Getting Dirty With Friends

I'm not sure what it is - the dirt, the trails, the competition, the beer but the Muddy Buddy is starting to rank up there as one of my most favorite races. For more detail, see the site, but essentially the Muddy Buddy is race you do with one teammate that involves mountain biking, trail running, obstacles and crawling through some serious mud. Sweet!

I did my first Muddy Buddy last year in San Jose with TCB. It took me a while to convince her to do it. I think the competition freaked her out a bit and oh, yeah, there was that shoulder injury that would make doing some of the obstacles a bit sketchy. She was a trooper, though. We used my Surly Cross Check bike rather than a mountain bike. While this bike is fine for 95% of the course, it toasted her on the first (and only) major climb of the SJ course. TCB may have run out of gas in the first half mile, but she was smiling so wide in the mud pit she had mud on her teeth. And best of all, she said she'd do it again. YES!

Two weeks later, I convinced S to attack the Boston course with me. Again, it took quite a bit of arm twisting but she finally relented. The Boston course was typical New England - narrow trails through the shady woods littered with roots, rocks and ruts. It was so opposite the wide open, grassy California trails. And instead of baking in the Cali sunshine, we had the wonderful east coast humidty to deal with. S and I lined up at the start and checked out the competition, marking anyone we saw as a threat. At the gun, S jumped off the line and held us in first through her bike leg. That was the last time we saw first place but damn, we had fun. Yes, fun - despite the header I took over the handle bars on one of the downhills. Somehow, having blood running down your arms in a race makes you feel tough. I don't remember what place we came in but I remember smiling like hell as we climbed out of the mud pit. And the first thing she said to me was, "I can't wait until next year!"

So now it's 2006. I was a no show for the SJ race due to a family commitment. TCB had to recruit someone to take my place. Made me feel like crap - she'd been training hard and even had a new GF Cake for us to ride. But I was out, A was in and the two of them kicked butt and came in 12th. Awesome!

Boston 2006 - S broke her ankle in October and it's still too painful to run on. Surgery appears to be in her future. TCB has to go to Singapore so she can't do the Boston race with me. PFFC to the rescue! Yes, I had to promise beer, supply much cajoling and build up the Muddy Buddy to be the greatest thing since the invention of the coffee roll (if you knew PFFC, you'd know why that was important). The day before the race it dumped 3" of rain on the course. On our drive to the race, the downpours were so hard we doing 40 on the freeway, wipers slapping like crazy, and the bike seat soaking up gallons of rain so our ride would be just that much more delicious. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to race in these conditions.

Fortunately, the rain died and we raced under cloudy skies (at least for the first 20 min). PFFC and I were closely matched - neither of us had to wait at the transitions for the bike hand-offs. The Surly ruled - that bike flew on the trails. Both of us passed numerous riders, handled the huge mud bogs on the route. Running was quite an adventure and I'm really glad neither of us broke an ankle given you could never tell how deep the puddles were. And they ranged from a few inches to close to two feet in some places. No joke. We ran and biked hard, dove through the mud pit and ended up with a 5th place finish in our division. Oddly enough, we would have placed higher in the younger divisions. Go figure.

But the best part - PFFC said she'd do it again. And she was smiling. But that could have been the 4 beers talking (yes, we stood in the down pours and closed the beer garden). Or maybe it was the guy stripping off his gnarly, muddy clothes down to his naked white butt and doing a little happy dance a few cars away. Or maybe it was the three cute guys who had to push the car out of the mud we had managed to get stuck in. I'd like to think it's the thrill of competition and getting dirty with friends.