Merrell Down & Dirty Recap

I drug the whole family plus my mom out to Conyers, GA so I could run the Down & Dirty Mud Run on Sunday.  I was signed up for the 10K which started at 8:30.  They also had several waves for the 5K starting at 9:00.  I typically like to get to my races an hour early so I can check-in, take care of business, warm up and catch-up with friends and fellow runners.  When you take the entire family things do not go as planned.  Getting the family up and out the door at 5:30 on Sunday proved to be a lot harder than I planned.  I packed the car with blankets, chairs, the cooler, extra clothes all the night before to help make the morning a smooth as possible.  Smooth did not happen.  We left late.  We forgot to stop at the ATM cause you never know if these remote races will have cell or internet service for credit cards.  We got caught in traffic, at 6:30 on a Sunday morning, can you believe it?  Luckily we had VIP parking, so we were able to park a little closer than most participants.  As soon as my husband threw it in park I hopped out of the car, grabbed my bag and took off running for packet pick-up.  At least I didn't have to warm-up now.  After I picked up my packet, I stopped by the porta-potty's, now with 10 minutes to spare, I felt like I could breath.
I made my way to the starting corrals and quickly found some familiar faces.  I positioned myself in the 1st start wave along with the rest of my friends.  After the national anthem the gun went off with Military and First Responders in the very first wave.  A few moments later our wave was off.

The race was rather nice.  Lots of running as you might assume with it being a longer race.  There were lots of grassy fields, and dirt paths.  Very few single track and technical trails which are my favorite.  The course was not too difficult, some hills, but not very steep.  The obstacles in my opinion, lacking.  Nothing difficult or challenging in any way.  Two inflatable slides, several sets of short walls, a balance beam, a tunnel to crawl through, tires.

The only somewhat original obstacle was the "Monster" (I think that's what I heard the volunteer call it).  It was a vertical cargo climb across a horizontal cargo net to another vertical cargo climb across another horizontal and now down vertical.  While not a challenge, it was something different.

 In the last 200 yards of the races they had the "gauntlet" of obstacles, a 10 foot rock climbing wall, to a slippery wall that you could only use your arms for.  This kind of threw me off for a second cause every slippery wall I've ever done you use your feet and arms to climb up, but the volunteer at the top kept yelling at me to get on my belly and just use my arms.

 Once over the wall, it was the mud pit.  If you want to call it that.  It was black mulch watered down.  Here in Georgia I am use to red Georgia clay, but this was black and chunky.  Then the glorious finish line.
My time, 1:01:51.  I finished 1st in my age group.  Which won me $110 in Merrell merchandise.  Very cool.

Teammate Shenoa with our 1st place medals

The showers were great.  Lots of water hoses with sprayers attached to them.  There was even tables with shampoo for you to use.  (The benefits of having Paul Mitchell as a sponsor.)  A changing tent with tables and chairs inside. After I cleaned up I found my way to the food tent that I somehow missed at the finish line.  There were oranges, cookies, muffins, trail mix and of course water. 

The atmosphere was great in the festival area.  There were tons on sponsor tents set up that allowed you to get samples, free swag or other fun activities for the kids.    I left with tons of new flavors of Larabars, some bright orange sunglasses, shampoo, and a Subaru bag. 

So the whole reason I drug the whole family out so early in the morning was so the girls could run too.  They have been bugging me to let them run "one of those races" with me.  For many different reasons, it just never worked out.  But Sunday, the star aligned and the girls were able to come with me and run the Kid's Adventure Race. 

They had a blast running their first race.  I'm pretty sure they are hooked.  Madilyn hasn't taken her medal off since Sunday.  She even wore it to school today. 

Overall, I had a good time at Down & Dirty Mud Run.  It was a well organized race, a fun family event.  It had everything I could have wanted in an event.  It would make a great first mud run to get your feet wet.  If you're looking for a challenge, this is definitely not the race. I'll probably be back next year when the Down & Dirty come back to town.  I'm a sucker for a good mud run!