Hagg Lake Mud Run

Seth ran his first ultra race of the season on Saturday, the Hagg Lake 50K. The course is notorious for being ridiculously muddy, and this year was no exception. Actually, rumor has it that the course was muddier than it has been in at least 3 or 4 years.

We left the house at some absurd hour of the morning (just for clarity, anything before 6am is absurdly early) and drove up the back roads to Hagg Lake. It's been unseasonably cold here, and the roads were coated in a thin layer of ice once we got closer to the lake. It made me miss the salt trucks of the northeast!

Once we arrived, we parked in parking lot down the road and walked down the trail to the pavilion (which had portable heaters-yay!) with Sailor dragging us along. Truth be told, he was dragging Seth. I was wearing Uggs with no traction and would have most likely been taken down into the mud.

It was a pretty chilly start to the race and running through the iced over parking lot looked pretty challenging!

Seth waiting for the race to start

Runners at the starting line

The race started with a 3 mile out-and-back up a hill and then back down.

Seth running back past the pavilion after the out-and-back

After the out-and-back, the race ran 2 laps around the lake. Usually, I try and make it to all the aid stations...but there was no parking at the second aid station, so I skipped by it and went directly to the third aid station. Since I was there so early, I worked on a little sock knitting until I thought that Seth might be headed up the road soon. 

Seth coming into the third aid station (about 13 miles in)

After fueling up, the runners headed back down towards the lake

Seth finishing up the first lap

The weather was perfect for running, and the lake was gorgeous in the sunshine:

While I was waiting for Seth to finish, there were a bunch of runners washing off in the lake, I can only imagine how chilly the water was!

Brrrr!

Seth finished in 6 hours! 

All the runners who came across the finish line were COVERED in mud, and Seth was no exception:

There's a reason the website is "haggmud.com"!

Are you sick of pictures of Seth running yet?! 

I don't have any fun knitting or spinning pictures to show off, but should have some tomorrow! I just finished spinning 8 ounces of the softest, most gorgeous merino for a custom job and am working on some beautiful merino/angora that should be done today! 

Love,

liz :)