The one about the poop soup

Yes, you read that correctly. Tonight's post is all about the Camp Pendleton Mud Run.

A and I woke up bright and early Saturday morning (5:45AM to be exact...) to head down to Camp Pendleton. Along the way, we stopped off for a much needed pre-race pit stop, which just so happened to be at the Starbucks across the street from Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Pretty, no?

We finally made it to the base (t-minus 1.5 hours to race time) and drove around a huge circle for what seemed like WAY too long. When we finally found the race parking (t-minus 45 minutes to race time) A dropped me off about a mile from the starting line, and I got my warm-up jog in by running up to the starting line. (Note to the US Armed Services - a little signage is not going to threaten our National security - I'm just saying...)

My Firm was one of the race sponsors, and so we had a nice little booth set up near the starting line. My awesome teammates had my race number and official race t-shirt. Unfortunately, since A was still navigating the parking nightmare, no pre-race photos, but he did manage to snap a shot of all the runners en masse:

After avoiding the spray from the fire hoses during the first mile, another mile in loose sand, and a 2-mile uphill trail run, we arrived at the poop soup, lovingly nicknamed for its putrid scent and texture. Sadly, the marines standing guard on the sidelines forced 'encouraged' us to, "GET IN THE MUD PIT". Lovely.

Next came a a quick jog across the "lake" which, thanks to this lovely drought Southern CA has been suffering, was completely dry. Except for the goopy mud at the edges, courtesy of another fire hose.

Next up, another mud pit (complete with 5-foot wall to be scaled) a 30-foot tunnel crawl. Then we scaled the hill of mud. Thankfully, my teammates gave me a literal push up the hill, and the Marine standing guard at the top of the hill took mercy on me, and didn't try to wash me back down the hill with his fire hose.

After a steep down hill quarter-mile, with the finish line in our sights...

(see how happy we looked?!?)

...we arrived at the last obstacle:Poop Soup - part 2. I'm not gonna lie - I couldn't stomach getting face down in this goo. Luckily, the Marines had let down their guard by this point.

Once we'd all made it out of the pit, my teammates and I linked arms and sprinted through the finish line.


I'm so proud of my teammates. We stuck together for the whole race, and still managed to come in first of all the teams from our office.

All in all, an excellent way to spend a Saturday morning. It would've been nice if it were a little cooler than 85 sweltering degrees and two days later, my quads are still SORE (which may be, in part, attributable to the 2 hour bike ride we went on yesterday...) but, I'm still really glad I got to participate in the mud run with all these awesome folks: