Mud Run Events

The Survival Race was my second official mud run I completed. My review of the event is that it’s fun, but if you seek to challenge yourself, there’s better events to try.

You see before I did this event, I had completed another called Mud Man X which I have to say was equally as “difficult” but more fun with the challenges. I was invited to try the Survival Race by my uncle and both he and I were looking to challenge ourselves, so a name like the “Survival Race” seemed appropriate.

At the time however, we didn’t know about the true challenging mud runs like the Spartan Races and Tough Mudder (we did try those a few years later).

Info about the Survival Race:

The Survival Race is only 5K miles and good for beginners. There are “waves” of races that take place every 30 minutes where new registrants begin the trail. Our wave was at 11:30 a.m.

On our team, we had a man who was also interested in testing himself on the course, and since I wanted to as well, the rest just wanted to take their time, so he and I decided to run ahead to see how fast we could finish the race. We were doing very well and had no difficulty bypassing the obstacles which were muddy areas, running circles around trees, a sand mound and puddles, that’s how easy it was.

We were making great time and at our pace, we could have finished the race in under an hour. Unfortunately, about halfway, we hit a long line which was formed because people had to wait to pass 1 obstacle. And the people behind had to wait in line to try it out.

This was the worst part of the race because people who are anxious to get ahead wouldn’t be able to because the course was so narrow and you’re weren’t allowed to “cut in line” so those who are more physically fit ended up having to wait behind people who weren’t.

You may be thinking that if waves start every 30 minutes, that the faster people will just get ahead but the line that we had to wait in had people in waves that were before us (11:00 a.m. and even 10:30 a.m.!). That meant there were people that were stuck in that line for almost an hour.

Any person who was ahead of their wave’s participants by 15-30 minutes ended up still meeting up because of that one obstacles. So what was this obstacle that was causing the delays?

It was just a simple board…

It was about 3-4 feet high. All you had to do was run to it and use the speed of your run to climb it and then go over the other side which was also a board so it’s not like you were jumping on the other side. There really wasn’t anything to be scared of yet people instead of getting a running start to get through it were so scared that they would run up to it, stop, then try to climb it. Many were slipping because so many that were going over it had wet shoes so they left water on the board so most people that couldn’t complete it had to restart.

But they would restart immediately and were given as many chances as they wanted to pass it instead of going behind the line and giving the more physically fit a shot and that only made the line longer and longer. My team and I waited for over an hour before our turn came up.

This was very frustrating for my team and it really made the Survival Race a big disappointment. I understand that these events have people with different physical levels, but this course was set up so narrowly that there’s were very few areas where you could go around people that are slower than you.

Finally the “race” continued…

The same person who I went with ahead of my team early on in the race wanted to make up for the crazy amount of time we lost on that “obstacle” so we basically ended up fast jogging through the rest of the course. One kilometer of this involved us just going through basic wood areas, with some of them having mud.

However, in these areas, there weren’t many boundaries keeping us enclosed in the course, so I ended up running around any areas with mud because I just didn’t want to get more dirty. My companion however, didn’t care and just ran through it.

The last part of the Survival Race…

Once the woods ended, a huge open field was before us and it would be the last kilometer of the Survival Race. Here we would need to go through 4 final obstacles:

1) A simple board about 4 feet high with a large hold in it. You just had to jump through it. 

2) A flat area where you have to carry some stuff for about 100 feet back n forth once, very similar to the Spartan Race, except it was much easier here.

3) A rope swing. 

4) The last part was just a run through very thick mud which was also slippery. They put that there to make sure we were dirtied up as much as possible before the finish line…

We all enjoyed the Survival Run and for some of us, it wasn’t easy to do, but for myself and the gentlemen I was sprinting it through with, the only thing that made it difficult was the actual sprint, otherwise it was very simple to complete. 

Like Mud Man X, this race was designed to people who are new to mud runs in general and if you’re in average shape, start with that one or the Survival Race. If you get too tired after finishing it, then this level is fine for you and you and if you find it easy, upgrade the 5K Spartan Race, then the other more advanced, longer courses!

Here is a list of mud runs and their difficulty levels. And finally, have you tried the Survival Race or other similar runs?

When preparing for a long mud run, especially one that is going to give you a full body workout, you’re going to have to ear properly before and after the race. 

Having done 7 of these mud runs, I know how many calories you lose and how quickly it can happen, especially during extremely hot or warm temperatures when these race typically take place. You will have to replenish your energy somehow and this is most important not just during the race, but before it. 

