2011 Dirty Dash

Locally, there are two main running events that bring out the crowds. The companies that put these events on are looking to cram as many people onto a course as possible. The first is the Ragnar Wasatch Back and the second is the Dirty Dash. I participated in the Dirty Dash on Saturday.

Here is the description of the Dirty Dash.

This race puts all other races to shame.  The Dirty Dash is a mud run obstacle course where a military boot camp meets your inner five-year-old’s fantasy and subsequently converts boy to man and then…man to swine. 

You’ll need endurance to trudge up mountains of sludge, courage to overcome uncompromising obstacles, a complete lack of shame to wallow in pits of mud and a smile to show through at the end!

Let your inner mud-loving child loose on this course. It's designed in such a way that if you come out completely clean you'll easily be eliminated for cheating. A friend of mine won 6 free entries. When he asked if I wanted to join the fun, it was a no-brainer. There are two types of people participate. 1. Those whose sole purpose is to see how dirty they can get along the course no matter how long it takes. 2. Those who like the challenge of the obstacles but still have the racing spirit and drive to get it done as fast as possible.

At the top of the slide are people who squirt dishwashing
soap on participants so make them more slippery.

I run too many races to just sit back and get messy. If i'm in a group of people and someone says "go," I'm not hanging back to examine the scenery. This was the case for the Dirty Dash. I was in the 9:20 am group. When they said go, I went. The first obstacle was a steep hill that had been watered and muddied up to the point of absolute slickness. I ran up the side where the mud was least thick and some grass still remained. Upon reaching the top and starting on the course, I found myself in a position rarely experienced in the past—first place. My friend was in second and we both commented how strange a feeling it was. The feeling lasted for about 1/2 mile then a father/son duo passed us both. Throughout the rest of the course, I passed up many of the people who started at 9:00 am.

They were white when I started.

Throughout the course the were obstacles. These included a 1/ 4 mile of tires, 4 sets of walls within a mud pit, a rope swing, a rope ladder, a giant slip and slide, several barrels embedded in mud, a bog with water up to my chest at times and finally two big mud pits at the end of the race.

The course in itself would have been a challenge with the hills, but throw in all the obstacles and it was really tough. The majority of the people crowded around the shorter obstacles so in the interested of time, I went over the larger ones. At some point along the course, I lost my bib. When I finished, they asked if I knew my bib number or even cared. I didn't care. I finished under an hour which for this course is pretty good. After the race they had an area with water coming out pipes where participants could rinse off as much of the mud as possible. I purposely wore some clothes that if they got trashed, I'd be ok. My socks didn't make it.