Mud Runs--Safe and Effective Training, or an Injury Waiting to Happen?

Are Mud Runs Safe?

Mud runs--events such as Tough Mudder--have become very popular over the last couple of years.  The insane terrain is a lot more exciting the the treadmill.  Testing your physical and mental limits may be exhilarating, but the lax safety rules, and overcrowded courses have put your personal safety at risk.

The Dangers of a Mud Run

The first time Patricia Wooldridge considered entering a mud run, she was at a get-together near her Dallas home, it was early 2010, and as a friend described the crazy 5-K event coming to town that spring, Patricia, 39, thought about her treadmill. Lately, it had been little more than a piece of furniture. Perhaps the idea of an obstacle race would kick-start her return to an active life.

Back home, she cruised the race's website, with its images of laughing, mud-smeared runners. She saw people in Viking hats, women in tutus, people hoisted skyward at post-race parties. Her first thought: This is wild! She scrolled through pictures of the obstacles, including a fire leap, which looked like someone had set a match to a straight line of lighter fluid. Intrigued, Patricia recruited a girlfriend and ponied up the $43 entry fee. A few clicks later, they were in.

The race fell on a warm May day, and the two women found themselves wandering through a boisterous crowd. As they lined up at the start, ready to sprint down a dirt road, any pre-race nerves vanished. "This ought to be pretty easy if someone is doing it in a dog costume," Patricia said to her friend. Heck, a few people were even wearing knee braces. Patricia knew the competition drill; she'd done her strength training—pushups, squats—and had finished traditional races before, a lone contestant in a solemn, panting sea of concentration. These warrior types couldn't be more jovial. Lose a shoe? No problem! Face-plant into the mud? Hilarious!

"I was having a great time," she says, "right up until I got burned to a crisp."

At the time Patricia participated in her race, the mud-run craze was just leaving the starting line. Since then, the events have become a sports phenomenon, with swarms of people showing up to get dirty and drink beer. One mud run, the Spartan Race, began modestly in 2009; it hosted around 750,000 participants in 2012. Another, Warrior Dash, also began in 2009 with one race and 2,000 people. Last year it fielded more than 800,000 runners and earned $50 million (it will hold more than 35 races in 2013). Perhaps the best-known mud run, the three-year-old Tough Mudder, is projecting more than $150 million in 2013 earnings. But these are just the majors; almost anyone who can rent a field can put on a race. Florida alone hosted an estimated 40 different ones last year.

No set criteria define mud runs, though army training courses are a clear inspiration. Participants scramble up and down obstacles and across monkey bars and, of course, crawl through pits of mud. Some inventive promoters are carrying the theme even further: If you're in the mood for it, you can now run a 5-K through simulations of end-of-the-world disasters or while dodging the aggressive undead.