Muddy Buddy

I’ve done this race for the past 3 years and I loved it! Tre course was great, the after party was great, the obstacles were great too. Yes, st times, a few of the obstacles get a little backed up, but the race crew couldn’t have anticipated that. There was no way to prevent it. The medals, the shirts, the race gear were all great. Yes, the price was a little steep, but if you used a groupon or living social pass the price was the same as any 5k. I’m looking for more information about the race this year and can’t find any yet. Hope that they have another one!

The organization that runs and operates this race is a fraud, after registering for the event they will steal your money and do it with a smile.
BEWARE when registering for this lame event, they will burn you too! Plus there are better mud type runs where you will have more fun, be challenged and cost less in addition to providing excellent customer service and a supported run.
I have never done this on Unilocal but the Muddy Buddy organization sucks!

Complete both San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll and Muddy Buddy, and get Rock n Mud medal? YES, please!
I registered for the San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll half (10÷6÷13) and got an email for this special collaboration event. Done! I signed up and was looking forward to the event :)
Note: the special medal only applies to events that were in the same city. Example: I had to do both the San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll and San Jose Muddy Buddy to get the special medal and COULDN’T do the San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Seattle Muddy Buddy.
Overall it was a great experience. I left the event with a few cuts and bruises. But a great pride in crawling through the mud and climbing a ladder rope: D I hope Muddy Buddy has more events in other cities, so I can collect more special medals.

Awesome 1^st race ever!!! So much fun!!! Can’t wait till next year!!!

This was my first mud-​run and I had a good time, besides being 1. Really hungover from my birthday celebration the night before. Shots of 151 sounded like a good idea at the time. 2. Unexpectedly running in a national park? Where the first part is running up a straight up HILL with a steep incline. in 100 degree weather.
The obstacles were fun, but nothing outta the ordinary. Inflatable slide, climbing ropes, spider webs, etc. I did the 5k, not the bike&run, so maybe my experience was a bit different from everyone else in that it was kind of a HOT ASS MESS :
1. They ran OUT of water halfway through, and in their haste of trying to pour little cups of water the volunteers were wasting it by spilling it everywhere on the ground.
2. There were people fainting and lying on the side of the road, and since the race is in the middle of nowhere type of terrain meant for hiking, it was difficult to get paramedics out to help.
3. Same situation above for the water. I saw a kid running back and forth with a pitcher of water up & down those hills since they couldn’t easily get a car up there. I think Columbia could have done a better job at planning this.
I personally had a lot of fun, but I could tell you there were a lot of people that didn’t. If you are not in shape & are in risk of injury or even asthma (it was super hot and dusty), please be wary before signing up. I worried about a lot of people who were passed out before the first mile was even done !! A lot of other people had trouble from being dehydrated so please prepare yourself before the race ! It was so hot that day that I welcomed swimming in that giant mud-​pit because it was nice and cool on my skin. I fully understand the joy of pigs rolling around in mud-​pits now !

This is more an information session for those attending future events.
My rating is 3 based on:
1. Place is a winding 5 miles up the mountain, a bit dangerous for this level of a crowd on the road.
2. No call out of the initial high climb on dusty road — we were all dry mouthed and inhaling dust 3 minutes into the event.
3. Volunteers — while nice, they had no information. It appears that the only people who knew anything ran the race too as the muddy people at the tables after the event knew the answers to questions.
4. Confusing signage.
5. It wasn’t a 3 — 4 mile or 5K, it was a 4.2 mile run with dusty hills.
6. It was hot — over 85 degrees at 9:30 am and they were not ready for the heat with more water stations.
First, this is still a fun event — it is strenous as a run, but you can also walk it. Read suggestions about the mud at the end, and definitely plan to throw away your shoes. Due to the high heat, we got rid of the pants and sleeves which meant our knees and elbows were torn up. The mud pit had a lot of rocks, and you are crawling on your hands and knees.
This is an event meant to be fun, and an «I accomplished it» event for most — don’t go expecting a well organized, good signage run as there are no mile markers. The volunteers were reaching their hands in trash cans to fill the water glasses, and people were drinking from a water along the route (my «buddy» said they should put a do not drink sign on the water tower as the top is open to anything that goes in). As a note, I ran a water station at the Oakland Running Festival, and we used bottled water and spoons to make the Gatorade. When draining your body with sweat, it is important that the water not be dirty or full of germs. For the cost of the event, they can afford bottled water.
Fun — 4 stars
Location — 3 stars
Organization of event — 3 starts
If I could give 3 ½, I would.