Foods to eat before the race starts:

The first meal you’ll want to eat will be before you go to bed the night before the event takes place. You’ll want to load up on something that is protein heavy with these races.

Foods heavy in carbs are fine, but load up on them at least 12 hours before the race. 

In my experience, nothing is better to eat before these events than eggs.

You can make any dishes with these but don’t overeat. You need to be fully digested and ready to go when you go once the race starts. The last thing you want is to feel food still being digested when you’re putting in all your energy to finish the race. 

In the last track I participated in (the Spartan Super), my team and I were supposed to arrive for registration around 8:30 a.m, the first wave was going to begin the course at 9. 

We woke up at 5 a.m and had a few boiled eggs around 5:30 a.m, then got another small meal shortly after while we were driving to the event. I went to a Starbucks and got myself chicken snack wraps. Before the race started, I loaded up on about 600 calories but I gave myself at least an hour between eating and racing so I was ready and full of energy before the 9 a.m wave started.

I don’t recommend eating or drinking anything with dairy before these races. They are going to be very hard to digest.

It’s also important to note when you usually go to the bathroom after you eat, because you’ll want to time that pre mud run meal such that you can “get that out” before the race starts.

Foods to eat during the race:

For most short 5K type mud runs, you won’t have to bring any food with you until after you finish the trail and the people who organize these events always have something you can buy after, but during the race, maybe an energy drink at most (and lots of water), but for very long trails like the 8 mile one my team and I did which took us nearly 5 hours to go through, having a little snack and energy drink can really help. 

The only kinds of foods you should eat are carbs and ones that have VERY low calories that you can eat and jump right back into the event. All you want is energy from these, not anything that takes a long time to digest and requires you to rest! So eating an egg during the event is not a good idea, not even a banana!

• We ate PARTS of energy bars when we were racing.
• We also ate very small gel candy that had a lot of sugar. 

Energy drinks may also be very good to have, but my opinion is that you should make sure most of the liquids you drink are water, not energy drinks. Only drink those when you’re taking a break and have been sweating a lot. 

My uncle had a massive muscle cramp when we passed mile 7 and no matter how much stretching he did, it wasn’t able to help him. He was fortunate however to bump into another team member running by that he knew who had a piece of salt which he used with water to drink it. It hydrated him and made up for the salt he lost while sweating. Energy drinks can also do this. 

Leaving enough time before eating and starting the trail also gives you time to use the bathroom!

You never want to have a stomach ache hit you in the middle of these races. You may probably have a few pit stops along the way, but #2 is not the problem you want to hit you and in these tracks, I’ve never seen a porter potty on the trail, only at the starting line area. So when you eat and give yourself a few hours to digest it, you’ll probably want to use the bathroom by the time you arrive to the race.

If you don’t feel the urge to use the bathroom when you arrive (should be an hour before the race begins), an emergency thing you can do is drink a little bit of coffee. It’ll help raise the urge to use the bathroom.

Keep all your food/water supplies in just one bag:

If you’re with a team or just alone, you will want to have a small backpack with you to carry water and these snacks to eat. Even if you’re with a team, just have one backpack because as you get more tired, it’s going to feel more heavy and you’ll want to rotate who carries it.

Here is a wonderful backpack you can get that also has a 2 liter supply of water on the inside! That extra 2 liters and a few extra ounces of food you’re carrying is going to get heavier and heavier as you continue through the track so it’s better that one person carries it and switches with other team members rather than everyone have their own. These backpacks can carry enough supplies for 4 or 5 people for a long mud run event. 

Also carry a few first aid supplies in these backpacks just in case someone gets hurt or cut.

Don’t do these events if you’re hungry!

You need to have a good energy supply in your body before you start one of these events. But you also need to fill up on that energy before you start the trail, not right before, not 30 minutes before, but a few hours before. 

As you burn calories during the track, you will want to switch to eating carbs and drinking energy drinks in very small levels so you don’t have to digest and get that energy right away to continue with the trail. 

Do not attempt to do these events on an entirely empty stomach. You may risk losing consciousness or worse. 

Here are other important clothing supplies you’ll want to have prepared for these events! 

The longer your mud run or the more inexperienced you are, the more supplies you should have when doing this! The good news is, most of these events have water and even food stations to help with this problem. I’ve found Tough Mudder events are usually the best for this, as they usually give you plenty of 

Mud Man X is a mud run event that is hosted in New York and New Jersey mostly and it is has a 5K course that despite them saying is difficult, I felt it was one of the easiest, yet very creative courses I ever ran (here is a list of all the mud runs I’ve done).

