Udder Mud Run

This morning the 2015 Udder Mud Run was held in Covington, Georgia. The race is held on the FFA-FCCLA Camp ground which plays host to many leadership and outdoor camps. The race touts itself to be a 7k obstacle course with 47 obstacles and a Family and Friends 1 mile which takes place on the same course. This race was fantastic! It is a small local race that brings you back to the fun of what we all know and love about Obstacle Course Racing. There was a good mix of obstacles that made you either think about how you were going to do them, posed a challenge, and also made you laugh and smile as you completed it. But before I get too into how much fun this race was let me walk through full day there.

I arrived early at around 7:30 for the 8:30 am competitive wave. I was greeted by a group of youth sheriffs’ who were managing the parking. Plenty of parking was available right on site directly adjacent to the festival area. Check-in was smooth and the volunteers were great and very excited to have us there.

The Festival Area had many tents set-up including the Covington Police, a place to donate shoes, Chobani Yogurt with free yogurt. Oh and did I mention… FREE ICE CREAM and chocolate milk courtesy of Mayfield! The festival area had plenty of Music playing and both the start and finish ended right in the middle of it. The local dairy farm provided a huge Cow sculpture that greeted you when you arrived.

The Race
Once settled and warmed up we are called to the starting line. A young camper sings the National anthem, I love seeing their involvement of the campers who are there. The announcer, Leroy Begley, gave race instructions and revealed that the start would be from fireworks! Very cool touch, everyone loved it. The course starts almost immediately uphill and within 300 meters or so we hit the first obstacle, spider’s web, a series of crossing ropes that you had to weave through. This gave me quite some trouble getting caught a few times and falling down. Next came Mud Hole, a long water crossing, and Mud Hills. Water obstacles early on helped in the summer humidity and heat of Georgia. Next came the longest section of running through groomed trail with plenty of ups and downs. After dunking in “Ice Cream”, a warmer version of Tough Mudder’s “Acrtic Enema”, it was back to running until we hit a gauntlet of obstacles. “Udder Chaos” was 1.5 miles in and it was a long series of obstacles complete with an 8-10 foot wall, balance beam, tunnels, mud crawls, and the Lube tube. Yes Lube Tube. This is one of those obstacles you just had to smile and laugh as you slid across a PVC pipe covered in a slick lube.

After the gauntlet we faced more trails and a few more series of obstacles that we almost always set up in pairs. Tunnels followed by walls, another lube tube, farm gates, over and unders, and not 1 but 2 slides! The brunt of the obstacle were within the first 2 miles of the race which made the second half of running very difficult. If I had one criticism on the course was to add a few more obstacles towards the end of the course. During the last mile we saw only 2-4 obstacles while the 2^nd mile we saw more than 15. The course finished right back in the festival area with more mud hills.

Takeaways
Overall a very fun course that I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in running and obstacle race. As an experienced racer, the race challenged me and made me remember why I love OCR so much. It’s just good old FUN!

I finished the race in second place and the race organizers had put together a Prize pack including an inflatable cow, milk duds, and a hand-made clay mug, very cool.

Oh and when the race was over we got FREE ICE CREAM! Did I say that before because I don’t think I did. It was FREE Ice cream!