Muddy Buddy kicked my ass but I’m glad it did!
Had a fun time in San Jose.
BF biked the first leg and i opt for the running.
The first mile is NOT a steady climb as pointed out in the map. It was straight up a HILL! Good thing I trained by running uphills outside and on the treadmill.
Eventually we finished the race and was happy with our finish.
It was fun army crawling through the mud but it messed up my knee with scratches!
Great experience!
FYI — The person who bikes first ends up running 1mile more than the runner.

This is a review for the 2009 Muddy Buddy.
A very fun course. It’s like a combination of Bay to Breakers (because of the wealth of costumes), a real serious race, and a frat party (not that I’ve been to one ;P) because of the mud pit.
As you’ve read, the beginning is steep, so you might as well walk your bike up the hill if you’re toward the back of your wave, or if you’re in the later-​starting waves. Otherwise you’re likely to crash into other bikers or runners and it’s not worth the spill ‘cos you’ve still got the rest of the race to go! Biking down hills– awesome! Biking up hills– not so much!
The obstacles are pretty fun. I’m sure someone has already mentioned what they are. Obviously the funnest thing is crawling in the mud pit at the very end. It feels really good after running in the heat! Beware that there are rocks and twigs and such so you might get kinda scraped up.
Cleanup was a bit of a hassle as there are tons of people trying to wash off with a very limited number of hoses. Yes, girls, wear bikinis or swimwear that you don’t mind getting dirty and/​or throwing away when you get home. Boys, eh, I don’t know if you care so much about your swim trunks. Oh yeah, footwear– you might as well say goodbye to these too, unless you do a really good cleaning at home.
I wish it wasn’t so expensive otherwise I’d like to do it again. I think it was something like $ 165 for you and your buddy.

I love this event. Great course with a challenging climb in the beginning, well organized and decent food at the finish line.
Be warned. Although it is fun overall, you still need to be in decent shape to do this. Since you’re switching between biking and running, it does make it a bit easier than a 10K Run. If the course stays the same, which I’ve heard it has since it’s started here then be prepared for the first leg. It’s a steep incline so if you’re not good at climbing with a bike then start the race as the runner. The rest of the course evens out with some rolling hills and fun obstacle courses like the balance beam, a 6 – 7 feet wall climb and a tall inflated slide.
Regardless of how good you are as a mountain biker, I suggest starting in the back of the pack in the beginning. At least half of the riders will get off their bikes ¹⁄₃ through.
Bring extra change of clothes. Even though there’s a place to shower I suggest bringing a gallon of water just for extra cleaning. Wear clothes that are comfortable for the race, but something that you wouldn’t mind throwing away. So much mud gets onto your clothes that it’s not even worth taking home to clean.

Another thing to check off my bucket list =)
My sister and I did the run/​ride together and I have to say it was the most fun I have had in a very long time.
Muddy Buddy is great because it’s pretty much catered for all fitness levels. The first leg is ALL uphill which is definitely a challenge. The rest of the legs are fairly easy (I say that now).
A couple things I didn’t really care for:
The course is extremely dusty, you are inhaling dirt throughout the whole thing… TIP, get a face mask or something to cover your face if you are sensitive.
My sister and I were in the 10^th (last) wave so we had to wait in a line to start for about an hour. My husband was in the 2^nd leg, so he was done and drinking beer before we even started… TIP, none really unless you want to lie about your age to be in an earlier wave.
All around I give the Muddy Buddy 5 stars for the whole experience. Can’t wait to do it again next year!

