Race Recap: 2010 Muddy Watters Cider Slam

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After running the Muddy Watters Fall Cider Slam, I realized that I was wrong about Mr. Jeff Watters. He is not a devious man, he is just downright mean. Only an evil mastermind could come up the tortures he puts his runners through.

Since the race was on October 30th, Jeff decided that we should all wear costumes while we push ourselves to our physical limits. Sure, why not, I’ve always wanted to be buried in a Hong Kong Phooey costume.

To start the race in total confusion, Jeff doesn’t mark the trail for this race. Instead he gives you a map of the park, a topographical map, and a list of check points that you must obtain. After scribbling some quick notes on our map, my two friends (Mike and Julie) and I started running to our first check point. They had decided to trust in my navigation of this race. I don’t know if this was such a smart move on their part. If you read about the two Bump and Run races I ran earlier this year, you’ll notice that I got lost during both of them, and that was WITH a marked trail. I think they were second guessing their decision when the majority of people started their race running in the opposite direction.

I knew where I was going though and we soon came to our first check point (cider slam) where we knew that we had to eat a donut hole and slam a shot of cider. What they didn’t tell us ahead of time is that before you got your donut and cider you had to run down then up 200 stairs, not one time, but twice.

For most people, going down 200 stairs is the easier half of the task, but unfortunately, Mike had blisters on his heels from previous run in poor shoes and the descent was more torturous then climbing up them. After racing up our first set of stairs, we headed down for our second. At the bottom, I realized that another group had decided to hit a couple more checkpoints before climbing back up. Recognizing the genius of this plan I followed behind them, with Mike and Julie in tow.

It was just a gentle trail run until we came to the next check point (west bridge crossing) at the bridge we were to do 15 downups (burpees without the push up) there was nobody there to enforce this task so one of us, suggested we just don’t do them, but I won’t mention her name. Of course I didn’t let my team weasel out of the exercises and after the downups we followed the other group as they headed to the next check point.

Right about this time, Julie starting inching farther from Mike and I and closer to the team in front of us. I figure this was for one of three reasons.

1. She didn’t trust my navigation skills anymore and didn’t want to get lost
2. She thought Mike and I were running too slow for her and wanted to pick up the pace
3. She was made at me for making her do the downups

After I called her out on her abandoning of the team, she relented and joined us once again just in time to take in our third check point (“broken collarbone” hill) this was a hill so steep and so riddled with tree roots hidden by fallen leaves that I think you’d be lucky if all you broke was your collarbone after falling. This check point was manned and we were instructed to run to the top of the hill then back down for 30 squat jumps.

Charging up the hill, it took almost everything I had to get to the top, when I started my way back down the guy at the bottom hollered “all the way to the top”. What is he talking about? I wondered to myself. Then I turned around and realized that the hill continued on even higher. I looked around for any Sherpa’s, when I couldn’t find any I struggled to the top. On the way down my feet slid on some wet leaves and I slid down about 10 feet. I realized that this way of descent wasn’t that bad and slid down the rest of the hill on my ass passing Julie and Mike who were still on their way up.

At the bottom of the hill, I was able to take my time doing my squat jumps and got a nice rest before Julie finished her own bottom slide down the hill.
Once Mike and Julie finished their squat jumps we ran back to the 200 stairs, ran up them and grabbed our donut hole and cider.

You would think that eating a single donut hole would be no big deal for a man weighing 190 and standing 6 feet tall, yet the instant I put the donut in my mouth, my body made it quite clear that it was not wanted. Instead of wolfing it down like I had planned I gingerly wet it with cider until it was more of a doughy ooze that would slide down my throat. With our “treats” sitting roughly in our stomachs, we looked at our watch and realized that we only had 20 minutes to run the 2 miles to the next checkpoint (bridge jump) if we wanted to meet the 10:15 deadline. This was going to be close since 10 minute miles was our team average on a good day with flat terrain, but we were determined to jump off that bridge. At least Mike and I were.

We made to the bridge in the nick of time, in actuality it was 10:16 when Mike jumped but I think Jeff liked to hear our screams of shock when we hit the water so he had no problem letting Mike jump after the deadline. And scream we did, that water was COLD!!!

I think the only smart thing I did all day was to take my shirts off before jumping in the ice cold river. This way I had some dry clothes to wear for the two mile stretch of road running back to the park.

Halfway into our road run we came upon our next check point (the party store) here we were to buy some candy for the kid’s candy hunt. I think Julie misread the instructions though, either that or her directions said “talk at length with every person that you encounter while at the store, and make sure you tell the cop about the bridge jump”

Running back into the park we had to make one trip down the sledding hill that has tormented us for the other races, but a single trip wasn’t bad at all and we coasted down and back up before Mike could say “my bloody blisters have busted”

At the end of the race we completed the puzzle, handed in our sheets, and enjoyed some delicious homemade chili. All and all it was a fun day, but I still think that there’s some real meanness in the psyche of Mr. Watters.