Mud Hero Ottawa - the epic birthday shenanigans

Good Sunday morning, everyone.

I take a look at my legs and spot a few more bruises and scabs that I didn't see yesterday. Oh well, at least today we're in it for fun.

Up until now I've never run Mud Hero, and I've only heard good things about it from people of all fitness levels. That, and everyone is always sporting huge grins in the finisher photos and they are extremely muddy. 

I also get my first dose of Bridgehead coffee, hmm this may be my Ottawa go-to to fuel my caffeine habit.

We all gather and await the birthday girl and her entourage - we know something huge is coming up, we won't expect anything less. Plus, they've been very secretive. At some point we spot sombreros...

...they have dressed up as the 3 Amigos! I'd almost walked by them until I spotted someone wearing a team shirt (thanks, Justin)

We mug for photos along with mustaches before heading out to the start line. Already people are noticing the detailed costumes.

One of the plans is to push Tanya the birthday girl in the mud while she's not paying attention. Or perhaps engage her in a mud fight.

Since the race is being held at a paintball site, there's plenty of background decor for shenanigans. But first, some small incline walls to jump over, then some mud and water crossings. Someone gets the idea to ambush Tanya as she emerges out of a wooded area by throwing mud at her. Surprisingly, it holds its shape, almost like a squishy snowball! 

The volunteers are great - full of energy, always encouraging, and of course (un)willing recipients for muddy hugs and high-fives. 

Gotta love paintball terrain settings

Standard obstacles like cargo net climb, Kong (part ladder, part cargo net) climb, seesaw run, Car Park - the one I've been looking forward to, which is jumping across parked cars. And then with about 2km to go, behold the mud crossings.

I've done quite a few of these obstacle course runs where getting muddy is guaranteed, or advertised as "muddiest (insert distance in KM)", but this stretch was maybe amongst the longest mud crawls I've ever encountered. It was either squishy mud that sucked your shoes off, or swampy crossings (where some of us ended up armpit-deep)  

The birthday girl realizing she may be in too deep

I was actually reminded of my first-ever Spartan Race (Tremblant 2011) where the mud crossings were something like what we saw. It's laborious, we hear sucking sounds everywhere, people fall in including Tanya, who somehow blames me because I'm the closest!

The mud doesn't stop and then we get to the huge waterslide. So much fun, enough of a drop to gather speed before we hit a giant pool of water. (Somehow, someone's sombrero stayed on)

Keep your hands inside the ride at all times

Once we think we're de-gunked, then there's a huge mud pit crawl (under some wooden beams) to the finish. Combined with yesterday's event, I don't think I'll be properly clean for a week.

SO. MUDDY. There's even mud bulging in my side pocket!

A cool bonus is swapping the timing chip for a beer - Beau's Lug Tread! Yeah! Another cool bonus - at least 15 of us from the same team signed up so free Team Mud Hero buffs! Yeah yeah!

One of the best weekends so far in my race calendar - I do believe this edition of a birthday run may be something of a benchmark in terms of shenanigans. As for the rest:

- This song, and this song from the Rock Band party (now which one got stuck in your head?)

- en route to Ottawa, Jen remarks, "I think our stuff's beginning to smell now", but we also happened to be passing cows grazing