Muddy Buddy "Team Unwashables" Race Report
Race: Muddy Buddy in Dallas
Location: Cedar Hill State Park
Team name: Unwashables
Course length: 6.3 miles
Number of legs: 5
My sister Alicia and our long-time friend Jamie flew into town specifically to run the Muddy Buddy with Ronnie and me. The race consisted of teams of two switching between running and biking a 6.3-mile course. There's one bike between the two team members. I also invited our cousin Jami and her fiance Sean to run the race. We didn't coordinate very well with Jami and I assumed we would meet up with them at some point before the race. Little did I know there would be 1600+ people there.
Since I had previously perused the pictures on the interweb for other Muddy Buddy races in other cities, I had a pretty good idea that there would be people in costume. This is really more of a fun run than a race, but for the competitively elite, there's still cash prizes at the end. Ronnie let me convince him to wear matching Spartan hats duck taped to our bike helmets. Alicia and Jamie dressed up in angel wings and halos. I taped a red balloon to our bike between the handle bars to make it more easily recognizable, keeping my fingers crossed that it wouldn't pop at some point. Alicia and Jamie covered their bike seat with bright yellow cloth to make theirs more discernable.
Leg#1:
1.1 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
I have to say, I was pretty impressed with how well organized the race was. Each team was placed into a category based on gender and combined age. Each category was assigned a certain color wristband. Then at the start of the race we were all lined up according to our designated color. The bikers in each leg started first, then 30 seconds later the runners were released.
As they called for the orange wrist bands to approach, I inched my way forward on the bike. Ronnie and I were borrowing his friend John's bike, a very tall John, with a very tall bike. Needless to say, the "boy bar" across the bike is too tall for me and I couldn't stand straddling the bike with my feet touching the ground. If I lean to the side, I can have one foot for support. Well, when the race director released the wave of bikes, he *could* have said, "Watch out at the beginning; there's a steep slope just after the starting line that will cause a massive bottle neck, and perhaps some of you with really tall bikes will fall down." That's exactly what happened. As soon as all the bikers in front of me stopped short, I couldn't just put my feet down like they could. So I leaned to the left side to get off. But there were bikers EVERYWHERE and I fell right into the biker on my left with my left pedal ending up in the spokes of her back tire. I had no where to go but fall on top of her. My bike fell on top of me and I ended up with a massive bruise on the inside of my left knee. It's "purty."
After the debacle of a start, I finally got my groove on and headed away from the starting line on my bike. I had no idea how fast I was going or whether or not I would catch up to the previous wave of runners. Shortly before the transition area, I came across this lone runner who looked an awful lot like Sean from behind. I slowed down as I passed him and we briefly exchanged hellos. He looked EXHAUSTED. I can't blame him, after all, he just ran/walked 1.1 miles. But he's got 5.2 miles left in the race!
I dropped the bike in the designated spot, cruised right through the obstacle, and embarked on leg #2. The obstacle was just a cargo net about a foot off the ground that we had to crawl under. Since I was wearing a Spartan helmet on top of my bike helmet, I had to truly duck to get under the cargo net. My hat kept getting stuck! I should have learned my lesson for the mud pit.... more on that.
Leg #2:
1.1 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
I'm not the best runner, nor did I prepare one bit for this race, so I was truly dreading the running portions of the race. The course was also a little hilly (as hilly as Texas can get), so I told myself that no matter how tired I get, I must always at least jog DOWN the hills. It's not really fair to Ronnie for me to walk too much, and the least I could do was jog downhill. I set myself on a pretty even pace, walked very little and made it to the obstacle for leg #2 in no time. I was quite proud of myself for getting into a rhythm. I thought that Ronnie would catch up to me during this leg since the first two legs were pretty even in terms of distance. Did I miss him passing me on the bike? Surely he would at least say hi to me as he passed me to let me know he was ahead of me now. I approached the second obstacle and transition area, and still no Ronnie in sight... will I need to wait for Ronnie to show up with the bike? If anything I thought he would be waiting on me at some point during the race, not the other way around. Turns out the chain fell off of the bike at some point during this leg, so yep, he never passed me up. There was a large group of people waiting on their teammates to show up with the bikes. I think this transition area was the most packed of them all. The obstacle at this leg was an 8-foot tall rock climbing wall with a cargo net down the back side. Really easy. I stepped to the side and waited for Ronnie to show up with the bike. Since I passed up Sean right there at the end of Leg 1, I thought I might be able to catch up to Jami, perhaps on leg #3. Lo and behold, just as I predicted, I caught up to Jami. She was waiting for Sean to show up with their shared bike. I told her if she didn't mind waiting for about 30 seconds (Ronnie was in sight) then we could continue the race together.
