Race Review - Boulder Mud Run

The Boulder Mud Run is a lot like communism. It probably looked good on paper, but it real life it's a mess. The entire event is centered (literally) around one big mega-obstacle and I'll explain why that's a good idea, and a terrible idea, in a minute.

Mega-Obstacle for the proletariat.

This local event was held, not in Boulder, as the name implies, but out on the dusty plains of Erie, Colorado at the CO National Speedway venue. Now I had never been to this particular venue, and I won't say it was hard to find, but a couple of well placed arrows goes a long way towards making one feel like they are on the right track. Especially when you're not sure if it's in the facility, a parking lot, on the side, etc. Needless to say I did overshoot the turn, but figured it out in short order.

I had no idea how big this event would be. They did have a prize money heat, several other heats scheduled, so I figured it might be of decent size. Well it turned out to be exceptionally small. This was actually a good thing, because they were in no way prepared for a big turnout.

We pulled in to a small parking lot with only 100 or so cars in it. The fairground was small, but with solid vendor booths. On the west end was the mega-obstacle and just a lot of people milling around. We checked in, which essentially meant having your name checked off a list. No race bibs, timing chips, t-shirt, etc. After being directed nowhere by no one, I finally asked a small group standing nearby if they knew what was going on. They all shrugged and said they were just as lost as us.

Small as they come.

After a few minutes people began to line up in a starting corral. There was some business about climbing a rope to ring a bell before entering, but it was unclear so we just herded in with group about to go. We were sent off with out much fanfare and headed away from the large center obstacle. Now, to be fair, there may have been very clear and concise instructions on all this that we missed, but they sure weren't repeated and we weren't the only clueless ones on the field that day.

Off we go! The track swung out to some concrete barriers that we leapt over. Then we came upon some small tires that needed to be flipped once. Up and over a series of ramp/walls that increased in steepness. After a short trot through some open field we came up to one of the more dangerous mud barb wire crawls I've had the pleasure of going through... 3 times.

Let me stop there and explain the wire crawl. I've crawled under several. Some simple, some in water pits, some on dry dirt, some on slick mud hills. They mostly have one thing in common: The wire is stretched pretty tight. This one would be the exception to the rule. It was loosely dangling and coils of it dipped low. I always see people get hung up at races, but this one was near impossible to avoid doing so, especially later in the race as it began to sag more and more. My son also gashed himself good on a piece of metal in the mud, but these things happen.

OK, we're past the wire crawl (for now) and we run up to some more tires, these ones stacked on poles. The job is pull one off one pole and place it on another pole. Various tire sizes, but all relatively small. No problem. At this point we can se the large wooden mega structure approaching and a small line building up to it. We slow down a bit as it's obvious we'd be waiting. But the wait wasn't too long, yet.

Confusing start/finish.

The Big One. The approach is the far right and is a plywood slope with couple small hand/footholds. This confounds several people, but we scrambled right up. Off the back side is a rope to descend off the edge. Pretty damn tricky, even for seasoned racers. Then it's up and across some 2x4 built grid, with some barb wire thrown in for good measure, which gets you to the base of an up, over and down cargo net vertical "ladder" that rises, oh about 15 feet or so I guess. You see these at a lot of races and they really seem to freak some people out. The generally create back ups, and putting one in the middle of a giant box isn't the best idea I've seen. Here we begin to wait, patiently... for now.

Bam over the net, a quick 5' wall hope and we're out the other side of the big wooden box and running again. We come to some plastic barriers, that probably are usually filled with water to be stable, but these aren't, so the move a bit if you try and scale them too fast. After these it's a short run to a pond a a guy directing everyone to grab a sand bag and head into the water. In we go, slog, slog, slog for about 30 yards, scramble out and run the rest of the way around the pond to drop the bags off where we got them.

Any race that gets him out of the house is a good race.

From here it's a short sprint back an obstacle I think about 90% of people (including myself) completed improperly and right in to the mega-box, this time through the middle part, marked "loop 1". This time it was a wall climb with some "tombstones" to negotiate and then an up and over consisting of boards chained together in a wide swinging ladder of sorts. This one was slowing up a bit too, as you had to have the timing right with multiple people going over the wobbly ladder. Then there was another wall to climb out of the box and begin the second loop.

Loop 2 follows the same path as the first. The only real difference is the tires are moving farther away from being flipped in the same direction several times and the barb wire in the mud pit is sagging a little more. The big difference is when we approach the big box. Now we are catching up with slow people from the next heat and it's a real mess. Takes a while to get our turn and the ramp and then entirely too long for our second go at the cargo net ladder. At this point my teenage son looks at me and says, "This is stupid." Now, he's 14, so he says this about a lot of things, but I have to agree, this is stupid.

We finally get out of the box, back around the pond and up the 3rd section of the box marked "loop 2" and "Finish". It's an easy ramp up and a totally confusing, not at all explained decent. So we just sort of climb down and go around for loop 3. The last loop is pretty much a repeat of 2, with a bit of the box entry cluster mercifully thinning out as the event winds towards it's anti-climatic end.

My GPS put the race at 3.3 miles and it took us 57 minutes to complete. Oskar Blues was there with free beer, and few things pack a wallop like a Dale's Pale Ale at 10:00am on a Saturday!

Pond on the right.

