course
This is not your typical walk-in-the-park 5k. Just before mile 1 we ran out into the James River, water about waist high, circled around a buoy, and came back on land. Now soaking wet, we had to crawl through a sandpit, under a series of ropes. The water felt great because it cooled me off. The sand, not so much.
Welcome to Belle Isle
We continued on trails through parts of Belle Isle, and had to make our way up a steep, un-runable, hill made up mostly of large rocks. This was more of a crawl/climb. All 4 limbs were engaged.
On the top of Belle Isle was where we found the last little obstacle before the final mud pit. We hopped over a set of 3 one-foot tall, zig-zagged ropes. A pretty weak attempt at an obstacle, but better than nothing at all.
How the race got it’s name
The mud pit was located right before the finish line. This pit was much smaller than the Muddy Buddy pit a few weeks ago, but it was good mud. Only about 20 feet long, the beginning was very watered down, and the last 3/4 were pretty thick and sludgy. Diving head first into watery mud is a sure way to get it in your eyes. Then you crawl the rest of it blind. But hey, if that’s your style (it certainly is mine), than by all means, go for it.
The result
My time… for having not run all week since the triathlon last Sunday… an impressive 28:14. 20/131 in the 20-29 age group. 49/295 overall. I’ll never learn how to put on the breaks in a race like this. At least not for a 5k.