SO MUCH FUN!!!
but don’t be fooled! just because it’s tons of fun doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be in some kind of shape to do this. i’m in pretty decent shape but you must have a mountain bike, and i’ve never ridden a mountain bike.
the first leg of this event is an incline that is pretty steep. the road is narrow and no more than six feet across which is nothing when you consider there are hundreds of people on clunky mountain bikes fighting to get ahead. it’s really hard to start because people keep jumping off their bikes in fear of crashing into the person ahead of them. and once it starts to clear in front of you, you’re already on a steep hill which is hard to start on, especially if you’ve never ridden off road before. and this first portion is probably ¾ of a mile incline.
the rest of the race is pretty easy as far as there aren’t too many hills. and 6 or so miles of half cycling and half running isn’t that bad. the obstacles are pretty easy and the slide one is fun.
my cuzzo and i wanted to dress up so we went as Bill and Ted. i went as the blonde fool that had jeans on. you know how hot it gets it San Jose in June? you know what it feels like to run in jeans? sooo not the bizness. then to be drenched in mud with jeans on? i felt like i added 20lbs to me after getting out of the pit! but it was all sorts of fun and i would definitely do it again.

Muddy Buddy San Jose is catching on! Last year was my first time participating and there was a huge turn out. People brought lots of energy and some showed their creative side with awesome costumes!
Its great because you can do this with a buddy — which is nice for people who are trying out athletic events for the first time. One buddy runs a leg while the other bikes it. Then you will arrive to an obstacle and after you finish the obstacle, you switch with your buddy. So if you were running, you will switch to the bike after the obstacle.
There’s free beer afterwards.
But not before (the final obstacle) you crawl through a pit of mud — don’t fight it. The mud is good for you.
But it will ruin your shoes.
Showers are available afterwards — by showers, i mean cold water hoses. OR you can wait in line for warm hoses… eitherway.

This is the equivalent of Bay-​to-​Breakers but with biking, awesome obstacle courses when we’re switching up team members and a great finishing touch of both team members crawling through the mud. Talk about teamwork! I’m glad my gf Jen had enough balls to sign us up for it! I still have bruises and scratches from Sunday! I am definitely hooked! I can’t wait for the next one!

No one has reviewed this yet from Sunday? (June 6, 2010) I guess no one has recovered from it yet. Haha.
I had soo much fun at Muddy Buddy and I so want to do it again. I thought it was a highly organized event with tons of volunteers to direct you where to go, serve water at the stations, etc.
I’m so glad that my friend Tina decided to do it. Surprisingly not many girls wanted to do this with me. I mean yeah its not cheap its 150 for a team to do it but they do have to set up the different obstacle courses and of course that whole mud pit you go through in the end.
Okay so it was def more hard than I thought it’d be. Its definitely doable but if you are not used to running and riding a bike on a dirt path then it could be tiring for sure.
I didn’t pick up my packet until morning of so you’re fine at showing up at close to 7am to pick the packet up and then the race starts at 7:30AM. Depending what wave you are in you may start up to 30 to 45 minutes later. We were wave 9 because of our age bracket. The wait was fine because they were playing music and had a guy on the mega phone pumping us up.
So I started the first leg by riding my bike and my partner did the running. The bikers started first and oh my gosh it was tough. I would say 75% of us were walking our bikes and when it got moderately flat enough like it wasn’t a crazy steep hill then we biked. Its a pretty narrow path at the beginning when everyone is trying to go at the same time.
We weren’t focused on time because it was our first time so we just wanted to challenge ourselves and have fun.
So there are 4 obstacles and then the 5^th one you and your buddy go through the mud together and become Muddy Buddies!
The obstacles were fairly easy but some were hard when your legs were wobbly from the run/​bike.
First obstacle– climbing over a wall
second obstacle– balance beam
Third obstacle– going up a wall and sliding down
Fourth obstacle– crawling under nets
At the end of the race there is a place to rinse off. So of course bring extra clothes and sandals to change. If your shoes are completely done after the muddy race then you can donate them for a good cause as well.
I really enjoyed the beer garden after the race! The line went by quickly and we got 2 beers– either light or dark with the sponsor at hand.
There are also several sponsor booths including Paul Mitchell offering discounted hair cuts which was cool.
I took a disposable camera which was a great idea because it didn’t matter that I got some mud splatters on it.
What I will do the next time I do this is make sure I have music while I am running. (Listen in one ear so I can bikers coming)
And also make sure you have WATER on your bike or on your body. The water stations were not enough because of the heat.
I had an amazing time and I recommend everyone to do it. I will want to dress up next year too. Lots of great outfits.
You can make it serious and race because they do have timing chips or you can be like me and just have fun!
There is also a mini muddy buddy for 15 bucks for the little ones.

