Marine Corps Mud Run

Jonathan was asked by some coworkers to join their team for the Marine Corp Mud Run and when he agreed he brought home the information about the Pollywog race for Julianna to look at.

We encouraged her to sign up for the one mile obstacle race and posted it on the refrigerator but we didn't pressure too much.  Eventually she asked us to sign her up.

We headed up to Pinnacle Saturday morning after picking up my mom and dad.  We got out of the car and climbed the hill to the race area.

 

The 1 mile Pollywog race was before the team 5k so Julianna, my dad, and I walked over to the starting line.  Jules only got nervous when the announcement was made that there would be marines available to carry some children through one of the obstacles on their backs if necessary.

We took off in the second wave.  We ran down a little hill and across a very small creek.  Then up a steep grassy area and up an even steeper dirt hill climb with ropes.  One of the marines shouted something about "here comes Baywatch!" to a person behind me and I wet my pants laughing. 

Dad and I tried our best to keep up with Julianna running through the woods and then we got to a creek crossing area where there was a huge traffic backup of people.  Someone had fallen and broken their ankle and medics were trying to get to her.  She was laying on her back screaming and all of the other participants were being shuffled to the side to go past single-file.  It slowed us down a lot but the important thing is that the medical teams were able to help her.

We made it through the creek and over some logs.  Then we had to go through a punching bag area which Julianna had a blast in.  She was hitting and jumping and kicking the whole time. She said she didn't want to come out.

For the last bit we had to climb over several walls and run up a gradual hill until we got to the final obstacle.  It was a large mud pit that Jules couldn't reach the bottom of.  She had to swim through it and there were marines there to assist.  She never needed any help and my dad and I made it out right behind her.  We ran across the finish line shortly thereafter.

Jonathan started his team 5k not long after that and we cheered for him a couple of times when his group ran past.  He said it was definitely the hardest event race he's ever participated in but he also said it was a lot of fun.

Josh was bored out of his mind.  The sun got really hot on the little guy too.  Next time I will be more prepared and pack him a whole bag of stuff for entertainment.

I've never done one of these obstacle course races before but it was a lot of fun.  I was glad to not have had to do the 5k on Saturday especially since I had run 6.5 miles with my training group at seven that morning but I do look forward to participating in a similar race sometime in the future and I'm proud of Jonathan for doing it.  His team's time was 42:41 or a rank of 66 out of 359 which is impressive I think.

Have you ever done an obstacle race? What do you think about them?