Mud and Blood Obstacle Race

A golden painted nail was our trophy for completing the 5k Hard As Nails Obstacle Mud Race.

Hello all, it's the weekend!

I stumbled across another event in the newspaper pitching an obstacle mud race. The Hard As Nails Obstacle Mud Race is a 5k race loaded with at least 15 obstacles (we had 17) using the unique park terrain near the Westin hotel in Westminster. The event supports the Westminster Legacy Foundation and Growing Home nonprofits. This was their second annual race.

I mulled it over awhile. I used to run track in middle school, granted, those were the 400 meter relay and 100/300 meter hurdles. All sprints that let me go all out for short distances, to which I often outpaced the competition. I could walk into eternity, but I paled at any distances I had to run for more than a mile and a half.

With these thoughts in mind I also weighed my shoes (on their last threads) and the unpredictable weather against buying tickets to run this race. The polar bear shirt in my armoire reminded me of the frigid plunge I'd done on the first of the year and my new approach to these sorts of events.

DO IT!

The only taker I could secure, much like that Boulder Polar Plunge, was my sister. She had flown in on a redeye the morning prior and was amped to tackle this beast despite her exhaustion. And she was feeling it this morning.

We arrived at the Westin hotel in Westminster a little after 8:30 a.m., signed up for the 10:15 wave because the 10 was full, got our race-day swag and gear checked in, then we walked around the Promenade to kill time--examining some of the obstacles as we went.

I mentioned the Westin's fountain was part of the race and my sister gave me an ugly look. She didn't mind getting muddy but she had no intention of getting soaked. I didn't relish jumping into cold water as a first obstacle, but I would if I had to. Thank goodness it was getting warmer out.

The Westin hotel fountain was the second obstacle on the Hard As Nails Obstacle Mud Race.

We headed back and waited for our wave after watching a few previous heats take off. I was concerned as my sister slumped in my lap on the curb, jet-lagged and tired. We had a long run ahead of us.

The starting line of the race in the Westin parking lot.

Obstacle 1: Bane of my Existence (Westin stairs)

I was not excited to start with stairs. I hate stairs. We lined up when we were called, chanted the "Hard As Nails" vamp, and took off after the countdown. My sleepy sibling took the lead on the first obstacle, 14 flights of stairs up the hotel, but she did wait for me at the top. I give her that one. I'm pleased to report I'm not the only one who was wheezing by the sixth floor. We walked across the top floor on plastic wrap and headed right back down again to egress almost immediately to the second obstacle.

Obstacle 2: Westin Fountain

My sister and I skirted the large team dressed in yellow and jogged to the fountain edge where a volunteer handed us our inner tubes. Darcie flipped immediately on entry while I paddled as best I could on the awkward flotation device. The water was frigid and my shoes immediately swamped. Wiping my eyes as I rounded the drumming fountain, I worked my way back to the steps and returned the tube, waiting for my soaking sibling. We both felt drained after this one. The. Second. Obstacle.

Obstacle 3: Mud Mixer 

This two-foot-high mud pit with netting strung atop the walls forced us to our bellies. Two runner number signs were caught on the netting and I laughed at that. Until we got down in the muck. Darcie scuttled well ahead of me in the first half as I ground to a very slow crawl. The grit and clots dug into my knees and I struggled to make decent headway. We surfaced with our fronts completely covered. Which turned out to be fine because the next obstacle...

Obstacle 4: Dumpster Dive

I thought these dumpsters would be filled with cardboard boxes. They weren't. The rickety wooden steps lifted us to reveal dumpsters filled with, you guessed it, more frigid water. Plunging in, Darcie and I raced each other to the ladder at the end of the first dumpster, leapt into the second, and front-crawl frenzied to the end. Darcie beat me here. We surfaced from this one washed clean, sopping and freezing our buns. My shoes once again swamped so badly, each step bled water from the aerating holes.

Obstacle 5: Rock Garden

Next up was at least a quarter-mile stretch of river rock in a ditch, littered with weeds that cut up my legs. This is where the blood of the 'mud and blood' race came in. I picked my way as carefully as I could, loosing my footing a couple times but not twisting anything, but I did emerge with cut and bloodied shins.

Obstacle 6: Surprise!

This under-bridge crossing was supposed to be a rope shimmy, which turned into a hold-the-rope-while-walking-the-frigid-stream crossing for me. My sister went gusto and hauled herself across the rope Mission Impossible style. She had rope burns on her calves after that. We immediately went up to cross back over the bridge we had just sloshed under.

Obstacle 7: River Cutter

Back into the frigid deep (seriously, the water was cold! EVERY TIME!), we wound our way through two river crossings in water that rose up to our thighs. The current was pretty strong in some places and the water so dirty I couldn't see the rocks I kept kicking. We opted to hold hands to keep the other from going headfirst into the water. Up and down banks we went until we dipped into the eighth obstacle...

Obstacle 8: Breaker Mound

A vertical wall reared up on the far side of the stream with knotted, muddied climbing ropes bolted to the top to help us surmount this beast. I attempted the moderate slope and, because of my treadless shoes, I could not gain the purchase to haul myself upward. (Meanwhile, Darcie yanked herself up the hardest section to the cheers of the staff.) I meekly made my way to the easiest slope with the added humiliation of sinking into river mud up to my knee. Another runner was kind enough to help me out and I scrambled up the easy section with no hangups.

