Mudderella Capital Region, my very first mud run! I never thought much about doing a mud run until I heard about this race from a friend of mine. Now what exactly is Mudderella? Mudderella is a 5-7 mile long muddy obstacle course designed by women (yay for girl power ha). The race included 12-15 obstacles and is not competitive at all (which is just what I needed). I had just ran two 5k’s that week so I am glad that this race was just for fun. I signed up to do this race with two other friends, but unfortunately one of them ended up getting injured and had to back out. We had a 9:45am start time so I met my friend in DC at her place at 8am and I of course had my usual two pieces of toast with apple butter for breakfast. My friend ended up stopping at McDonald’s for breakfast (I don’t know how she did it). It took us about 40 or so minutes to get to the off-site parking at John Hopkins University. Parking was $15 and we had to take about a 20 minute shuttle ride to get to the event location at High Point Farms in Clarksburg, Maryland. When we got there it was already pretty crowded. There was a section to put tattoos on so we put the word “Strong” on our cheeks and we wrote our bib numbers on our arm. We used those god awful porta potties, checked our bags and then went over to the starting location. At the starting line, music was playing and there was an instructor who led us in a warm up. It was pretty crowded so it was hard to warm up without bumping into someone, but the instructor had great energy and it was a good start to the race. After the warm up we were off. The sun was out and it was HOTT. Since this race was just for fun (and not even timed at all), I decided to stay with my friend and run at her pace. I took my fitbit off because I did not want to risk ruining it so it was weird not knowing my time or pace.

Along the course were signs for motivational quotes which I absolutely loved! I cannot remember what the first obstacle was, but here are some of the ones that we did:

I was able to get a pretty cool picture at the Down to the Wire Obstacle. I scraped my elbows up a bit doing this.

              

There was another obstacle where we crawled under this muddy inflatable that had a ton of soap bubbles. I was pretty soapy at the end of it.

Hat Trick was probably my favorite obstacle. This was the last one we had to do before crossing the finish line. I got a little bit of water up my nose, but that muddy pool water was refreshing!

After the race we received our headbands, protein bars, and jerky. I took a few pure protein bars home for later. We also received free beer. I took a few sips of some shock top and gave the rest to my friend. I feel like I am probably the only runner who does not really like beer. Thankfully they had outdoor showers that we were able to clean off at. The tattoos were the hardest part to get off along with my number that I had written on my arm. I could not tell if it was still on me or it was a tan line. The girl next to me said it looked like both.

Overall, everyone was very friendly and I very much enjoyed this race. Who knew obstacle runs could be so much fun? Here is to running Spartan next weekend and I am sure it will be nothing compared to this race!