Several months ago, a friend reached out and asked me if I wanted to sign up for a muddy princess 5k. To be honest, I didn’t know much about it, but a 5k sounded fun, so sign me up!
We signed up as a team of 7 and it was supposed to take place back in August, but due to all the rain they ended up postponing it to Labor Day weekend. I thought it was kind of funny that they cancelled a mud run due to the ….. mud ….. but I also think it was less the course that was a problem and more the parking lot!
Anyways….once the date got switched, our team dwindled a little bit and we were down to 5 ladies. We met up to carpool and drove the hour or so to Kentucky where the race took place. When we arrived, we were flabbergasted by how disorganized they were. The parking lot was a free for all and there was not a lot of clear directions for anything. It was fine, though, we just laughed our way through the random things that happened in the parking lot and got ourselves ready for the run!
I don’t have very many pictures- we did take some videos and I made a fun reel on Instagram of that, but I didn’t end up with many pictures. I did end up taking my phone during the run, but I was so muddy half the time that I didn’t want to touch my phone. I put my phone and the car keys in a ziplock bag in my running pouch and I never got wet past my thighs, so that ended up being a good plan!
Anyways- we got ready in the parking lot! Tutus, glitter on our face, and hairs all braided!
The Muddy Princess is a 5k muddy obstacle course. There was maybe 8 different obstacles along the course, but you could skip any obstacle that you didn’t feel comfortable doing. It was VERY low key and chill. There was quite a few obstacles that involved getting on your hands and knees and crawling in a mud pit, and there was twice that we were wading in a river.
My biggest tip if you do this race is to wear shoes that you can throw out afterwards! My shoes and socks were SOAKED with mud, but I was able to keep the rest of my pretty dry if I wanted to. These are google pictures, but these are some of the obstacles that we had during our race:
We made it to the start line, nice and fresh and clean! Most of us run pretty regularly, so we wanted to try to run on the course but there were plenty of people who just chose to walk it!
The intro email said to expect two hours to finish the course. It took us about 1 hour and it took us 1 hour 27 minutes- but we were lost for about 20 minutes of that hahaha.
Ok, I’m not going to lie. I’m in decent shape for running and agility, but some of these obstacles were hard! Our team did do almost all the obstacles- I opted out of the monkey bars since breaking my elbow I can’t do pull-ups, and a couple team members opted out of other obstacles. Like I said, it was very chill. As a competitive person, I wanted all the obstacles to be a requirement lol.
Right after the teeter totters we ran up a big hill and found ourselves on a gravel lane…with no one else…no signage…nothing. Huh. Turns out we took a wrong turn and had to go back and find the right way! Oops! Thankfully, we weren’t too lost and it wasn’t a super competitive race so we weren’t worried about our time. I’ve always wondered how someone can get lost on a race course and now I know…you just….look up and find yourself lost!
We even took some time to slow down and pick some flowers.
As you can see, this is more than halfway through the race and we were very muddy from the waist down, but not dirty on our shirts or faces. The adverting photos from the events make it look like you have no option but to be COVERED in mud, but really you could just get as muddy as you wanted.
Throughout the race we kept seeing a bachelorette party (side note: SO FUN. That sounds like my type of bachelorette party!). We passed them once, then they passed us when we got lost. Then we passed them again. For the last 3 obstacles we were neck and neck and competing against them haha.
We crossed the finish line and just had SO MUCH FUN. I could’ve done with a little more competition but that’s just me 😉
They provide a big communal shower to wash off, and we all brought clothes to change into for lunch.
We were all finding dirt and sparkles everywhere for a few days haha! This was truly so fun and I highly recommend it- it was so nice to just do something that I wouldn’t normally do, and it made me feel like a kid again.
The Muddy Princess has events all over the country so you can sign up at a city near you!
Here are some tips/recommendations:
- Bring shoes and possibly clothes that you don’t mind ruining. I should’ve run to Goodwill to get some sneakers that I could trash afterwards!
- Dressing up was so much fun and highly encouraged. We loved our outfits, but there was a lot of people wearing pink and black. Next time I would pick a different fun neon color for our team so we stood out better.
- Bring a plastic trash bag for dirty clothes, a towel, a change of clothes AND a change of shoes
- Leave phones in the car- it’s too muddy to run with them! Have one team member bring a running belt for the car keys and maybe one phone to keep on you
- This race is so chill and just plain fun. Leave your competitive spirit at home 😉
- Doing it with a team was absolutely the way to go!
- You can get as muddy as you want. You can choose to skip any obstacle that you don’t like/can’t do
- The biggest risk was how slippery it was! It was VERY slippery so be careful! Two of our team members went down hard (this is also how I broke my elbow in April lol) and I worried about some of the older women I saw on the course.
