This registration began as a Christmas gift for my son and I.
I was looking for a special gift. Something that would reinforce our bound even more and introduce him to OCR. Mud Hero was a perfect fit for this:
- Family & team oriented
- Nothing to hurt anyone: no barbwire, electric shocks, etc.
- Time and competitiveness not as important as other races such as Spartan Race
- At the first look of it, difficulty level seemed a bit lower
As spring started showing their colors, my daughter started to show interest in running. I started going to the mountain near our home to do some trail running. At first, she found it quite difficult but as time progressed she really got good at it. By the time of her birthday (end of May), she wanted to be part of our Mud Hero team :).
Here’s my review from a participant, obstacle course runner and a dad.
I booked the whole team (My 2 kids, a friend and me) to the first race wave in the morning; it is kind of an habit I developed from my experience in Spartan Races. It is way more easy to navigate the sites, bathrooms and registration spots when you’re the first ones arrived.
Registration process was a breeze, really nothing to complain about. We received a BIB number, a bag tag (for deposit), a nice Mud Hero bag and a t-shirt. The bag deposit was also pretty easy: no lines, people greeted us with awesome smile; this was going to be an awesome day!
We lined up at the start line almost half an hour before the official start. It allowed me to place everyone’s BIB correctly, go through a whole warmup routine and calm the group excitement down a little 😉
I could see in their faces, especially my daughter, that there was a mix of curiosity, anxiousness, excitement and nervousness – typical OCR symptoms 🙂
The course was a blast: 5.3 km of pure fun (see the course here). It was in a mountain and we climbed approx 2 times. On the trail running aspect, I would consider this a medium difficulty course. If you are in shape, there’s nothing to die here. Nice deep wood run, trail open enough to not twist an ankle.
As for the obstacle themselves, they really were fun. Again, not too tough, just challenging enough not to discourage anyone (especially newbies):
- Wall Slide
- Spidey Web (elastic bands spread in forest)
- Cargo Nets
- Muddy tunnels
- Hero Slide (Inflatable structure)
- Car Park (climbing and jumping on cars – how cool is that!)
- and much more
Also, it is important to mention that there were no lines to get to each obstacle, no waiting and the obstacles themselves were in top condition.
Here are couple of pictures of the race itself:
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I absolutely wanted to keep the best part for the end: the mud. No wonder why they call the race Mud Hero: there is plenty. The organisation was brilliant enough to not put too much mud during the course, which would dry down in shoes and cause friction and blisters. They pour some here and there (the mud slide is actually one of the last obstacle). But you actually finish in an enormous pool of mud. Actually, it is so intense that your timing chip finishes the course before you dip in that mud “thing”. On the picture below, you can appreciate the damages (yes, it was that messy).
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At the end, we were greeted with a watter bottle and an awesome Mud Hero medal. You can see in the pictures above the pride in a father’s face and the feeling of accomplishment that these kids have.
So all in all, a fantastic family day. Will I register again? Absolutely. It was actually almost the first thing both my kids said when we finished “When’s the next one?”. I’ve got 2 rookies coming up in the OCR world now, we better watch for this new generation of competitors.
Here’s also a video I did with my GoPro camera: Mud Hero 2013 – Montreal
Thanks Mud Hero, you made the introduction to this fantastic sport a charm.