Leg #3:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
I jumped on the bike and headed out with Jami. During leg #2, Ronnie had raised the seat to accommodate for his height. I didn't check the bike seat before I got on the bike and quickly discovered it was too tall for me. I had to stop racing, and get off the bike to lower the seat. For some reason I couldn't get the lever to push down all the way, but I thought it was far enough to where it wouldn't get in the way. I got back on the bike and pedaled a few more feet. I was wrong.... the lever handle kept scraping my leg. This was NOT going to fly for the rest of the race. So I got off the bike AGAIN, (I told Jami to go on ahead without me) and pushed with all my might to get the lever down. No budge. All of a sudden, Ronnie jogs right up and helps me out. It didn't take him long to get over that obstacle and catch up!
After that, leg #3 was pretty uneventful. I caught up with Jami again and we worked our way to the next obstacle. At one point, the course took us off the normal pavement onto a "trail". I air-quoted trail because it seemed more like a dirt road than a trail. Jami and I were able to bike most of it side by side, each riding along in our tire groove. We soon approached what I thought might be the transition area. There was this black plastic tarp "wall" perhaps 2 feet in height blocking the trail. We had to stop and pick our bikes up and over it. Not sure if that is normally there in the park or if they put that up specifically for the race. I'm guessing the latter, but I didn't get a really good look at it, so I'm not too sure.
Jami and I made it to the third transition area, leaving our bikes to be picked up by our teammates, and "dominated" the obstacle before starting on leg #4. This time the obstacle consisted of walking across a balance beam. There were about 6 balance beams in parallel about 20 feet in length, roughly 4-ish feet off the ground. I stayed on one beam the whole time. They were wide enough to practically run across them. Some guys next to me had one foot on one beam and another on another beam since they were so close together. This chick in front of me took about 2 steps, then jumped off and skipped the rest of the balance beam. She didn't even try!
Leg #4:
1.3 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
Jami and I stuck together the whole leg of this race. Since we finally had the chance to talk, I learned that she had actually been training for this race, running a mile on the treadmill often over the past two weeks. Despite that, she still felt unprepared for this race, as did I. At one point during our run, Jami tripped over her own two feet and almost face planted on the ground. It was scary. Shortly afterwards she talked about how running on a treadmill is much easier than running on the ground. I agree! Here are running together. Jami's just to the left of me, cropped out by the photographer.
Ronnie passed us up about a third of the way through this leg.
Sean never passed us up, nor did we see him when the course did a u-turn on itself for a short while. Jami and I again tackled the obstacle together. It was a giant inflatable "triangle" with a rope ladder up one side and a big slide down the other side. I easily spotted our bike among the sea of bikes, thanks to the red balloon.
Leg #5:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
Since I didn't know how far back Sean was, I decided to leave Jami and bike the last leg on my own. I wasn't sure if I would be able to catch up to Ronnie or not. He seemed pretty far ahead when he passed us up, and I didn't run nearly as much on leg #4 as I might have if Jami hadn't nearly face planted. We took it a little easy after that occurred.
By this time, I was tired and my thighs hurt pretty bad from all the biking. All that downhill running I had earlier in the race resulted in one big gigantic uphill biking right here at the end. At one point I had to get off my bike and walk it; others around me were doing the same.
The last obstacle: The MUD PIT!!
By the time I got the end of leg #5, Ronnie had been waiting for me for about 5 minutes. We approached the mud pit together and crawled through. We had to crawl UNDER the little flags, as you can see in the photo. Just like at the obstacle for the first leg of the race, my hat kept getting stuck on those darn flags! I looked up just in time to see Ronnie do a face dive into the mud, pleasing all the racers who were egging him on to "Get Dirty!" When he came up, his Spartan hat caught on the rope again and he had a hard time getting untangled.
The photo below shows us actually crossing the finish line. I had to lead Ronnie there by hand since he was nearly blind from the mud in his face.
After we got our faces and hands cleaned off, we waited with our cousins for Jamie & Sean and Alicia & Jamie to finish. Jamie & Sean were only about 5 minutes behind us, but we missed them since there were so many people around. Our cousins Christa & Sarah only lived about 10 minutes away from the park, so they gave up their Sunday morning to hang out and support us!
Results:
The Unwashables: 1:06:12 - 74 out of 88 teams in our age division.
Muddy Aces (Alicia & Jamie): 1:12:12 - 51 out 57 teams
Robot Nightmare (Jami & Sean) 1:25:05 - 60 out of 61 teams
All in all, a fun time. I'd do it again. Anybody want to race with us next year?