This is the epitome of recklessness! This event looked so much fun that I just want to be a spectator to witness the whole thing and take photos. HeHe I was on the edge of a good-​heart-​attack as I approached a field of muddy mountain bikes (see photo I posted). Hundreds of mountain bikes lying on muddy ground put me in an intense, climactic space. w00t!
The more fun part was seeing all the owners of said mountain bikes crawling in mud wearing costumes. As in complete costumes like wonder woman, a fairy, a pig and whatever else you can imagine. All crawling in mud! Gosh, the only white clean thing you’d see was a set of teeth while they all screamed with wonderful delight.
Bay-​to-​Breakers meet biathlon… except it’s a sea of mud and not water. :-) Watch out to all spectators… the mud-​crawlers spray mud on ya! So don’t make fun of them once they’re out.
That’s reckless! I want to watch again if I can find carpool again. LOL I’m such a lazy driver.

I ran the Muddy Buddy for this first time last year with my trainer and I was soo scared at first, but after going through that mud pitt, I was hooked! I love the Muddy Buddy because it’s such a fun and easy race. Emphasis on the easy! You basically alternate biking and running throughout the race and go through an obstacle course after each mile. I considered the obstacle courses as «breathing» stations because they didn’t really make me break a sweat. There are a ton of people dressed up, so it reminded me of Bay to Breakers but less insane/​crazy because everyone actually ran/​biked. I’m definitely doing this race this year just because it’s so fun! My only thing about this race is that it’s not as organized as I would’ve hoped, but other than that, highly recommended!
Oh yea, there’s a mini muddy buddy! So if you have little ones that would love to run around in the mud, get them signed up – it’s only like $ 15!

Of all the races I have done so far, I was most nervous of doing this one because I don’t do a lot of bicycling, but I was really determined to do this.
It worked out for me and my friend since she was a biker and I’m the runner. We determined that she was going to do 3 bike legs/​2 run legs while I did the opposite, 3 run legs/​2 bike legs.
The first leg was a long one mile climb. A lot of people walked up the hill even the bikers. When we arrived at the first exchange, we had to do a crawl underneath a net. I was somewhat freaked out that I starting out on the bike at a downhill, so I walked the bike down the trail to a flat spot. OH MY GOD! There were times I was so scared going downhill because I felt like I was to crash at any moment and on top of that, I had to worry about faster bikers. Then at the second exchange was a 6 foot mini rock climbing wall with a net climb on the other side and the next exchange was another net climb with an inflatable slide on the other side. What was funny was some of the girls were freaking out about the slide being too high, but nothing was going to be happen to you since a large cushion was at the the bottom of the slide. The fourth exchange was a walk across a long balance beam. At this point, 3^rd and 4^th legs were relatively flat or had small hills to climb.
The best part of this fun race was the mud pit crawl before the finish line. My friend and I lifted the net at the entrance and proceeded to crawl through the mud. We were having so much fun throwing mud and pushing each other while at the same time, I could hear men encouraging us so they can get their free female mud wrestling show. Very amusing!
At the end, we proceeded to head towards the long lines for the showers (hoses) to get cleaned up. Thankfully, the water wasn’t freezing cold. After cleaning up, we headed to the beer garden and got 2 free beers each for a job well done.
I definitely recommend everyone should do a Muddy Buddy. You don’t have to be an experienced biker or runner to do it, but you may want to work out a little bit before the race. I plan to do this again!

