six9eleven: Camp Pendleton Mud Run 2012 recap

{finally... right?!}

Last Sunday...

I ran the Camp Pendleton World Famous Mud Run.

It's a 10K "race" with several obstacles and several hill climbs.

I had only viewed pictures of this event, so I wasn't really sure what I got myself into.

The day of the race I was more excited than nervous.
I felt I was ready to tackle this course. {minus the river crossing which had me scared poopyless...}

I woke up ~~early~~ the same time I do everyday, 5:00am and fueled. (both myself and the nugget)

I met my carpool mates at 6:00.

We made it to Camp around 7:30,

{the drive once passing the gates took 20 minutes itself}

look at that line of cars...

yah! we made it

and boarded the tram to the race start.

It took awhile for our teams to gather, but once we did, we got our numbers, free T's and checked our bags.

Team Will Run for Beer ready to rock

By this time we had to head to the start. The first three waves had already taken off, which meant OUR turn!!!
Nerves and excitement really set in!

The first quarter mile was pretty bottle necked, so we ended up walking,

then it spaced out so off we were.

Immediately we were wet thanks to the marines spraying the fire hose!
Then we were running on sandy trails and once again bottlenecked at a small creek crossing.
Shoes were filthy and muddy at this point!
Although our 3 teams totaled 13 members, I mostly ran with 6 others as we LED THE WAY <--- yup!

Besides a couple creeks to run through the first 3 miles didn't have obstacles, unless you count the major hill that kept on and on!
Luckily the course was lined with butch marines shouting and encouraging us up the daunting and {what seemed} endless hill.

FINALLY we reached the top and it was all downhill from there...

Not really.

But it was a straight half mile downhill.
then..
We
Reached
Obstacles!!!

First was a large mud pit divided by a 3 foot wall to climb, the pit was up to my knees.

(source)

Then we ran another quarter ish mile and hit the {dreaded} river(!)
Turns out b/c the dry season we've been having, the river only reached our knees!!! Score!

With that outta the way we ran another half mile and reached another mud pit this time with a 5 foot wall, whilst. being sprayed with fire hoses, and then immediately had to crawl through a tunnel!

Thinking we were home free after this we ran our hearts out only to reach ANOTHER HILL! This hill was so steep and MUDDY!! I had to practically crawl up this hill { major reason being I lost both my soles earlier on the coarse}

(source)

After tackling that hill and thinking, ok that's GOT to be the last hill... We fell [not literally, but almost] upon ONE more hill.
That done, it was a treacherous downhill, concluding with one last obstacle, the army crawl. This done in muddy water, however, cool and {somewhat} refreshing!