Monday, June 21, 2010

RunaMuck, Harriman State Park, New York

Mud, sweat but no tears.  This was the RunaMuck event near Stony Point, New York (about 30 minutes from NYC) just off the Palisades Parkway.  It was a fun way to spend this past weekend.
RunaMuck is a mud and music festival held near or in various cities - DC, Philly, New York, Chicago and Boston.  It is a 5K event with several start times. You can run alone, in a team of 2 or 4, costumed, or non-costumed.  The run isn't your average 5K as you run through mud, on trails, through a body of water, and over and under obstacles.  The last obstacle before the finish line is to climb a hill and land in a enormous mud pit.  To make sure you get get mud in your eye (and everywhere else), you have to crawl under ropes in this pit. 
To make it more exciting, the hill gave the runners an audience so some runners performed rituals - somersaulting, rolling, dancing, kissing - as they prepared to make the plunge. 
We took off from the Philly area around 3:45 on Friday and didn't arrive to our destination for about 4 hours.  Traffic on NJ Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, and 287 was a nightmare.  We also didn't have the best directions and cell phone reception was almost non-existent so it was hard to find the correct location.  Once in the state park, we camped in style in my friend's Airstream.  It was actually cold in the evening so it was nice to escape the heat.
The day of the race was hot and humid.  This didn't deter people from sporting their costumes, some of which seemed hot.  I know I was grateful for the the run through the lake.  I'm sure the costumed runners were especially glad to hit the water!  With that, I'll just share pictures because they truly are worth a thousand words. 
Mud runs are seemingly all the rage. I learned there's another mud series called Down and Dirty. This is run in LA, NYC, Philly, and Sacramento. I think I'll try this series next year.

No comments:

Post a Comment