GVH Mudslog Trail Race - Some Uncertainty

Hi, everyone.  This is another VERY late post, a trail race from October 21, 2012, so I'll keep it brief.  I ran in the annual 8.25 mile GVH Mudslog trail race on October 21, 2012, my sixth appearance in the 7-year history of the event.  Last year, I placed 9th out of 223 runners, and this year, although I felt my condition was similar, I only managed 17th out of 272, with a time of 1:12:07, about 2 minutes slower than last year.  The course, which is a rugged cross country/trail/obtacle race, was slightly different this year, and could potentially have been slower, but it is hard to tell for sure.  

Link to results is here!.



My colleague fell in!  His 2nd pond swim of the day!

 However, I did manage to win the 50 to 59 year old age group award for the second year in a row, so that was a bonus, and nearly a necessity, as I paid $40 to enter (forgot to enter early) and the skimpy goody bag was simply  a pair of socks.  The age group award was a $15 gift certificate to a running store, a $15 gift certificate towards a runner's ID bracelet (neither of which I used) and a bottle of wine.  As most of you know, I'm not a wine drinker, but we did break it out for Thanksgiving dinner.  I also won another running hat, which is always useful.



Top of a little hill......

 As it does every year, this race includes a 50-meter swim in a pond at about the 5-mile mark.  After a few years of doing this, I have figured out that "swimming" in 50 some degree water after running 5 miles, and with heavy running shoes and clothes on, is not easy.  Thus, I immediately grabbed the safety rope, and simply pulled myself along, quite efficiently, rather than true swimming.



climbing out of a creek bed



After swamp!



There were many other obstacles, including a set of barrels over another pond (see photo of my colleague and others doing the barrel crossing), fences, swamps (see photo of me shortly after the swamp), mud, hill climbs too steep to run, and even requiring grabbing trees and vines to climb up, fences, and then horse jumps in the corral near the end.



This is not a course for setting PRs, or even worrying about time.  I think I ran somewhere in the high 8 minute per mile range, not particularly speedy.

Would I do this race again?  Yes.