By Indro Neri - Two hundred and fifty yards are a little less than 250 meters. Two hundred and forty, to be exact. This is the length of the course of the unusual running event hosted in the town of Bow, located an hour north of Seattle.
The distinctive characteristic of this event, the "Low Tide Mud Run", is in the course itself that is on the exposed shore surface, in the mud as the title suggests.
The starting point is the Taylor Shellfish Farm, which once a year organizes the Samish Bay Bivalve Bash with plenty of festival activities.
As I read the flyer I couldn't avoid help but smile. A warning in huge and bold characters states that this is "The Northwest's toughest foot race". Come on, give me a break! It's 250 yards! It is in the mud, sure, but it is nonetheless a half of a half kilometer. If I want, I can run it on just one leg. I have been running for 30 years and I completed two 100k ultramarathons. Bring it on!
The course is three sides of a square: We start from the shore, go straight for more or less 80 yards, then turn right, 80 more yards, turn right again and there are the last 80 yards from the flag to the finish line. As I study the course, I am almost disappointed that it is so short. I hope we have to run this loop at least three times.
I realize right away that this is no walk in the park. We are approximately one hundred participants all lined up on the start. There are more or less three hundred people to cheer us on. A dozen of us, me included, are already knee-high buried in gook.
I struggle to stay afloat, at least until the race begins, but I can't manage to set myself free. I am already stuck in the grime, and the race hasn't even started yet. Not bad. The runner next to me comes over to help me out. He grabs my thigh and we both pull it upward. My shoe wants to remain where it is, but I widen my toes and somehow I am able to manage not to loose it forever. The mud gives up, but now it is the other leg to be several inches lower stuck in the slush. It is almost a no-way-out situation.
It is in that precise moment I hear the starter's gun. Splashes, screams, applauses. I see the participants running on the course, but I am still there, like a stick in the mud, trapped in the swamp. As determined as I try, I am only able to move from the belt up. Looks like I am running so much I am struggling, but I do not go anywhere. Then, the upper half of me falls forward. Now I am covered in mud up to my neck, but pushing on my stomach at least I am able to set my feet free. And I start too.
The image of the Exxon Valdez disaster's oil-coated cormoran renders a perfect example on how I show up to run the first of the three parts of the course. I am almost unrecognizable, and I still have to run a yard. "He who lies in the mud will rise dirty", says a Gaelic proverb, and it is really a no-brainer. Call me Forrest Gunk.
I gain the mud surface, jump three or four times forward, heavily grounded by the slime that covers my arms, shirt, pants, socks and shoes, then I am back half buried in the gook. So far, I have probably ran 10, maybe 15 yards, but I've already learned my Lesson on Modesty: never be a running snob, and more than this, never underestimate the organizers' warnings, especially if they are written in huge and bold characters.
From my standing still position, I compress like a spring and wind up. I am able to cover five or six additional steps before returning to the slime. My lungs are burning and I am exhausted. I see things as clear as mud now. I look in front of me and I realize how enormous the distance really is. Two hundred and fifty yards? Are you kidding me? How can anyone run so far? I am already too far from the shore to go back. I should probably wait for the high tide to come in. But I do not give up. "Gold doesn't lose its worth by falling into the mud", they say in Turkey.
The first flag, 50 yards from me and 200 yards from the end, seems so far away. I look on my right and I see the winner crossing the finish line. All the participants that are running the third part of the course are literally running on water. I realize that the trick to this run is running (sounds obvious, but to me it is a revelation). And also, of course, be 20 years younger and 20 pounds lighter.
At least I am not the last one. Not yet. One more spring-forward action, five more yards, 20 more seconds of recoup. I breathe hard and my head is buzzing.
As I make it to the first flag, I feel like I have ran a full marathon but it is only 80 yards. Ahead of me I still have two-thirds of the course and a dozen of participants still struggling to finish the race.
I am drained, but I see a seaweed bank floating half way and this charges me up. I manage to crawl to it and, as I imagined, the terrain is now somewhat solid under my feet. I can finally run a few yards. My shoes are two cement blocks, but at least I am running. Ten, 15 yards of pure running excitement. I know now what the first fish felt when a couple of billions years ago left the waters to colonize the land. More than anything else, I feel like I am reborn. "Deichuu no hachisu": Beautiful lotus flowers are born from mud.
The seaweed bank does not last forever and the sludge quicksand is waiting for me a few yards away from the second flag. I sink again. The laws of physics change when you run in the mud. You never fall like you would fall when tripping on a trail. No low-flying stumble, no acrobatic show, no Olympic dive. When falling in the mud, you just get stuck, then the upper part of your body bends, and you simply plop. No harmony whatsoever, no "ooooh" from the crowd for a spectacular tip-over. It is more a ripe avocado splatting on the floor than a crystal glass shattering in thousands of diamond pieces.
And let me tell you about the mud, those mouthfuls of mud that taste like mussels, clams, oysters, scallops, quahogs, lima shells, geoducks and razorbacks – that strong-smelling mud that is like a fisherman's nightmare – that mud that now I have on my glasses, my hair, in my ears. I have never taken a mud bath, but I bet it is not pleasant.
I stand up again – from the belt up, that is. I can't wipe myself with the back of my hands or with the arm or with my elbow because I have no clean square inch of my skin. But I can still spit. Mud is so salty.
With a hit-and-miss technique, jumping and struggling, I am able to reach the second flag. Now there are only 80 long yards separating me from the finish line. I lose the right shoe. I step back, stick the leg back into the mud and find my shoe.
We are now four participants on the last stretch of the race. It would be so pathetic to arrive last, even in a 250-yard race, so it is time to give all I could give. I throw myself forward and cover several yards by crawling in the mud with my knees and shins that get scratched on the broken shells.
I know that crawling in the mud is not what you say to give the best impression of yourself, especially if you have wife and daughters on the shore, and dozens of cameras and video cameras documenting the arrival of the last four desperados. I know I will probably end up on the next edition's flyer, as the main illustration, right under the warning in huge and bold characters that states that this is "the Northwest's toughest foot race". But I have to (I must) arrive first among the last runners.
The finish line banner is only a few yards away now. I hear the crowd applauding, then suddenly a roar. As I am crossing the line I see the third-from-the-last that is literally flying over my head, in a desperate attempt to beat me. It is a real Olympic dive – chapeau! That nonetheless leaves him third from last and covered in mud. I think about the truth in the Iranian proverb: "The mud that you throw will fall on your own head".
The organizer congratulates me and puts the medal around my neck. Hanging from the white, blue and red ribbon there is a real oyster shell painted in gold. After thirty years of running, suddenly here it is again: a medal that I want to show proudly to everyone I know, as if I were a young boy at his first run. I am covered with black stinky mud from head to toe, but I am happy as a clam.
