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 Post race
Warm down: we got some free socks and a frisbee at the expo and rinsed off with the hoses they had set up. we walked back to the camp site, showered, and got on the road. Event comments: this is a great race that everyone should do at least once. it is so much fun and there is no pressure to race it. it is very well done. the course (although not marked with distance) was as well marked as any race. there were arrows every 10 feet. the obstacles were very organized and they had plenty of porta-potties and hoses to clean up after the race. the food was a little light, but they had a free beer tent right along the mud pit so you can cheer people on with beer in hand. that should be added to every race! i would definitely do it again and hope to have more people join us next year. Last updated: 2007-05-21 12:00 AM
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United States
Muddy buddy
80F / 27C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 162/897
Age Group = CO-ED 56-65
Age Group Rank = 11/115
k (kristin) and i have been looking forward to doing the muddy buddy ever since we heard about it a few years ago and were pretty excited that it finally fit in our schedules. we decided to camp at the park. it was closer/cheaper and we really like camping, but don't get to do it that often. it was also a good chance to test out camping before a race since i wasn't a competitive race.
if you haven't heard about muddy buddy, it's basically a team off-road duathlon using 1 bike. one team member is running while the other is biking. there are 5 legs with obstacles in between. at each obstacle you swap so that the other person is biking while you are running. so although you are racing as a team, you are not together on the course until you get to the end. at that point, you dump the bike and crawl through a mud pit to the finish line together. this video shows some of it.
they don't give you a very good description of the obstacles or the course, so we rode the course on sat. to get an idea of what we were in for. we don't really mountain bike, so it was pretty technical to us. we had initially considered using a cyclocross bike, but decided to go with the mountain bike to be safe.
(i don't really have any splits, so i'll just do my rr all here instead of in different sections)
we woke up ~7:00am for an 8:00 start. we were close enough to the start to hear the pre race announcements from the tent. we changed, ate a pb&j and walked over. the expo was pretty decent and they had a costume contest up on stage. we went over to our corals and waited for our wave. it was a lot of waiting, but i knew that it was thinning out the course so i was fine with that. some of the course is a car length wide with runners and bikers all passing each other together.
k started on the bike meaning she would bike 3 legs and run 2 and i would do the opposite. the course was hilly and tough when the sun was beating down, but i love trail running so i was having fun. even though we weren't really concerned with our placing, it was fun racing as a team.
the obstacles were an easy climbing wall, some over/under bars, balance beam, and a climbing net up an inflatable slide. they were not too hard and lots of fun. after each obstacle, you would either grab the bike or take off running depending on what you did previously.
the final leg seemed the longest and toughest. the trail led straight into a thigh deep stream that i had to run to and k had to carry the bike through. i was happy not to have to carry that 40lb thing, but i think she was even happier not to have to run the final mile in wet shoes. it was pleasantly surprised not to have any blister issues and made it to the finish just ahead of k. she dropped off the bike and we made our way to the mud pit. it was thick and painful on your knees, but not that gross. i managed to keep my head and back pretty clean until as i stood to get out of the pit, i was blind-sided by k. she decided to turn into a line backer and full on sack me into the mud. it was hilarious but made me slightly regret not shoving cake in her face at the wedding. she will get hers soon enough...