I must admit, I’m kind of an inside-​girl. I have great love for the gym where I can run in the air conditioning with my water bottle on a little shelf and the television is happy to distract me. However, when I heard «mud-​pit» I was strangely intrigued.
I signed up with a friend and our boyfriends signed up on a team. We spent the previous day making last minute costumes because it sounded fun. We got our bikes all ready to go (and I asked the bike to be kind to me as last time I was on a bike it ended in a broken hand). Everything was good to go!
There were some minor annoyances that morning though:
–Even though the race didn’t start until 7:30, we had to be there by 6:30… which meant leaving by 5:30 and waking up at 5. Gross.
–The boys were in wave 1. We were in wave 9. That was a long time of us standing around.
–The first (ENTIRELY UP HILL) 1 mile leg was irritating. I was bitter at that hill for a good while.
–Lacking confidence on the bike, I opted for 3 running & 2 biking legs. My bike legs were mostly downhill… sounds good, right? Not when I’m petrified of going that fast and being in faster peoples way! I ended up walking the bike for about ½ my time on the bike legs. Better to be slower than to break my face, right? It wasn’t just me! A girl rolled past me on her bike yelling «SCARY SCARY SCARY!»
–The INSANE shower lines. We had loaded the car with sheets & towels. We just covered all the seats in the truck, stripped down next to it and drove home in towels. Like crazy mud-​covered naked hillbillies. Next year we’re bringing a camping shower. We may charge people to use it too and make a little business out of it. Haha.
But there was also much fun!
–Other than that first leg, the course was mostly flat with smallish hills. Nice & easy.
–The obstacles were super fun: low crawl, rock wall, inflatable slide, balance beam and of course, the mud pit!
–I was seriously entertained by the masses of drunk guys in the beer garden encouraging female mud-​wrestling.
Overall, it was pretty awesome. The boys beat us by 4 minutes… which can all be attributed to my bike fear… maybe next year I’ll get over it and we’ll dominate! I do wish they had a «just for fun» wave at the end so we could have done it together… without aggressive competitive people hating me for being in the way. Or maybe I’ll transform so much by next year that I’ll be one of those people! Ha. Right.

This is a great race to get your fat-​ass friends to join you to compete in. All your «run-​hating» friends that have been poking fun at you all these years for running for no reason will actually be interested if you tell them the following things:
1. You will get at least 2 free beers at the end.
2. If they lose to you, they can fall back on the excuse that they didn’t lose to you and can pick from several «poor-​sport» excuses, such as:
a. My partner sucked
b. Your partner was way too good.
c. I did co-​ed, and you didn’t.
d. I didn’t do co-​ed, and you did.
3. There’s a small mud pit at the end, so everyone gets dirty.
4. The all-​guy teams go first, and then the co-​eds, and then the all-​girl teams, resulting in an over-​presence of drunken testosterone in the beer pit as females make their way through the adjacent mud pit, futher resulting in the eye-​raping of creepy drunk towards tired and dirty females.
5. You can get even more creepy in the hose-​off pit. ‘Sides, no one can «Megan’s Law Search» your exact location, so perve away, creep.
6. It’s half biking and half running. So you’re not running the whole time.
7. It’s a great way to beat other people fatter than you.

Did it for the 2^nd time today! I did it 3 years ago and waited for today to Unilocal so I can have it all fresh in my memory while I wrote. The race is very well organized. It seems to be going in a more fun direction with costumes and such. I don’t mind that at all, it gives you some interesting outfits to scope out while on the trail. They get your times out very promptly. They use a good arrow system for safety. Beer garden supposedly takes tickets but it really is all you can drink until the kegs are down to their last drops. My beast division cousin yacked on the way down Mt. Hamilton, so don’t forget the windy drive down when your pounding the Red Hook.
Even though I would encourage everyone to do it, keep in mind it is not fun if you are completely out of shape. You should do some running and biking ahead of time so you aren’t hating life the whole race. The first hill is a killer. Great location, great people, and great event!!!
*Update* 6÷9÷08
They posted my time in the wrong category and added 30 minutes to it since the category they misplaced me in started 30 minutes before we did. Also, last time I did it I didn’t even get a time or any pictures =(I subtracted one star for those things.