Obstacle 9: Rubber Ladder

That standard football training lineup of rubber tires waited here, with an extra level of difficulty in squeezing through a raised hoop before another stretch of tires. Darcie took the lead, then I did after the hoop, then Darcie went flying by as she skipped a tire every step. How that girl didn't break her ankles is beyond me. I felt pretty tired after this obstacle.

Obstacle 10: Sand bagging

This next obstacle was probably the most obstacle race of them all: We had to fill these nylon bags with sand, run to a designated point up a hill (maybe 50 feet away) then come back and dump the bag. There were shovels and trowels to do the work. Darcie took the shovel, I scooped away with the trowel. Once again, my sister left me in the dust, sand, and hauled her bag to the point, beating me back to the sand pile. This was the tired girl from earlier? We had another tiny creek crossing before the next one.

Obstacle 11: Scaffold Climb

We stopped at a water station and each threw back a cup of water before pressing on. I assumed we were roughly halfway through.

Finally, I got one back in my court. After dumping the silt out of our shoes, we lined up to race to the top. These stairs are part of the rec center park. I'm not sure how many steps there are, but I went charging up them two at a time and I nabbed this 'event' from my conquering sibling. Pretty straightforward here.

Obstacle 12: Demolition Pit

A skateboarding bowl, we were tasked to slide into the concrete depression and run back up out of it. There were different levels of difficulty. Darcie took off her shoes and ran up the double diamond while I took the intermediate wall. My first attempt, my arms failed me and I slid right back down to the base on my belly, leaving a wet mark. The second I succeeded, shocked to see Darcie already waiting for me. I demanded she run it again because I did not bear witness and therefore did not believe her. She ran it again and got it her first try. Showoff.

The Shivering Slide obstacle awaits us in the distance at the rec center of the Westminster park.

Obstacle 13: Shivering Slide

By far my favorite, this some 200-foot slide was touted as the longest water slide in Colorado. We both decided to scream down the slide together on our bellies. We took a running start and did indeed go screaming down the bumpy plastic ride. I recall trying to slow myself down, to no avail, slipping along a seam, and getting water in my eyes. I was airborne at one point. And at the bottom I ended up on my back somehow. Darcie was in worse shape having not lifted her head for some of the nastier bumps. I scolded her for doing the same thing when we jumped off the rock at Waimea Bay--a 30 foot drop you have got to land feet first. Did I have to coach her through everything? She laughed.
Walking around the park was bitterly cold after getting drenched again on the slide. The wind didn't help things either.

Obstacle 14: Power Drill

It was about this point I was asking if we were done yet when these six wooden hurdles reared up in our path. We had to climb over three wooden walls that were taller than I was, and duck under three in alternating order. I gave Darcie a leg up for the first one and managed to haul myself over like a beached whale. We both rolled under the second. Darcie gave me a leg up for the third and climbed over herself. Ducked the fourth. I helped Darcie up again on the fifth and then could not get over myself as my arms failed me. Again. Darcie climbed back over, helped me up, then laboriously scrambled up using the braces herself. We dragged ourselves under the sixth.

Obstacle 15: Clampdown

Probably my least favorite, this was similar to the Rubber Ladder, except we had to scurry through plastic barrels with rough edges, climb through another hoop, and scurry through another line of barrels. The going was tough. My scraped and bloodied shins forced me to my belly and I had to keep rolling my hips, my knees, my feet to get past the lips of the linked barrels. The hoop was also difficult because it was so high off the ground, but I managed to go in feet first, rotate from butt to belly and slide out the other side. Then I hauled myself groaning through the next six linked barrels. It was hard and I was tired. People raced through these?

Obstacle 16: Wrenching River Crawl

I love water. Water is my element. But this was a particularly grueling stretch--at least a quarter mile through the creek in freezing water that went up to my waist. We fought a mean current, tripped on rocks, stumbled over a dam, and were forced to duck another low-netted area for another belly crawl. Snowmelt rivers pack a punch. Darcie screamed when she stepped into deep water. It was cold. Our feet were numb. Are we done yet?

Obstacle 17: Hammer it Home

A second steep wall with climbing ropes reared before us. And the immediate mud churned up before the incline was suction city. I knew this. Yet I managed to almost lose my shoe to the quickmud. Both legs covered to the knee, I studied the section of wall I'd chosen to climb, presented again with the impossibility of securing sweet purchase with no sturdy foothold on my way. Darcie too was struggling. Even another runner who caught up with us lost his grip and made a tailbone-grinding fall directly into the quickmud. We were stuck. Stuck so close to the end!

I spotted another runner lady who had joined us at the wall from the river crawl and I watched her struggle a moment before I told Darcie to assist in helping her up. I used the ropes to meet them both, so I didn't plummet like that other guy, and we both got under this woman so she could use a thigh as a boost. She got up. She thanked us. Then she turned and offered a hand to Darcie. I took Darcie's spot and let her use my thigh to step up. Darcie scrambled out. Then I grabbed the lady's hand and my sister's and they both pulled me up and out of that mire. The teamwork felt great and really stuck a pin in the entire event itself, nevermind "Hammering it Home."

We wound up the path for the last stretch of the race where we crossed the finish line and were awarded gold-painted nails for completing the course. A nice guy at gear check took our picture while we were still filthy and we went to the hose line to rinse.

We were out there a solid hour and a half, if not more, but it was a lot of fun! Challenging, downright cruel in places, but overwhelmingly fun in others. It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. With new(er) shoes and sun tan lotion.

To the victor...

  
Happy weekend!