Here's mud in your eye.

The 'Muddy Buddy' race was last weekend. Dude. I got muddy. Here's the scoop:

The race is run in pairs, with each partner alternating either running or biking. There are five segments, each about a mile-and-a-half long, give or take. If you start off on the bike (like I did), you get to the end of the first leg, drop your bike in a spot that hopefully can easily be discovered by your partner, then go through some sort of silly obstacle and start running. Your partner, who starts out running, gets to the end of that leg, does the same obstacle, finds the bike and starts pedaling. Ideally, your partner will then pass you somewhere along the second leg, since he's on a bike and you are huffing and puffing on foot. Then you switch back and do the whole thing over again.

We ran into a bit of a snag because, as incredibly speedy as I am as a runner (that was sarcastic. You'll need to get used to sarcasm with me), I somehow finished the second leg on foot BEFORE my partner finished it on his bike. So that pretty much threw us off for the rest of the race. At the end of the fourth leg, as an illustration, I was patiently waiting for him to show up with the bike for about five minutes. Which was totally fine, by the way; I didn't think we were going to set any land records or anything anyway, and plus after I got through the obstacle (climbing a rope wall up to an inflated slide), I got to hang out and watch a bunch of dudes barfing. I felt pretty accomplished by NOT puking, to be honest.

At the end of the race, both partners have to crawl through a mud pit before sprinting to the finish. I know what you're thinking; this either sounds incredibly fun, or incredibly stupid. I thought it was fun. The pit is strategically situated next to the beer garden, and earlier finishers are lined up along the edges, downing pints and booing you if you don't get muddy enough. They'll also heckle you if you don't dunk your partner under the mud, and they tend to chant "Backstroke! Backstroke! Backstroke!" at random intervals. They are merciless. By that, I mean, they show no mercy. By that, I mean they enthusiastically booed LITTLE KIDS who tried to sprint through the mud without getting any on their shirts or in their hair. It was pretty funny.

Somehow, at the exact same time, my partner and I both got about a gallon of

mud embedded in our eyes partway through the pit. Both of us wear contacts. Neither of us could see the finish line at all. Somewhat ironically, an "EMERGENCY EYEWASH TENT" is positioned next to the pit, but of course, neither of us could actually see it, so we blundered right past it in a desperate, wobbly attempt to get the mud out of our faces. We eventually made our way into the lake, where we dove right in, fully-clothed, and proceeded to wipe the mud out of our eyes with muddy lake water. Surprisingly this worked out OK.

I've done a couple of runs since then, both short. I'm getting a little concerned about my shins and ankles, which tend to get sore after extended periods of running. I'm up to about 11 miles on my long runs, but may have to scale back a bit and recharge before pushing past the half-marathon distance. We'll see how this goes.