Muddy Buddy Race Report

Otherwise known as the funnest race ever!

On Saturday, my sister and I left our boys with our husbands and Grandma and Grandpa and headed to REI for packet pick-up.  It was nice to get away for a little while and spend some time with just my sister.  When we got our packet, the volunteer told us that we were one of the first 50 teams to register, so we got the special tech-tee race shirt!  I think we said a loud, "Woohoo" and did some high fives right there.  It was pretty funny!  Check out the shirt:

We spent the rest of the afternoon finalizing our costumes and finishing up the last minute details.  When we registered, we had to come up with a team name on the spot.  For some reason I choose, "Sisters That Rock!"  We used that name to inspire our costumes.  Here we are in all our glory!

I found the crazy wigs in the Target dollar spot for $1!  Because we had to wear our helmets during the entire race, we decided to sew the wigs onto our helmets.  It's a little hard to see, but we also sewed a pink and black guitar on the fish nets right above our knee.

We painted the back of our shirts to complete the costume.  :) 










The Race:
For those of you that don't know what the Muddy Buddy race is, it's basically a "race" where you and your partner run and bike and complete obstacles along the way.  One person starts off biking, then your partner starts running 2 minutes later.  You ride/run a set distance, come to a transition area, drop the bike off, complete an obstacle, and do the next leg.  If you start as a biker, you leave as a runner, and vice versa.  Overall, this race consisted of 5 legs and 4 obstacles for a total of 6.6 miles.  You finish the race side by side with your partner crawling through a huge mud pit!  You are not required to wear a costume, but it is highly encouraged! 


Costume Contest:
Before the race started, we had the costume contest.  Everyone commented on our costumes, especially the crazy helmet hair, but there were some pretty awesome costumes.  The winning team ended up being "Code Brown."  They were wearing hospital gowns that opened in the back to reveal a huge depends diaper filled with brown "poop."  It was awesome and they totally deserved to win.  I can't even imagine what it must have been like to run and ride in that!  Ha ha!


Let's do this!
Pretty soon, it was time to start!  Even though we were doing this for fun, we were both sooo nervous!  It was pretty funny.  I had no idea what to expect since the course map was basically a cartoon drawing.  Plus, it's probably been close to 10 years since I rode a mountain bike.  


The whistle blew and I was off!  The first 3/4M was all uphill on the road, so I was able to pass everyone in my wave before I got on the trail.  Once on the trail I got so nervous!  Because it was a wave start, and we were in the last wave, there were so many people on the trail.  Although the runners were supposed to stay on the right and the bikers on the left, in some places, there was no room to pass.  It was pretty scary in some spots.  Plus, some areas were really sandy and I was terrified of crashing!  All I could think about was crashing into the prickly bushes.  But, it never happened!  I don't know what came over me, but suddenly I had no fear.  I rode that mountain bike like I knew what I was doing and it was awesome!


I got to the first transition area, dropped off the bike, and completed the first obstacle (the low crawl).  The picture to the left isn't from the race, but it was the closest image I could find to the actual obstacle.  As I was going through it, all I could think about was how glad I was that I had my tri shorts on under my skirt!  Ha ha! :)


Then I was off running!  I have to say that living at a higher elevation, then racing at a lower elevation is awesome!  My lungs felt amazing and I literally ran as fast as I could to the next transition area.  I passed so many people and it was awesome!  I know we were doing this for fun, but something about being in a race always brings out my competitive side.  :)  


Before I knew it, I was at the next transition area.  The next obstacle was this rock wall/rope wall thing.  It was pretty fun actually to go up and over it!  I finished and waited for my sister to finish her bike leg.  Now, I have to say that the bike leg she did was soooo tough!  It was practically all deep sand with lots of turns.  With the amount of people on the course, it would have been almost impossible to actually ride the bike during that part.  I felt so bad for her, but before I knew it, I saw her blue helmet head coming my way!  I gave her a high-five, said some, "Woohoos," grabbed the bike from her and was off to the next leg.


My bike section started with a huge hill.  There was no way that I could ride up it, especially since I was starting from a standstill, so I ran up the hill with the bike.  As soon as it flattened out I hopped on and started riding again.  This was the most technical bike section for me.  There were a lot of downhills with deep sand and rock pits at the bottom and all I wanted to do was hit my brakes and go slow.  BUT, with a mountain bike and sand, I knew that was the last thing I should do.  So, I held on for dear life, cruised down the hills, and made it past the sand and up the other side!  I was so happy! YAY!  Again, this leg seemed to fly by and pretty soon I was at the next transition area.  I dropped off the bike, completed the obstacle (balance beam), and took off running again.


Now, every time I got on the bike, these guys would pass me because they were obviously stronger riders.  The funny thing though is that once we got on the run I would catch up to them and they would just start laughing.  At one point, I passed one guy and he said, "I knew that was you coming up behind me!"  It was pretty fun because it continued throughout the whole race.  

While I was running, my sister passed me on the bike!  We screamed, "Yay...go sisters that rock!" and kept on going.  Finally, I made it to the last obstacle, and it was a blast!  It was a 20ft. blow up wall where you had to climb up it with ropes, then go down a big slide on the other side.  I got to the top, slid down, and surprised myself by screaming a little bit! Ha ha!  My skirt totally flew up and when I got to the bottom I said, "Thank god I  had shorts on under that" and all the guys laughed!  


I hopped on the bike for the last leg.  Half way through the leg I passed my sister running.  It was so much fun to see her again! :)  We said some more, "Woohoos" and kept going.  I made it to the final transition area, turned the bike upside down, and waited for my sister to come in.  Here are some pics my husband got of me coming in.

Yes, I am a total dork!  I saw my husband, boys, and dad and decided to do a little "Woohoo" with my hands in the air for them!  Ha ha!

It was so great to see my family at the end, but I think my boys were a little taken aback by my costume.  I'm not quite sure they recognized me...ha ha! :)

My sister coming in strong!  See the blue crazy hair??











The Mud Pit:
We locked hands, and headed towards the mud pit!  We saw my mom, niece, and nephew to the side cheering us on.  My sister just went for it and started crawling..it was awesome.

The mud was sooo deep and FREEZING!  We crawled, and crawled, and crawled, and finally made it out!

Here we are, muddy and cold and loving it! :)

We ended up getting 2nd in our AG with a time of 58:52!!!  Woohoo!!!  

We truly are SISTERS THAT ROCK! :)  

Overall, this race was a complete blast and so much fun to do with my sister! It was a little harder than I thought it would be, but that's what made it so fun!  I would definitely do it again, and highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a fun, but challenging race to do.