Waves were separated by combined age group. Craig’s 52 plus my 28 put us in the CoEd 70-94 group. That meant we would be competing against teams of 35 year olds. Later we decided the waves should be by age plus standard deviation, as we had a large delta between our ages. All 1700 racers were packed onto the paved path around the park. This race is also popular for costumes. We saw a team dressed up as Spiderman, as well as a Viking couple. Most people had their bicycles decorated in order to be able to find them easier at the drop-off points.

The first wave went off at 8:30 am, and we slowly moved forward. By 9 am our wave was ready to go. Bicycles went first, followed by runners. I’m not a fast runner, so I positioned myself off to the side. The gun went off, and Craig left with the front group of bikers. A few minutes later, I was allowed to go with the other runners.

The course started out on a paved path. Surprisingly, this is where I caught up to a biker, already off of her bike and pushing it up the small hill. This was not a good sign, as this was the easiest part of the course. The trail veered off to the right, and the trail run began. We had a pretty good climb on singletrack up a rocky hill, and there were several bikers already dismounted and walking. We reached the top and the flat, and then hit the steep downhill. We had ridden this portion the day before, and knew several people were going to have trouble here. Riders were supposed to dismount for this section, but Craig had kind of hopped off to the side and stood on one pedal and rode the bike down like a scooter. I jumped into the rough section and ran down the hill, passing several bikes. The trail then intersected the beach by the lake. There were ambulances everywhere, as apparently some guy augured into the ground and was being carried out on a back board. The course skirted along the beach up to the lake, and then went INTO the lake. We had discovered this the day before during the pre-ride, and were well aware that we were going to get wet. Some people were freaking out about their shoes getting wet, but I just jumped in the lake and kept running in 3 ft of water around the fence to the other side. I had done the 2 AZ XTERRA tris this year, so I was used to strange twists like this on a race course. Getting up the muddy embankment on the other side was a bit of a challenge, but I did most of my climbing off in the weeds to get traction.

The trail widened at this point into Jeep trail and not far was our first obstacle, the monkey bars. I jumped up and crossed the bars, and then picked up Craig’s bike over by a tree that we had picked out during the pre-ride for him to drop the bike. Luckily, he had already dropped the seat for me. I was now able to get 1 mile of biking in. The trail was clogged with walkers, runners, people walking bikes, and people trying to ride bikes. The annoying thing was people walking bicycles were not all staying to the right to allow riding bikers to pass on the left. So a few times I ended up going between people. I was stuck in a bottleneck of people, and stuck behind a girl who was very twitchy on a mountain bike and having issues at every rough spot. I took the opportunity to pass her on a hill climb, and decided I had to keep riding up the hill to make it through the group. This caused my heart rate to sky rocket. I’ve spent the last 20 weeks training for my first Half Ironman, which was mostly long, slow distance/endurance stuff and not really speedwork. So my body was very inefficient at the higher heart rate. The hill climb ended at a road and a guardrail. We had to lift the bikes over the guardrail and continue on the trail on the other side. Hefting Craig’s bike was the last straw for my body. I was now well past redline and the engine was starting to seize. I started dry heaving (luckily there was nothing in my stomach) and knew I had to calm down quick and get my heart rate under control. I walked alongside the bike up the next hill to try to slow everything down. Thankfully, a downhill was next, so I hopped back on and railed down the hill, yelling that I was passing left to alert the others on the trail. A few bikers were walking down the hill, but I was going to let gravity help me here.

The trail joined up with a horse trail and proceeded through a mud puddle and under a tunnel. We had another climb and then a downhill, followed by a sharp turn at the horse corrals and the next obstacle, a cargo net. Craig was already there waiting for me, so I handed him the bike, took a water bottle and stuffed it into my rear tri jersey pocket, and started climbing the cargo net. It wasn’t too tall, so it was an easy task to complete. The next leg would be about 1.5 miles of running for me. There were several hills to climb, so I slowly trotted along. The trail was littered with decorations from bicycles, and several people were walking with torn bits off of their bikes. It was foggy out that morning, so my glasses were steaming from my sweat on the backside and being sprayed with condensation on the front side, making it difficult to see. I finally just took them off and ran with them in my hand. We finally reached a downhill section. There were bikes coming down the hill as well, so I moved over to the far right, past some rocks and into the rougher stuff. I knew the bikes wouldn’t go in the rough, and there was already a little trail there from other runners that had had the same idea.

