Mmm, mud mud mud. This is how I normally feel about it:
I know you want to see a close-up version (and you owe me one for this):
But today, plentiful quantities of mud and all, I felt about it like so:
The Dirty Girl run was muddy and awesome! That is all.
Just kidding, I’ll give you all the dirty details right away.
The Dirty Girl San Francisco run was the series’ first event for the year, and where better to kick things off than at Candlestick Park, home to the San Francisco 49ers? 
[I don’t really watch football besides Friday Night Lights, so all I know about this sport is that the coach is supposed to nervously run his hands through his hair and scream into a helmet-mike thing. So yeah. Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose! Right, 49ers? OK.]
HusbandRuns and I volunteered for this event. We gave out T-shirts at first, then moved on to a water station, where we took our job of encouraging runners to hydrate extremely seriously. If you were there and were disappointed that the advertised “dirty martinis” turned out to be water… what can I say. Naughty-naughty, girl, at 10 in the morning! Water should suffice. And hugs for all runners, of course. We’re here to serve… love!
I’m so happy I have this T-shirt now, if ever there is an apocalypse-type situation, I’ll be sure to wear it so my family can see me easily within the throngs of people running away from the zombies.
Until the zombies come, though, back to the mud. Run participants were scheduled to start in multiple waves, one each 15 minutes, starting at 8 a.m. and going on until 2 p.m. Now, trust me on this one: register for a wave start that’s as late as possible if you can, especially if the weather’s going to be anything other than hot.
It was a cooo-ooold morning in San Francisco, the sun didn’t really show up until at least 11, and… well, look at these ladies’ faces stepping into a pool of cold water (the third obstacle along the course):
Notice how clean their shirts are? That means they didn’t even go through the first obstacle: a mud pit with a tarp hung low enough on top that you have to crawl through it. Here’s yours truly (and my new friends Nicole and Sheryll) about to jump in. Look how muddy my legs and arms are already.
At this point you’re probably wondering about the course and all the fun stuff to be done on it. First, you should know that this isn’t a timed race. It’s a fun run and, even though the organizers insisted the route was 5 kilometers long (3.1 miles), I have a feeling it was much shorter than that. (Nicole’s Garmin registered barely over 2.25 miles! I didn’t wear my phone on me, what with all the mud and water, so I didn’t have RunKeeper on and can’t really say.)
But who cares. The fun part is going through the obstacles. You start with a fun jumpy-house type climbing structure, go crawl through a mud pit (Thank you, Lorena, for shoving as much mud as possible down my cleavage!), jump in the above-pictured water, slide down a humongous inflatable pink slide:
. Then this thing:
And then… this.
It’s funny how no matter how muddy you are already, getting in that thing still feels queazy.
My first question when I crawled out: Is my bow still on?
Next up was the only scary part: a humongous net you had to climb up, then over and down on the other side.
The look of terror on my face says it all:
After that, we ran into the stadium for the last three obstacles and some professional photos (not the one below).
It was my idea to jump, but I guess I was too busy explaining to do any jumping.
Back out, we crossed the Finish line, took some photos in front of the prerequisite Dirty Girl logo wall, washed up (having a rinse-off area was a nice touch, even if the water was freezing), and were soon on our way home:
Oh, and not least: race bling = jewelry! That’s what I’ve been talking about!
I don’t know if I’d pay $100 to do a Dirty Girl run, but $65 for registering well in advance… quite possibly yes!
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You made it look like so much fun, I want to join next year’s mud fun!!!
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Whoo hoo! That looks awesome. I want to do a mud run but keep chickening out. I don’t like mud…therein lies the problem. I might just do one to overcome that phobia! Congrats!
This one is very easy – but yes, there is lots of mud 🙂 (There can be even more, depending on the location; this one was at a stadium and they had to make the mud for the obstacles, in between it was just asphalt. The organizers said at some places even in-between obstacles you run on muddy terrain… might be a bit much!)
You girls are awesome! How do you manage to look adorable in all that mud? 🙂
Most definitely it’s because of Lorena’s cute bows and socks ($1 each at the dollar store!) 🙂 We should put her in charge of all group run costumes from now on!