Now, unlike communism, I didn't hate this race. Like I said, it seems like a decent idea. One major obstacle with loops means you can have a race in a small space. But you can't have people going through the slowest part 3 stinking times. It was jammed up with only a couple hundred people, with a thousand or more it would've been a complete nightmare with no good solutions. When you only have one real obstacle, you can't shut it down to alleviate pile ups.

The mega obstacle was well built, however. I had ample time to look it over while in the jams the occurred there. I checked the joints and fasteners as probably 3 dozen people were hanging, climbing, running over various points of the structure at the same time and didn't see any undue splitting, loosening, swaying or shaking. The thing appeared to be pretty much bomb proof.

Maybe if the easy ramp "loop 2/finish" had been on the entry and the harder entry at the finish, then MAYBE you could pull it off with more people. But that's a big maybe. Lastly, if you're going to have a race that requires a lot of specific direction and explanation, you really need an emcee out there to speak loud and slowly... repeatedly.

I have to wonder if this one will be back. I kind of think not, but then again the Insanity Mud Run made another (although I heard equally dangerous) return this year. In fact, I wonder if it' the same people organizing both races? Anyone know? Shoot me a message.

Race Review - Colfax Relay Marathon

The Colfax Marathon (http://www.runcolfax.org) is a pretty popular race around these parts. Colfax is the longest continuos avenue in America, and runs from the foothills of Golden, out past the plains of Aurora. It probably also has the highest concentration of seedy bars, pawn shops, liquor stores and homeless people in the state. It runs beside some famous landmarks such as the Broncos' Mile High Stadium and the ever popular tourist trap, Casa Bonita.

Several race lengths are available, from the full and half marathon, down to a 5k sprint. I was conscripted to run the relay marathon with some co-workers, in which teams of 6 break up the 26.2 miles into legs ranging from 3.7 to 6.4 miles. I was assigned the 3rd leg, which was 6 miles and sported some decent elevation gain.

Relay legs.

The course for the relay varies slightly, so as not to muck up the full marathon runners. There's a timing chip in the baton, and it is handed off at locations where people line up according to bib numbers to await their teammates, and some poor bastard gets the never-ending job of calling out the bib numbers of approaching runners.

My leg began at Sloan's lake, which is a couple blocks off of Colfax, headed straight to the main street and began to head west up the hill. We veered off Colfax and run through Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, wound through the neighborhood, up another decent hill, where several people were in their front yards handing out food and drink for the folks putting in the big miles. Finally the course descended back down to the avenue to a quick finish off to the north side of the street.

Go time.

Post race you can hop the RTD bus, for free, back down to your starting area to get to your car or to the big post race party at Civic Center Park. With over 17,000 runners this year, it was easily the biggest race I've been in to date. It's super organized, well laid out and captures a good portion of Denver along the route.

I came in at 53 minutes and change, for my leg, and our team time was 4:03:58, placing us at 351 (out of 937) for Relay and 90th (out of 215) for co-ed class.

Finisher medal/paper weight.

Race Review - Hard as Nails

Yeah, I don't know what's on my face.

Hard as Nails popped up on my radar via http://coloradoobstacleracers.com who had a nice promo code available. The course map looking intriguing and the price was right, so I signed up my 14 year old son and myself for the event.

The venue was at the Westin Hotel in Westminster, CO and upon arriving it was clear this would be a smaller event. It definitely had a local feel (at the time I was unaware of it's homegrown roots), with a pretty small fairground area, consisting of a stage with the emcee and DJ, plus a handful of booths. Coming just 1 week after the popular CO Spartan Race may have contributed to a lower turnout, but the relaxed nature of it was a welcome break from some of the bigger races we run.

The heat structure was a little strange, with the first few heats being women only for some reason. We were in the 11:00 heat, which sported about 50 or so racers. The runners were an eclectic group, ranging from hard core OCR types with protective gear, to fun groups with matching costumes and everyone in-between.

These were the only places I saw back ups.

This is the first race I've run that went through a building, let alone a hotel. Soon after the start we crammed in the hotel's stairwell and climbed 10 or so flights of stairs to the top, then ran down the hall and back down to the ground.

Other interesting obstacles included an inflatable pool float we had to paddle out on the hotel's fountain pond and back, where son got stranded about 30 yards out and after I made my circuit I had to swim out and tow him back in, which was exhausting. Also, a sandbag fill and carry up and down a short steep hill.

Face rash from getting dragged up and over a creek bank.

After the pond, there were some low crawl type stuff and a lot of plowing through the creek that runs through the property. Some of the more difficult obstacles were ropes scaling up out of said creek, the last of which a guy from COR ended up hoisting my ass out in spectacular fashion.

Spent a lot of time doing this.

About the mid point there was a short fireman carry, which having my 100lb. son with me wasn't a problem, and a long and fast slip slide down a grassy hill, where I garnered enough speed to continue off the slide, across the grass and skid to a halt on the cement path below. I'll spare you the photos of my road rashed butt.

Fast slide = road rash.

At the finish we were handed a golden nail for our finishers prize to go along with the event T-Shirt we received in our registration goodie bag. It was a good, short race and worth our time for sure. I inquired the organizers for some photos to share here, but they were unsupportive, so I only have the few I took and some stolen off Google.

The Golden Nail.