Last Saturday three friends and I woke up at 8AM, donned flesh colored uni-tards and black tutus and set out for the Del Mar Fairgrounds in northern San Diego. Why on earth do you ask? The VAVi Sports’ Del Mar Mud Run, of course!

This year VAVi sports once again brought the mud and the fun to the Del Mar fairgrounds. All in all this is a good natured, fun (but very dirty) 5K obstacle course. It’s designed to test your running, wading, jumping and balancing skills throughout a VERY mud intensive course. There are 20 obstacles throughout the 3.1 mile course including seven mud pits, a couple of tire obstacles, some rope obstacles and jumping/scaling walls to name a few.

The course starts in the infield at the horse track. There are six start times available, every hour from 8AM until 1PM. The most popular times (9AM, 10AM and 11AM) sell out first while the 12PM and 1PM slots remained open for walk-up registrants who just happened to wake up with the itch to get dirty. We decided to put ourselves smack dab in the middle with the 10AM start, so it was definitely crowded. One of the biggest complaints I had from my first mud run (unrelated event) was waiting in line at obstacles. Thankfully though, the race directors at VAVi got this right. They sent each wave off in 100 participant mini-waves in order to alleviate some crowding. A practice some other race directors would do well to follow.

Mud. It's what's for breakfast.

We set off and within the first 100 feet, we were throttled with a fire hose and about 100 yards later we were greeted with the first mud pit, Mud Pit Alpha. At this point it dawned on us that for this event, if you’re going to do this you had better be all in. Be prepared to dive in head first and belly crawl many times over before the day is out. My team quickly found out that tutus, while light and fluffy when dry, get very heavy when wet and drenched in mud.

Slippery when wet would be an understatement.

The entire 5K course loops though the horse training area packed with obstacles such as wall climbs, a mud slide, a muddy rope climb, tire jump walls, monkey bars and, of course Mud Pits Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot and Golf. Eventually, you come out of the stable area and make the turn for the finish. One last rope swing and the finish shoot and you’re there! A lot dirtier than when you started, but you’ve finished nonetheless.

Notice the lack of lines before the obstacle, as it should be.

Now for the important stuff… here’s what we thought:

Course: B   This is a good course. Considering the number of participants, the obstacles are far enough apart to disperse the crowd but close enough together that you’re not simply running for more than a quarter mile or so at a time. The one complaint our group had was that the last mile is sort of void of obstacles. Participants find themselves running through the horse stables looking for obstacles only to find the stink of horse poop.

Organization: A   The race organizers got this right. There were two options for packet pick-up. If you registered enough time in advance you could have your packet mailed. Otherwise there were two packet pick-ups the two days prior to the race. If you are traveling from far away, the race directors can make an exception and allow you to pick up your packet the day of the race at the registration tent. The spread out start times and mini-waves kept the overcrowding and waiting at obstacles to a minimum. The obstacles and course were well staffed with volunteers, who didn’t complain if a participant wanted to give them a muddy hug. The obstacles were well constructed and there were no mishaps with malfunctioning rope swings or anything of the sort that would cause an obstacle to be shut down for a portion of the runners. Most importantly, there were no lines at the beer tent at the finish line. Did I mention a free beer with your registration?

Atmosphere: A   The one thing I noticed is that depending on your start time the atmosphere seemed to shift dramatically. I wasn’t there for the earlier start times but would imagine that in these waves you found your more serious runners who were trying to complete the course as fast as they could. As the start times passed, you began to see more and more costumes and teams out there just to have a good time and get dirty. The 10AM start had a bit of both, but luckily the serious runners got themselves to the front of the pack and left those of us in ridiculous costumes to fend for ourselves in the middle of the pack. By the time we left the fairgrounds and the 1PM racers were making their way in, the ridiculousness of costumes seemed to multiply… as did the number of runners whose pre-race preparation appeared to have included more Bloody Mary than sports drink. The finish line had some great vendors, what looked like good food and a good DJ. Did I mention free beer yet? Oh, right. I did.

Logistics: B   There are a couple of complaints here. 1) it is a long walk from the parking lot to the start area. I think our walk to and from may have been longer than the actual race! 2) the event advertises showers at the finish line for racers to rinse the mud off… this was more of a mist that did very little to clean anything off of anyone that had actually enjoyed the course to its full potential. The good things were the easy starting line. No need to get there an hour in advance; port-a-potty lines were short and manageable and the Del Mar Fairgrounds are fairly easy to get to from San Diego, Orange County and the other surrounding areas.

Overall: A-   I think what makes these mud runs fun is if the course keeps you constantly entertained (no long spells of no obstacles), no waiting in line to complete obstacles, a good finish line celebration and a good group of friends to accompany you along the way. I got all of these things for the most part. What makes a race director a good one is if they recognize where there is room for improvement and making changes from event to event. I had a chance to speak to the race director here after the race and he definitely recognized their weaknesses – The showers were ineffective (but rigged up differently than they had been engineered) and the lack of obstacles in the last mile (unavoidable due to the layout of the venue). Last year some of the obstacles had to be shut down because of malfunctioning scaffolds and the like. This year that was corrected and all the participants got to enjoy every muddy bit of the course. Overall, this is a fun course that can be tackled by participants of all ages and ability levels. If you’re looking for a good mud run in SoCal this is a sure thing.

VAVi puts on another obstacle course (slightly less muddy, I think) in Los Angeles on November 5. Registration is still open and if that one goes as well as this one and you’re into those sort of events, you should think about putting it on your calendar.

-Tracy

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