Website: https://mudnewton.com
Date: Saturday, August 25/12
Location: Woodnewton Farm 4849 Concession #6, Uxbridge, On
This was originally a Christmas tree farm, then a cross country ski resort, in the 70’s & 80’s. This farm is about 200 acres, & while they are trying to bring the farm back to a tree farm, they are hosting trail runs, & mountain bike races.
This was the 2nd year for this race. They had a 5k try a mud run race untimed, a timed 10k race, & a kids 1k mudrun. You could run as a single runner or a team of 4 people.
They clearly were not ready for the number of people who showed up to race this year. There was a ton of race day sign up due to the nice weather. The line ups were long. The race kit pick ups were not separated between the 5k & 10k, so it took a very long time to get through the lines. Thus the 5k race started very late. I think it started almost 20-25 minutes late. There were about 300 single people plus 28 teams of 4 in the 5k race. This was more then double from the previous year.
They changed the course from last year, & I felt that it was not as difficult, & it didn’t have as many obstacles to attempt. I know that it is a try a mud run, but it surprises me how many people run alongside the obstacle instead of tackling it. This was clearly evident with the long stretch of tires. I was very slow in this section, trying not to fall, & many people ran alongside the tires, instead of attempting the long stretch of tires. Even going up hills, I was surprised at the number of people who avoided the obstacle & scurried past it.
There were still lots of hills & lots of obstacles that you had to manouver through, or go under or over. We had to run through the school bus again, but only had to jump out the end of it this year. There were also the hay bales, which were easier this year to get over, but I still needed a boost to get up & over them. They had the same steep hill after the hay bales again this year. There is a large bell at the top that the first runner is supposed to clang, but everyone reaching the bell, clanged it. Then it was under the fence rolling through a ditch, around the corner to climb up a ladder to go over the fence to come down the other side of the hill. There were lots of obstacles to go over & under along the way. Once we hit the water crossing, I sunk down in the mud, & almost lost my shoe. The water was about waist high & a few of the people tried to swim. Once out of the water, we ran along the trail towards the finish line. We had to climb up & over 2 huge dirt hills, run along more dirt, then climbed a wooden ladder to a large platform to slide down a short steep slide into the first section of the mudpit, filled with a couple of feet of muddy water. The guy who went down ahead of me, lost his glasses in the water, so we had to wait for him to find them, before anyone else could go down the slide. It led to quite a back up waiting for this guy to find his glasses. We had to crawl on hands & knees under a lot of flags through a couple of mud pits, to slide down a plastic sheet into another pit of muddy water. Then climb out of that pit, & run through the mud to the finish line.
They also had a 10k event,that had about 80 runners, again up from last year. My friend Laura was supposed to run it, but with the late start of the 5k, her husband, Chris was not able to get through the 5k in time to get back before the 10k started. The 10k started on time, which made it impossible Chris to get back in time to look after the kids.
Laura’s son, Rowen ran the 1k mudrun for kids. He was on the young side, but the race organizers let him run it. He enjoyed running through the dirt & mud, but had to run that section with his shoes off. He didn’t want to get them dirty. That is not too typical for a boy. A volunteer offered to take Laura’s daughter Jillian through the mudpit. She loved sliding down into the muddy water & crawling through the mud.
There was also juding for the best costumes, with lots of great prizes.
A fellow from Get Out There Magazine ran the race again this year with a headcam, & interviewed alot of the people who were covered in mud from head to toe.
They had lots of hoses set up to shower after the run, to try to get most of the mud off. It is a bit tricky getting clean, while still fully clothed, but we were able to get off all of the big chunks of mud.
They also had a BBQ set up selling food to raise money for the Canadian Tire Jumpstart Program.
If they can get the glitches worked out for the registration & kit pickup for next year, this will be a great race.
Race date next year is August 24/13. Hope to see you there.
