Leading up to the start of the second annual Community Learning Campus Mud Run on Sept. 7, most of the nearly 1,350 adults participating in the event were hardly able to contain their excitement.
“We just thought it'd be a fun opportunity and now we're thinking we're crazy,” said Jody Rice of Olds.
She and her nine-member team, the North Hill Sunrisers, made up of members from Olds, Lacombe and Calgary, donned bathing caps and goggles.
And despite the stubborn rain and cooler temperatures that lingered throughout the event, the team was more than eager to dive in to the mud awaiting them across the five-kilometre course at Olds College.
“We came prepared for anything and everything.”
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles team, made up of Olds College students Brook-Lyn Ouimette, Megan Oleksow, Taylor Schram and Scott Patterson, had no qualms about getting their fluorescent costumes and ninja weapons dirty.
Patterson said when he heard about the event, he knew he had to get involved.
“I just thought it'd be so fun, cannon-balling into mud. When do you get to do that? You're never going to do that.”
But would they all feel the same after completing the course?
During the adult run, which was broken into five waves, participants slogged through the kind of obstacle course one would find at an army boot camp, complete with climbing, crawling and swimming obstacles.
The runners, many of whom were wearing costumes, wigs, face paint and accessories, had to submerge themselves—sometimes up to their necks—in muddy water, jog through bogs of filth and negotiate large walls, tire mazes and hurdles.
When they reached the end— before hitting the showers— competitors had to run through a massive blob of sticky bubbles where the foaming leviathan enveloped all who entered.
So was it worth it?
Rice said she had a blast and finished the course feeling great and “gross.”
“I didn't expect it at all to be that muddy,” she said.
This year's run also featured an event for children called Filthy Frogs where about 300 young mud-lovers negotiated a shorter course with obstacles such as a rope web and a wall of hay.
Yet despite these challenges, most of the frogs agreed the best part of the event came at the end.
“Running through the bubbles,” said Holden Hareuther from Carstairs.
When asked why, the six-year-old who was covered in foamy globs said the answer was simple.
“Because my eyes were open and all I could see is white.”
Mud Run participants also had the chance to donate their footwear after the event to DeliverGood, an organization that connects charities and non-profit groups needing various goods with people and companies that have such goods. More than 200 pairs of shoes were collected and all of the children's shoes will go to the Olds Boys and Girls Club.
Organizers said they are still looking for a charity that will take the adult shoes.
More than 100 volunteers helped make the Mud Run happen and the money raised from the event will support the CLC's various sports camps and activities for young people.