Location: Cedar Hill State Park
Team name: Unwashables
Course length: 6.3 miles
Number of legs: 5
My sister Alicia and our long-time friend Jamie flew into town specifically to run the Muddy Buddy with Ronnie and me. The race consisted of teams of two switching between running and biking a 6.3-mile course. There's one bike between the two team members. I also invited our cousin Jami and her fiance Sean to run the race. We didn't coordinate very well with Jami and I assumed we would meet up with them at some point before the race. Little did I know there would be 1600+ people there.
Since I had previously perused the pictures on the interweb for other Muddy Buddy races in other cities, I had a pretty good idea that there would be people in costume. This is really more of a fun run than a race, but for the competitively elite, there's still cash prizes at the end. Ronnie let me convince him to wear matching Spartan hats duck taped to our bike helmets. Alicia and Jamie dressed up in angel wings and halos. I taped a red balloon to our bike between the handle bars to make it more easily recognizable, keeping my fingers crossed that it wouldn't pop at some point. Alicia and Jamie covered their bike seat with bright yellow cloth to make theirs more discernable.
Leg#1:
1.1 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
I have to say, I was pretty impressed with how well organized the race was. Each team was placed into a category based on gender and combined age. Each category was assigned a certain color wristband. Then at the start of the race we were all lined up according to our designated color. The bikers in each leg started first, then 30 seconds later the runners were released.
As they called for the orange wrist bands to approach, I inched my way forward on the bike. Ronnie and I were borrowing his friend John's bike, a very tall John, with a very tall bike. Needless to say, the "boy bar" across the bike is too tall for me and I couldn't stand straddling the bike with my feet touching the ground. If I lean to the side, I can have one foot for support. Well, when the race director released the wave of bikes, he *could* have said, "Watch out at the beginning; there's a steep slope just after the starting line that will cause a massive bottle neck, and perhaps some of you with really tall bikes will fall down." That's exactly what happened. As soon as all the bikers in front of me stopped short, I couldn't just put my feet down like they could. So I leaned to the left side to get off. But there were bikers EVERYWHERE and I fell right into the biker on my left with my left pedal ending up in the spokes of her back tire. I had no where to go but fall on top of her. My bike fell on top of me and I ended up with a massive bruise on the inside of my left knee. It's "purty."
After the debacle of a start, I finally got my groove on and headed away from the starting line on my bike. I had no idea how fast I was going or whether or not I would catch up to the previous wave of runners. Shortly before the transition area, I came across this lone runner who looked an awful lot like Sean from behind. I slowed down as I passed him and we briefly exchanged hellos. He looked EXHAUSTED. I can't blame him, after all, he just ran/walked 1.1 miles. But he's got 5.2 miles left in the race!
I dropped the bike in the designated spot, cruised right through the obstacle, and embarked on leg #2. The obstacle was just a cargo net about a foot off the ground that we had to crawl under. Since I was wearing a Spartan helmet on top of my bike helmet, I had to truly duck to get under the cargo net. My hat kept getting stuck! I should have learned my lesson for the mud pit.... more on that.
Leg #2:
1.1 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
I'm not the best runner, nor did I prepare one bit for this race, so I was truly dreading the running portions of the race. The course was also a little hilly (as hilly as Texas can get), so I told myself that no matter how tired I get, I must always at least jog DOWN the hills. It's not really fair to Ronnie for me to walk too much, and the least I could do was jog downhill. I set myself on a pretty even pace, walked very little and made it to the obstacle for leg #2 in no time. I was quite proud of myself for getting into a rhythm. I thought that Ronnie would catch up to me during this leg since the first two legs were pretty even in terms of distance. Did I miss him passing me on the bike? Surely he would at least say hi to me as he passed me to let me know he was ahead of me now. I approached the second obstacle and transition area, and still no Ronnie in sight... will I need to wait for Ronnie to show up with the bike? If anything I thought he would be waiting on me at some point during the race, not the other way around. Turns out the chain fell off of the bike at some point during this leg, so yep, he never passed me up. There was a large group of people waiting on their teammates to show up with the bikes. I think this transition area was the most packed of them all. The obstacle at this leg was an 8-foot tall rock climbing wall with a cargo net down the back side. Really easy. I stepped to the side and waited for Ronnie to show up with the bike. Since I passed up Sean right there at the end of Leg 1, I thought I might be able to catch up to Jami, perhaps on leg #3. Lo and behold, just as I predicted, I caught up to Jami. She was waiting for Sean to show up with their shared bike. I told her if she didn't mind waiting for about 30 seconds (Ronnie was in sight) then we could continue the race together.