Next obstacle up was a low wall. It was a short wooden wall angled on a hillside. You had to jump up on the back side and slide down the ramp on the front side. This is where being a girl had a huge advantage. Bikes were strewn all over the hillside, so I looked for Craig’s mountain goat (stuffed dog toy mounted to the steering stem) and found the bike and was off for my next mile of biking. It was pretty uneventful, as the trail was doubletrack at this point. We had one last final climb in the dirt on this portion before getting onto the pavement. I threw the bike into the big ring and the highest gear and flew down the paved hill. That made for quick work of my last biking leg.

The paved path ended at the park, where the inflatable obstacle was next. I found Craig and handed him the bike, and was off to climb the inflatable. It was about 20 ft high shaped like a large “A”. The front had a cargo net, while the back was a huge slide. I climbed the net and hoped no one above me would fall and take me out, as the pad below us wasn’t that large. I finally reached the top and slid down the slide, landing on the inflatable landing pad. Several people came down after that, which puffed up the section I was on. It was like trying to get out of a huge waterbed with 5 other people bouncing on it. I finally got off and headed out on my last running leg of the race.

The final mile was on singletrack trail right next to the park. From the pre-ride the day before, we knew there were several hills to climb and descend. I was really wishing for my mountain bike at this point, because I could have flown down the hills that lots of people were walking with their bikes. On the downhills I moved over to the side and galloped down the hills, past several people walking bikes. The trail rounded the final corner and popped out into the park. I met up with Craig, who had already ditched the bike in the holding pen. I threw my water bottle and biking gloves over the holding pen wall so that I didn’t need to take them into the mud pit. In hindsight, I should have emptied my water bottle and put my sunglasses inside.

We ran a short ways to the entrance to the mud pit. There was a cargo net over the entrance that we had to crawl over, as this kept people from diving into the pit. The mud was about 1 ft deep. I made the mistake of crawling on my hands and knees, and by the end of the pit my knees were rubbed raw from the sand. We stood up and I grabbed Craig’s arm for the crossing over the finish line.

We finished the race in 1:05, and 51st out of 80-some teams in our age group. After getting a few pics of us all muddy, we went to the community hose-off area, which was just a bunch of garden hoses. Each team got a hose and hosed their partner off to get the majority of the grit off. Craig and I changed clothes, and then went down to the main party area to listen to the raffle and watch the awards ceremony. Adidas was also there as a sponsor and had one of those claw games full of shoes. If you got a shoe they would send you that style in the mail in your size.


I need more running base and speed work. Running is the worst of the 3 sports for me right now, but I'm planning on working on it over the winter.

I'm a mountain biker, so I was kind of bummed that I didn't get to ride more. But Craig isn't a runner (anymore) so I was stuck with the running portion if I wanted a partner.

All in all, it was a really fun event. The 5.5 miles of the course was a good length, as much longer and it would start to get a bit rough. It was also nice that they used a real mountain bike course, rather than paved paths and fireroad. It was a trail that intermediate riders could have fun with. Beginner riders had a bit of a tough time over the more technical features.

I’m going to e-mail Muddy Buddy with the suggestion that they announce at the racer’s meeting for slower runners and people walking bikes to stay on the right of the trail and passing riders stay on the left. Some parts were a bit dangerous because beginner riders were hopping off bikes in the middle of the trail and walking on the left.

So we met our objectives: have fun and don’t get hurt. The last thing I wanted was to end up like that guy on the stretcher, since my Half Ironman was the following weekend. But luckily everything went well for our team. If the scheduling works out, we'll probably be back next year! :)