The thing I hate about the Muddy Watter's Bump and Run series is that you never know what's in store for you (squat thrusts, squat thrusts, squat thrusts)
I was originally scheduled to run the Warrior Dash this weekend, but after talking to several fellow Tough Mudders, I chose to skip the race. From what everyone was telling me, I would have been greatly disappointed with the obstacles and ease of the race. So I took their advice. Then I remembered that the Muddy Watter's Bump and Run race was the same day.
"That race is always interesting." I said to myself. "I wonder what he has in store for his racers this time." I sent off a text to my friend Julie to see if she'd be interested in doing the Bump and Run. She was indeed interested and we registered that night.
The morning of the race we met up with the rest of the crazy people that continually sign up for the Jeff Watter's punishment runs. There were several echoes of groans as Jeff explained what we had to do. But nobody walked away and nobody broke down in tears, we all stayed put until the race began.
At the start of the race everyone dropped down to the ground and did 100 squat thrusts, yes you read that right, 100 squat thrusts. Then it was a short sprint to three fallen telephone poles.
At the first one we had to to do 20 toe taps, lifting our feet on top of the pole.
At the next one we did 20 straddle hops with touches. hopping back and forth over the pole.
At the third it was 20 push ups.
After the push ups we jumped into a swampy run-off the Clinton River that had at least a foot of muck on the bottom. We sludged for about 25 feet, crawled out of the nastiness and jogged to the first telephone pole to repeat the whole process two more times.
By the end of the three cycles, I was ready to for the next challenge. To swim across the fast moving river to get to the bridge. Due to the severe rain we received earlier in the week, the river was extremely fast and quite deep. I started up the river from the bridge so I could cross at an angle. I was almost there when I had to pass a large boulder. The current was extreme and it started sweeping me down the river. Luckily I was able to grab a small sapling to stop myself.
I fought the current and held tight to the tiny tree as Julie passed the rock and started to float by. I reached my arm out to her and grabbed hold. I had just started to pull her to the bank when I heard a female cry for help. Another racer was getting swept away. I shot out my leg and she grabbed on to my foot. Then her friend cried for help so I stuck out my other leg.
There I was, struggling mightily to hold on to the the small plant as my three other limbs were being used as tow ropes. I had always wondered what it would be like to have three women at once, but not like this.
Eventually we all made it to the bridge, but not before hearing a sentence you never want to hear from a race director. "We only lost one or two so far."
Of course once it was Julie's turn to jump from the bridge, she hesitated and peppered Jeff with questions. "Is it safe? How deep is it? Has anyone gotten hurt?" and so on. Finally, she jumps into the 12 feet of water. What's bad is that during the second loop she will ask these same questions again.
Now we are mere river debris as the current carries us along in its deep waters. That is until it gets abruptly shallow, bashing our knees and shins against the rocks. Standing up was quite difficult since the river was still rushing even though the water was only a couple of feet deep. There was the constant threat of being swept off your feet.
Towards the end of our river travel, Julie lost her footing and became a large river object, colliding into my legs, sending me off course and forcing me to swim against the current to keep from being swept to Lake St. Clair.
Now that we were soaked from our river run, we had a decent trial run to traverse before being forced to do 100 more squat thrusts.
After struggling through the squat thrusts we ran back along the trail until we came upon a storm drain. That's right, the twisted mind of Jeff Watters figured it would be fun to make us climb down into a storm drain then crawl out of it into a river.
Julie is afraid of dark spaces so she refused to do this and backtracked to a point where we could meet up again. Climbing down the extremely narrow ladder didn't bother me so much. It was the sound of rushing water echoing in the small chamber that unsettled my nerves a bit. But I made it through unscathed and ended up back in the river.
At this point we were given strict instructions to stay to the left to avoid the current pushing the river over a 5 foot damn. I believe the exact instructions were "Stay to the left, if you go to the right you will die."
I made sure to stay to left.
As I pulled myself out of the water, I met up with Julie and we ran back to the starting line to do the entire thing again, starting with the squat thrusts, ending with the storm drain and the dam of pending death.
Jeff Watters continues to come up with some crazy stuff for his runners to do, but we keep coming back for more. And I will definitely do another Bump and Run.
I am VERY happy I chose this race over the Warrior Dash.
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