Leg #3:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
I jumped on the bike and headed out with Jami. During leg #2, Ronnie had raised the seat to accommodate for his height. I didn't check the bike seat before I got on the bike and quickly discovered it was too tall for me. I had to stop racing, and get off the bike to lower the seat. For some reason I couldn't get the lever to push down all the way, but I thought it was far enough to where it wouldn't get in the way. I got back on the bike and pedaled a few more feet. I was wrong.... the lever handle kept scraping my leg. This was NOT going to fly for the rest of the race. So I got off the bike AGAIN, (I told Jami to go on ahead without me) and pushed with all my might to get the lever down. No budge. All of a sudden, Ronnie jogs right up and helps me out. It didn't take him long to get over that obstacle and catch up!
After that, leg #3 was pretty uneventful. I caught up with Jami again and we worked our way to the next obstacle. At one point, the course took us off the normal pavement onto a "trail". I air-quoted trail because it seemed more like a dirt road than a trail. Jami and I were able to bike most of it side by side, each riding along in our tire groove. We soon approached what I thought might be the transition area. There was this black plastic tarp "wall" perhaps 2 feet in height blocking the trail. We had to stop and pick our bikes up and over it. Not sure if that is normally there in the park or if they put that up specifically for the race. I'm guessing the latter, but I didn't get a really good look at it, so I'm not too sure.
Jami and I made it to the third transition area, leaving our bikes to be picked up by our teammates, and "dominated" the obstacle before starting on leg #4. This time the obstacle consisted of walking across a balance beam. There were about 6 balance beams in parallel about 20 feet in length, roughly 4-ish feet off the ground. I stayed on one beam the whole time. They were wide enough to practically run across them. Some guys next to me had one foot on one beam and another on another beam since they were so close together. This chick in front of me took about 2 steps, then jumped off and skipped the rest of the balance beam. She didn't even try!
Leg #4:
1.3 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
Jami and I stuck together the whole leg of this race. Since we finally had the chance to talk, I learned that she had actually been training for this race, running a mile on the treadmill often over the past two weeks. Despite that, she still felt unprepared for this race, as did I. At one point during our run, Jami tripped over her own two feet and almost face planted on the ground. It was scary. Shortly afterwards she talked about how running on a treadmill is much easier than running on the ground. I agree! Here are running together. Jami's just to the left of me, cropped out by the photographer.
Ronnie passed us up about a third of the way through this leg.
Sean never passed us up, nor did we see him when the course did a u-turn on itself for a short while. Jami and I again tackled the obstacle together. It was a giant inflatable "triangle" with a rope ladder up one side and a big slide down the other side. I easily spotted our bike among the sea of bikes, thanks to the red balloon.
Leg #5:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
Since I didn't know how far back Sean was, I decided to leave Jami and bike the last leg on my own. I wasn't sure if I would be able to catch up to Ronnie or not. He seemed pretty far ahead when he passed us up, and I didn't run nearly as much on leg #4 as I might have if Jami hadn't nearly face planted. We took it a little easy after that occurred.
By this time, I was tired and my thighs hurt pretty bad from all the biking. All that downhill running I had earlier in the race resulted in one big gigantic uphill biking right here at the end. At one point I had to get off my bike and walk it; others around me were doing the same.
The last obstacle: The MUD PIT!!
By the time I got the end of leg #5, Ronnie had been waiting for me for about 5 minutes. We approached the mud pit together and crawled through. We had to crawl UNDER the little flags, as you can see in the photo. Just like at the obstacle for the first leg of the race, my hat kept getting stuck on those darn flags! I looked up just in time to see Ronnie do a face dive into the mud, pleasing all the racers who were egging him on to "Get Dirty!" When he came up, his Spartan hat caught on the rope again and he had a hard time getting untangled.
The photo below shows us actually crossing the finish line. I had to lead Ronnie there by hand since he was nearly blind from the mud in his face.
After we got our faces and hands cleaned off, we waited with our cousins for Jamie & Sean and Alicia & Jamie to finish. Jamie & Sean were only about 5 minutes behind us, but we missed them since there were so many people around. Our cousins Christa & Sarah only lived about 10 minutes away from the park, so they gave up their Sunday morning to hang out and support us!
Results:
The Unwashables: 1:06:12 - 74 out of 88 teams in our age division.
Muddy Aces (Alicia & Jamie): 1:12:12 - 51 out 57 teams
Robot Nightmare (Jami & Sean) 1:25:05 - 60 out of 61 teams
All in all, a fun time. I'd do it again. Anybody want to race with us next year?