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.