Mudslingers Conquer Muddy Buddy Orlando

On Friday night we headed to Orlando and did some last minute costume-crafting for our Muddy Buddy race the next morning. Team Mudslingers did something that our normal journalistic-selves wouldn’t be caught dead doing—we bought every trashy National Enquirer-type publication we could get our hands on. Then we cut out choice headlines and pictures to cover our race shirts and bike helmets. Think “Hillary Kidnapped by Aliens.”
    The next morning at Disney’s Wide World of Sports we found a big crowd of people (2,500 participants) with costumes much more outrageous than ours—there were Elvis sightings and orange-cone-headed girls dressed as traffic cops, complete with mustaches. It felt more like a carnival than a race.
     The total off-road course measured 6 to 7 miles, and as we moved up toward the start line, the first men’s waves began finishing and we started to hear course reports. “It’s easy! There’s no sand on the trail,” one racer reported (and lied, as we discovered later). And the comment that struck fear in Jeana’s heart, “ there’s a huge brown thing floating in the mud pit!”
    Finally, our wave reached the start and we split up as we would for the rest of the race, alternating running and biking and trading off the bike after each of the four obstacles. Jeana stayed up front ready to bike, while Kristin headed to the back of the wave with the rest of the runners. Here’s what each of us experienced.

LEG ONE
JD: I pedaled furiously into the unknown with unbridled enthusiasm, completely caught up in the race-start excitement.

KH: The first leg of the run reminded me of my high school cross country running days, looping around a big grass field and along drainage ditches. I passed a cyclist whose bike pedal had fallen off and thought, “thank goodness that’s not Jeana!” I was so excited to finally be running that I reached the first obstacle—a climbing wall—in what felt like just a few minutes.

LEG TWO
JD: After dropping the bike in the transition zone, I ran for what felt like forever. My after-bike spaghetti legs were barely doing the job, and it donned on me that I may have pushed a little too hard on the first bike leg. It didn’t help that I had to make a detour to the restroom. Note to self: Save the water chugging until after the race.

KH: I grabbed our mountain bike, marked with a bright orange bandana we tied around the handlebar, and took off, zipping around the runners. But my speed was short-lived: very quickly I hit thick sand and dirt and had to use a “Granny Gear” to keep the bike moving forward.

JD: Kristin passed by me on the bike and shouted, “Go Mudslingers!” My first instinct was to respond, “I hate you for making me do this,” but instead I gave a half-hearted wave.

KH: By the time I reached the second obstacle, I was out of breath and sweating. I hauled myself up the cargo net and then got to relive my elementary school days by flying down the inflatable slide.

LEG THREE
JD: The deep sand ruts on this leg dampened my biking bravado, and I almost fell off my bike into a spiky palmetto. Once, to push past a particularly hard sand trap, I let out a growl that made another biker laugh hysterically. At least I could help provide entertainment!

KH: This leg felt very long—and very hot. (It was over 90 F.) I was thrilled to be running and not biking as the sand pits and mulch seemed to be never-ending.

LEG FOUR:
JD: My legs were warmed up by now, and I actually found it a little easier to run at this point. I found myself edging off to the side of the trail to get avoid passing bikes that were throwing dirt in my eyes. Add a little sweat to that equation, and I’m pretty sure that I was running blind for most of this leg. “Just keep moving forward and hope you don’t fall into a gator pond,” I thought.

KH: Back on the bike, my quads started to scream at me. And the trail was challenging not just because of the surface—I also had to dodge runners and fellow bikers on a narrow path, making it hard to go around those suck-you-in sand pits.

LEG FIVE:
JD: Honestly, I was so happy this was all about to end. Once inside the Wide World of Sports Plaza (the home stretch), I let it rip.

KH: I got to run the last leg, happy to get out of the woods. I ran up a set of stairs, again glad to be on foot as the bikers had to carry the heavy mountain bikes up. Poor Jeana!

JD: After navigating the stairs and getting frustrated that there was no room to pass the person in front of me, on the home stretch before the pit, I pumped those pedals so hard that when I had to dismount, I almost fell off trying to stop. Go ahead and laugh, some spectators did.

THE MUD PIT:
Reunited after the last transition zone, Team Mudslingers crawled underneath a net before entering the estimated 30-foot-long pit, 7” deep in thick, gooey, nasty mud with pieces of knee-scraping mulch mixed in. We did a Rambo-style crawl on all fours beneath low flags. Spectators screamed at us, “Crawl on your belly! Roll in it!” Jeana yelled back, “You get in here and do it!” By the time we emerged from the pit, we were completely covered and laughing hysterically—officially partners in grime.