Fun in the Mud!!!

Foreboding clouds on they way to Marin.

We had a rainstorm and a half this past weekend!!  Keep in mind, what this really means it that we have really heavy downpours (in California terms) over 2 to 12 hours with breaks of sun.  This meant we got over 5 inches of rain in Concord over 4 days.  Keep in mind the entire total for November averages 3 inches and for December 4 inches.  But needless to say it was wet!

Now what did we do in the rain?  Well we run of course.  Well not really.  Plan was to have the kids run at the kids race held at the North Face 50, or I might say the TNF50 Mud Run.  This is the championship for the North Face trail series and is one of the few races where there is a nice purse for the winner.  So anybody who is anybody in trail racing is there.  It is a two day event, with the 50-miler, 50K, marathon, and marathon relay the first day, followed by the half-marathon, 10K, and 5K.

The challenge this year was that the course was so muddy that a few of the elite runners got lost, or had to slogged through the mud.  Our problem is that we didn’t get the e-mail to let us know that the kids race would be cancelled.  Oh well.  The kids were majorly disappointed until they realized that they could have just as much fun playing in the mud as running.  In fact they spent a bit perfecting the belly slide, then were asked by the announcer to demonstrate for the crowd (that was still there) the proper technique!   Needless to say, I have a feeling that our kid’s pictures now populate a few hundred peoples Facebook pages!!

We also enjoyed the walk back to the car.  It was along the course and we passed a few runners that were completing their run.  You could tell by the look  that they had really been pushed to their limit and then see the kids covered in mud and the biggest grin come over their face.

Then we faced the challenge of how to get the kids home in the muddy clothes.  The Headlands must have the blackest mud in the Bay Area, because it took three washes to get the clothes back close to normal and two baths a piece for each of the kids.  But in the end, we had a great time.