Why I do Mud Runs

I only have two rules if you want to join my wife and I on a mud run: no complaining and we stick together. We don’t have a lot of mud run experience but we’ve been through enough of them to know those two factors are my bottom line.

We don’t participate in the really hardcore mud runs. Our mud run preference is a 5k, with twenty or so moderate obstacles. We only sign up for the ones with no time limit and no penalty for going around the obstacle rather than accomplishing it. We aren’t elite athletes. My wife and I are in our early 50’s, and in relatively good physical condition overall. That isn’t to say we are without physical challenges - My back has been a weakness since a sports injury as a teen, and my wife was dragged by a horse as a teen and has a leg that is more like a hockey stick than flesh and blood.

If we have these physical challenges, why put ourselves in harm’s way? Why not just do a little shuffling-jog down a nice flat bike path? The truth is, that is probably smarter. But we want to be challenged and have a target activity, out in our future, to train towards. It provides us motivation to get out and stay healthy. Beyond that, gathering a group of friends for a shared experience is wonderful. Some folks take their friends to a fun activity, we take ours to a grueling one. We also love the sense of accomplishment - having taken on something that seems daunting and then stumbled and struggled to the end of it.

Months ahead of time I start putting notices on social media that we will be doing another mud run and that folks are welcome to join us. Thin or thick, young or old - I don’t care much. I want people to be fit enough to have fun and be able to make it to the end but I’m not aiming at an intense competition so much as a challenging shared experience, so optimum fitness isn’t a requirement. My wife and I figure there is a fair chance we will be the slowest people in the group. If someone happens to be slower than us, that’s just fine.

Because I envision it as a shared rigorous experience and because I take friends who might not be optimally fit, I think it is important to stick together. If a handful of our most fit friends accomplish the first few obstacles easily and dart off down the trail, several things happen. Those of us left behind have the emotional consequence of being the weakest members of the herd. Most of my friends were the ones getting lapped by all the athletes in gym class - we know how much getting left behind sucks. Also, I invited those folks so I could spend the day with them, not just to watch them disappear down the trail and then see them again, hours later, when I finally reach the finish line. Beyond the social aspects though, those deserters have also left us to fend for ourselves, which increases risk of injury or inability to actually complete the run. Sure, folks can do a mud run as a solo challenge, to see how fast and hard they can compete, but those folks need to recognize that is their motivation for attending and not join a group that is counting on cohesiveness. So I ask that people who join us treat it as a team.

There are some people on the team that can’t do obstacles that require a lot of upper-body strength, like a monkey-bar style crossing of a mud pit. There are others with a fear of heights who don’t want to try to climb the high rope-nets to the top. They simply opt out of a challenge and wait for the rest of us to be ready to head down the trail to the next obstacle. The folks who are most fit can clear an obstacle with ease and rather than zoom ahead they hang out with the folks who skipped the obstacle entirely. When we all form up, the team slops down the muddy trail to the next obstacle.

As it turns out, a challenging mud run is, well, challenging. Slipping and falling is pretty common. Getting soaking wet and mud in your underwear is unavoidable. Sometimes there are thorny briar bushes along the edge of the trail. A slippery log might be just a little too slick and cause an uncontrolled tumble into the mud below. Even just helping to hoist a teammate over a barrier can lead to getting kicked in the ribs or a knee in the ear. And mud runs tend to be held rain or shine - and neither one seems to make folks happy. The thing that sucks the soul and the joy out of the experience is to then complain about it. “I’m so hot. I’m so hungry. My feet hurt. I have sand in my butt.”

We are all there voluntarily going through a shared uncomfortable experience. We paid money and set aside a weekend to do this. If someone is injured, or needs help, or has a serious struggle then obviously they need to share it. But folks tend to whine and complain just as a way to talk about the experience. Complaining becomes a cancer that infects the entire group and soon the experience isn’t just hard because it is demanding, it is miserable because the complaining has sucked the life out of the team.

The team inevitably begins to flounder toward the end. We have to encourage each other, and accept the encouragements offered, in order to continue. We are sore, hungry, thirsty, soggy and sometimes sunburned. It isn’t like a real battlefield, only the thinnest imitation, but as we support our weary comrades toward the finish line there comes a spirit of determination and of power. We begin to have a sense of our own resilience. On one run my wife needed to find a branch beside the trail to use as a walking stick to reach the end. By the end I can always feel the heat and twinges in my back that say I’ve pushed it hard. Eventually, though, the last obstacle is behind us and the finish line is just ahead.

Overcoming adversity is immensely rewarding. Without planning, and without prompting, it seems to always happen that someone reaches out to grab the hand of the person nearest them, and then another, until suddenly we are a chain of a dozen people tethered to one another as we cross the finish line. It is a brutal experience that I recommend to nearly anyone. Gather a group of friends, go get muddy and miserable together, and together persevere in the face of adversity.

I lead friends into mud runs because they are a great metaphor for life: I surround myself with people I care about who will encourage me but not carry me. I plan for things to be tough and try to accept it without complaint. I strive to do my best, press forward, and celebrate my victories.