This was the first mud run I ever participated in (2012). I did spend a lot of time preparing for it because I really believed it was going to the most difficult outdoor challenge I ever had but while it was fun, I think if you’re in very good shape and want a challenge, this isn’t the type of race you’d get that from (I’ll show you tougher mud runs for that!). 

While there are a lot of cool obstacles that we went through, the overall race didn’t have a difficult vibe to it. If you enjoy testing yourself outdoors and aren’t looking to compete in these types of races and your shape is decent (you can run a few miles and have OK upper body strength) and under, this race may be a good test for you. If not, see these other higher tier mud runs.

I also want to say that I wrote this review of Mud Man X MANY years after I did the race, so I still have to find my finisher photos from it.

Last time I checked, the Mud Man X Facebook page is still active, but their site is not. But I’ll be talking about this event as though it’s still around (or could possibly return).

Here’s how Mud Man X will test you:

The race took place in the summer on a pretty hot day. I went with 2 other people and we were fortunate that most of the time we were going through it, it was raining very hard. This made the temperature outside much cooler. 

First we ran through a forest for about half a kilometer. Through that area, we had to walk through what smelled like manure but it was an obstacle where you climbed several hay bales and in between them was water. 

When we finished that part of the race, we ran for a little bit longer, then had to crawl through a muddy cave that had ice in it. The top of it was also covered by a hay bale making it dark.

Following that, we had to climb and maneuver through a few large shelters which were had us crawling through them, then climbing a ladder to reach the top of it, then scaling down.

We had to cross some areas where there was deep mud that went on for about 100 yards. I lost my sneaker in this area and had to dig it out because each time I stepped into the mud, my foot went in about 2 feet deep and the suction from trying to get my foot out caused me to lose the shoe. Also don’t try to go through this area quickly because it is very exhausting. If you do it slowly, you’ll save energy. 

In MudManX there are areas where you have 8 foot walls you can try to climb over but if you aren’t able to, the rules aren’t strict on passing through every obstacle like they are if you do a really difficult mud run like the Spartan Race. I did scale a few of them though.

There’s very few areas where you have to run uphill in this race. Most of it is on flat lands where the most difficult thing you’ll have to do is run through some wet dirt. 

The hardest strength requirement you may have to do is the rope swing. You stand about 2-3 feet on a dirt mound hold a rope and have to try and swing across a muddy puddle to the other end. It’s about 10 feet and if you can’t hold, you just go into the dirty water. 

Another obstacle this race has is a mix of monkey bars and rings. You can either use the rings to get across or use the wooden parts of the obstacle to go around it. This turned out to be a very difficult obstacle because it was very slippery.

I fell twice trying it and my uncle who almost reached the end missed being able to touch the end of it with his foot, fell down and injured his knee. In that particular obstacle, that kind of fall can happen to many people.

The hardest part of the race is when you have to go through the electric wires. it is not physically difficult but the shock is what hurts very bad.

I got shocked 3 times. There were 3 “lanes” people could fit through and the middle one I was in happened to be one which had the least amount of wires handing low, but I didn’t see that when I was crawling so I tried to pass into the other lanes which made me get shocked more. The feeling of getting shocked when you’re wet is as though someone takes a giant bat and whacks you with it.

If you have to go through the wires, find one lane and go through it. Don’t change lanes because changing back means having to flip over on your side which makes you more likely to get shocked. 

One of the last areas before the finish was a wall which had a rope on it. You had to run up to the wall, get up as high as you can to reach the rope, then use it to pull yourself to the top of it. From there you had to slide into another muddy puddle before finally reaching the finish line.

MudManX. Is it going to be the most fun you’ve had or boring?

I wasn’t happy with this race because I though it was very easy. I felt like I could do a 10K version of it just as easily. The race is NOT boring. MudManX type races are in my opinion the easiest types of mud runs so if you’re a first timer, it’s a good one to start with.

You will have fun AT LEAST, but if you want to challenge yourself and have moments where you wonder if you’ll finish the race, this course won’t do it. You will need to have cardio resilience and some strength training to complete it.

So if you have friends that aren’t super athletes but workout, and you enjoy outdoor activities together and don’t mind getting dirty (which you 100% will), then this is a great race to try (if it’s still around).

Followed by this, my first mud run experience, I was later “tested” with another easy one: Survival Race, which I also thought was pretty easy, but it was until I tried the Spartan Super that my view of these races changed substantially! After doing the Spartan and Tough Mudder events, I would only agree to go on a mud run, if it were one of those 2 events.