Several of Us Went up to Hagg Lake to Play in the Mud on Sunday

Several of us went up to HaggLake to play in the mud on Sunday. Everyone came away with a smile, lots of mud, and a great performance.

Congratulations to Blair Bronson who won his age group and captured 4th

overall in the duathlon. Blair talked his dad, Ken, into doing the duathlon who succeeded in winning his age group too. Guy Boulanger got 10th overall in the Xterra trail run. My friend Paul also joined us and would have gotten 3rd in the duathlon single speed division (he entered the general mtn bike category). I was happy to win my age group and 2nd overall for women and especially happy to finish the race in one piece.

The XDog event crew seems to use their course descriptions merely as suggestions because the 5 mile trail run turned out to be 6 miles and I heard the 12 mile ride was more like 15. More race for your buck, I suppose. Even their race registration and transition area was in an entirely different location than listed on the website!

"Run" was a very loose term. It was more like bushwacking, ducking under trees, leaping over logs, sliding into steep 10-foot ravines and then crawling back up the other side, and trying to stay upright in the muck or avoiding various foot entrapments. I gave up trying to keep my feet dry once my foot plunged into a knee-deep puddle.

I was grateful to finally finish the run and transition to my mtn bike.

Not being the speediest runner, I was also happy to see some bikes still in the transition area once I finally made it back.

To my disappointment, I had to keep running the first part of the mtn bike portion because of the rutted, muddy trail. Too lazy to let some air out of my over-inflated front tire, I wiped out a couple times on some of the slippery wooden bridges and was doing a lot of "skiing" and fishtailing in the mud. I wasn't sure if my body or my bike would give out first as both were starting to seize up towards the end of the ride. I found myself laughing out loud at the extreme ridiculous nature of the muddy conditions. I don't think I ever got that dirty even as a little kid. With wads of muck, grass, and pine needles wedged in between my chain rings (and everywhere else), my bike had extreme chain suck whenever I tried to get into the small ring. The sun teased us while we were running but rest of the day brought hail, rain and wind during the ride. Truly adverse conditions.

We were all very filthy and cold by the end. Fortunately there were giant vats of soup at the finish. Paul, Guy and I soaked our ails away at the soaking pool at the McMenamin's Grand Lodge in Forest Grove and treated ourselves to a well earned lunch and beer while Blair and his dad hit the road back home.

It was a really fun day, and I was glad to have convinced several others to join me (though I suspect they cursed my name at some point during the day.)

Any takers for next year?

-Sandra