McCLEARY — Spider-Man had seen better days.
He’d lost his mask, revealing himself to be a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper mustache. His red and blue suit with sewn-in abs was covered with filth. And somehow his spidey senses failed to alert him that two boys were stuck in a nearby pond.
But what concerned me most as I careened down an inflatable chute known as the Slop ‘n’ Slide was that I was seconds away from crashing face first into the superhero’s muddy backside.
“Spider-Man!” I screamed. “Look out!”
Just when all seemed lost, the web slinger rolled to his side with the agility of a turtle and I zipped past, landing safely in a pile of hay.
We were a league of more than 5,200 superheroes, women in prom dresses, men in hot pants and even a few people in regular workout clothes — all participating in the June 23 Dirty Dash near McCleary.
We’d be hard-pressed to call this racing. But that’s kind of the point behind the booming fad of mud and obstacle adventure racing. No clock. No trophies. Just fun, beer and an excuse to play in the mud like you’re 3 again.
“It is the best way to introduce people to the running community,” said Dirty Dash promoter Trudy Schug of Kent. “It’s totally unintimidating and unthreatening. And once people realize running is about going out there and having fun and being healthy and that nobody is judging them for what they look like, how fast they are or what they’re wearing, they’re more likely to try running.”
But not necessarily. Marie Landon of Puyallup and her family will do at least three mud runs this summer but they have no interest in trying a traditional 5K. “Just straight running?” she said, “No. Thank. You.”
Mud runs might be the best known of these adventure races, but they come in many forms. Foam runs. Color runs where participants start wearing white and finish looking like a Jackson Pollock rough draft. Electric runs on courses adorned with neon lights. And even races requiring you to avoid brain-eating zombies.
“It is so much fun,” said Schug, an avid runner who logged 40 miles on her birthday. “And what’s best about it that anybody and everybody, no matter their age and fitness level, can have a great time being active, outside and challenging themselves.”
Buddy system
When I decided to try to the Dirty Dash, I also decided I wasn’t going to do it alone.
There’s a fine line between fun and crazy, and best as I could tell it lies somewhere between a grown man wallowing in the mud by himself and doing it with friends.
“But people definitely do it by themselves,” Schug said. “They want to challenge themselves or just can’t find somebody to run with. There are plenty of people there to run with, but, yes, 99 percent of people are there with somebody else.”
Landon and her family were on a team of 18. And Shug says some teams are as large as 100.
So, I called fellow rookie mudder Brian Devereux and we formed a team of two and headed to the Straddline ORV Park.
Fear factor
There was never really any fear we wouldn’t be physically capable of completing the course.
Participants ranged from sculpted from granite to molded from Jell-O. We heard more talking about cigarettes and fried foods than we did about negative splits and personal records. And with all day to cover the 5-kilometer course, not finishing is rare.
“It’s all-inclusive, but I was kinda scared at first,” said John Dobra of Maple Valley. “I thought people were going to go all in and be racing. But I stopped worrying after a couple hundred yards when I realized most people were walking.”
The most common fear, Schug said, is that of the unknown. What will the obstacles be like? And just how gross will it feel to be that dirty?
Participants are welcome to skip any obstacle they don’t want to do. The fear of getting dirty, on the other hand, is something you’re likely to overcome in a matter of minutes.
Brian and I watched racers for a while before the start of our heat and I admit I was little wary.
Then Brian started reminiscing about the days before society brainwashed us into believing mud was bad. When he was a kid, like most kids, Brian loved splashing in puddles and playing in mud.
“I don’t think of it as a mud run,” said Clark Barton of Puyallup. “I think of it as a mud mask, both face and body. It’s more therapeutic than the spa. You get your frustration out and you get nice smooth skin. It’s beautiful.”
Somewhere past the ironically soapy first obstacle and the two sternum-deep ponds, Brian and I rediscovered the joy of mud.
As I slipped my way up a hill, I felt something gooey on the back of my neck. Brian had launched a grimy attack that would last the rest of the race.
Coed outdoor shower
The last obstacle to any mud run is figuring out how to get clean.
Some races offer to collect, clean and donate your dirty sneakers. Soiled clothes can be seen stuffed into trash cans. Some people just pack their filthy clothes into plastic bags.
Regardless, there is no avoiding the coed outdoor showers.
While that probably sounds horrifying to anybody who ever took a high school P.E. class, really, it’s just hilarious.
While some mud runs offer massive his and hers cleaning tents, the McCleary dash set up a structure with about 100 hanging garden hoses.
Filthy men, women and children stood side by side hosing each other down, trying to get clean without removing their mud-soaked clothes. Even with the multitude jokingly passing around a tiny bar of soap, this is no easy task. I made three trips into the shower before Brian stopped laughing at me.
