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Mudmoiselle: Where ladies run a muck

Mud races are becoming increasingly popular in the running world. Mudmoiselle is a new series of events in Ontario where runners battle tough obstacles and grueling hills to raise money for cancer research. To find out more, we tossed our writer, Sinead into the mud pit. Photos by Alyssa Bistonath.
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My left foot plunges into a gooey pool of cold mud and sinks to the bottom. Suddenly I’m thigh-deep in mud fighting my way over the first wooden hurdle. “I didn’t expect this mud pit to be so deep,” I think to myself as I hurl the rest of my body forward over the high hurdles and under the short ones. I can feel mud flecks above my eyebrows and a slick layer of muck dripping from my back by the time I make it over the last hurdle. I continue and turn right onto a gravel road that takes all the runners up a steep incline. Usually, the chair lifts are responsible for getting people to the top of this mini mountain. Today, women runners are relying on the grips on the bottom of their running shoes and weeks of physical preparation.

I’m about a minute into the Mudmoiselle 5K run at Devil’s Elbow ski resort just outside of Peterborough, Ont. racing 600 other women through the obstacle course to the finish in effort to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. Today, this a day at the office– I’m getting the first-hand experience for Canadian Running. The course is 5K. When I first hear this, I’m not phased. The distance should feel easy. The obstacles I realize, will pose a challenge. The steepness of the incline up the Devil’s Elbow however, is a game changer altogether.

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Sinead fights her way through the second obstacle.

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Mud-covered women make their way over the hurdles soon after the start.

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Our mud-covered writer heading for the first hill. 

“The course itself is hard because it’s a ski hill. Those vertical uphills are tough,” says event organizer Lyndsey Fullman. “We develop events like these that our donors really want to participate in,” she says. The course has runners run up black diamond runs to the top three times. The first one hurts. Halfway through the second incline, my trusty quads are burning. I’ve experienced a lot of hill workouts down through the years but nothing as steep and long as these.

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A Mudmoiselle team showing how hills are done.

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A team of women celebrating nearly being at the top of the ski run. 

“It was brutal going,” says Jacky Soar. She’s referring to the hills. “We were looking up at the top to where we had to get to,” she says. Soar is running with her sister, Liz Follett and her daughter Becky as well as Becky’s friend, Caitlin O’Brien. Together they make up a team they named Fried Eggs Over Easy. The women raised $3,340.00 for the Canadian Cancer Society.

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Jacky after the first obstacle at the bottom of the hill. 

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Team Fried Over Easy fights over mud moguls. 

Directors, volunteers and those running at the event will all tell you something similar: this run isn’t about running the fastest time or placing first, it’s about setting personal goals, making it through the race’s difficult course and supporting a good cause. For the Fried Eggs Over Easy team, that holds true. Follett and Soar live across the country from each other (Soar lives in Edmonton and Follett lives in Ontario) but the two wanted to complete this race together. “It’s a charity that is close to our hearts,” says Soar. She flew to Ontario specifically to run. Cancer has touched the family in many ways. Their grandmother died of breast cancer, their other grandmother died of lung cancer, their aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 and Soar herself was given the same diagnosis in 1999. “I went through the gamut of chemo and radiation,” she says.

That said, yesterday’s race up and down the slopes of Devil’s Elbow was more about what’s going on in the sisters’ lives today. “We don’t dwell,” says Follett. “It’s about being healthy and moving forward.” She says that she used to mountain bike competitively. “I had a degree of fitness but I haven’t run since my early twenties,” says Soar.

Mudmoiselle was motivation for both of them. Once they decided to do it, they trained themselves using a Coach to 5K program. Follett is currently trying the Coach to 10K plan. “It was the kick in the pants I needed to get running again,” she says. The two sisters finished the race side by side yesterday.

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Team Fried Over Easy getting ready to start Mudmoiselle. 

It was a hard-earned victory for them. After turning onto the gravel path after the first mud pit, runners have the monster hill with rough footing to contend with. I arrive at the next mud obstacle with gravel dust now stuck to the mud. “You’ve taken half of the course along with you,” one of the volunteers comments. I feel like a mud troll.

The runner ahead of me reaches a turn. We’re at the brow of the hill ready to head all the way back down. On the uphill, I wished for the downhill (and perhaps, a different story assignment for today). On the downhill, I wish for a pair of skis and three feet of snow so I could glide down. I discover that when running down a sheer drop like this, my form cannot possibly look anymore slick than a toddler’s.

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The view from the top of Devil’s Elbow before runners begin the downhill run. 

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A Mudmoiselle participant makes her way through the tires about half-way through the race. 

At the bottom runners are treated to a tire obstacle and then it’s around the corner and straight back up again. Runners on the course are walking, some are trying to run, one is crawling. It’s hard to argue that the view at the top doesn’t make it worth it though. When runners finally make it up the steep section of the hill, a gradual incline seems to last forever. When it flattens out though, participants are spoiled by being able to look down on green forests that stretch out for kilometres in front of them. If this course didn’t ensure that runners would be submerged in iPhone-wrecking mud baths and soupy muck water, it would be a great time to quick snap a shot. That doesn’t matter because the best part of the course is coming up: a giant water slide.

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A soaked princess runner after going down the water slide. 

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The chaotic mud pit at the top of Devil’s Elbow. 

Right when runners are suffering the most from their battered legs on another downhill, they climb up a small ladder, relax in cold water and let the slide take them to the bottom. It’s a great way to make up time. Then, the finish is getting closer. There’s still a floating tire bridge to cross (I almost fall flat on my face in front of the crowd), another ski run to climb, a pond to circle around followed by another mud pit (just when you’ve started to dry), and then you head back down through a zig-zagging obstacle. It’s the last downhill.

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One runner makes her way through the net of rope close to the finish. 

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Getting ready to take the plunge into the ice bath 100m before the finish line. 

Once you hit the flat, it’s time to go. The finish is close by. First you must navigate through a net of string– it’s a nightmare for the uncoordinated runner. I desperately claw my way through the string adamant to reach the finish as fast as I can. First I must make my way through the ice bath. I’m so excited to get my sprint on that I don’t even have time to think about the chill before throwing my body into what looks like a giant 7-11 slushie. I move through the heavy ice water and (ungracefully) heave my body over to the side. The finish is less than 100m away. Time to sprint.

I reach the finish line satisfied and stick around to cheer on other runners. Everyone comes through the finish mud-covered and exhausted. Some are wearing costumes that are now stained brown. Everyone lingers. The atmosphere is an excited one with country and pop music blasting as finshers come in. Some sip cold beers.

It has been a full day at Mudmoiselle. We stay to watch the other heats of women finish the race (for full results, go here). Then, I go home to clean the mud out of my ears.

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Our writer, Sinead after her race. 

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One team’s claim to fame at Mudmoiselle. 

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Media got “treated” to an extra ice bath dip post race. 

 

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