The fitness industry has many crazes that aim to get your wellbeing into gear, but the latest fad – the mud run – really kicks things up a notch. Wellness writer and fitness enthusiast Tatiana Boncompagni didn’t know what she was letting herself in for when she signed up for the New York mud run, but it didn’t take her long to find out. ‘Adrenaline pumping, we surged onto a 3.15-mile course littered with mud pits, water traps, and a dozen other obstacles,’ she recalls. ‘Within minutes, I was panting, and my shoes, sopping wet, felt like cinder blocks.’ So why are people taking up this crazy challenge?
Mud runs are not for the faint of heart or weak of muscle, but that hasn’t stopped fitness fans taking up the challenge in the last few years. In 2010, a Harvard Business School graduate founded the Tough Mudder series of intense 10- to 12-mile races – the most extreme of which include belly-crawling under barbed wire and dodging live electrical wires. 150 similar events were held cross the US last year alone, and up to 35% of the 1.5 million participants women. Still, girl power was not the reason why Boncompagni took part: ‘I had my husband to thank for landing me here,’ she details. ‘We’d originally planned to go ice-climbing in Pennsylvania that spring, but warm weather foiled the trip, and he’d found the Survival Race online. I agreed to go, and then put it out of my mind. That morning, though, as I faced the course and signed a “death waiver,” second thoughts tumbled to the fore.’
Endurance athlete Carrie Adams, of Spartan Races – a group that organizes obstacle-course runs – admits, ‘The events can be intimidating. [But this isn’t just a men’s race. It’s in our DNA, too.’ In fact, Boncompagni acknowledges that she was taken over by the mud run’s primal allure. ‘My biggest fear beforehand had been the wet and the cold—small ponds pockmarked the course,’ she explains. ‘But as I stumbled through them, the water felt refreshing. Still, I hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be to run in muddy shoes. One obstacle, a wooden board slung across a deep ditch, gave me pause before I steeled myself and clambered across it. The surprise of the obstacles is part of the races’ appeal.’
Melissa Rodriguez, senior research manager for the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association, comments that the mud run provides an opportunity to have a life-changing experience with friends, and get out of your fitness rut. Big groups often sign up for mud runs, as they ‘bring a social component to fitness’ says Rodriguez. In fact, this all-in-it-together aspect has spurned a new crop of women-only events, such as the Dirty Girl, Kiss Me Dirty, and Pretty Muddy mud runs. In these events, the obstacles are optional – as are the tongue-in-cheek names like Wood You Rather or H2OhMyGod. You’re not even against the clock, although costumes are encouraged.
So, would Boncompagni recommend mud running? ‘As I hugged my kids and hightailed it to a hot shower, I couldn’t believe how great I felt—not tired, but high,’ Boncompagni notes. ‘Once home, I signed up for another race. Then, a few weeks later, an e-mail from my husband popped up, subject line: YOU ARE A CHAMPION. Clicking on the link he’d sent, I saw I’d come in first in the female 30 to 34 age group. Astounded, I grinned. A bit of that race-day adrenaline resurfaced. I couldn’t wait to feel it again, and I couldn’t wait to get back in the mud.’
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