If you’ve never tried an obstacle course before, the whole premise that people pay to crawl through mud and jump over fire can be hard to wrap your head around. But obstacle course racing has become a permanent fixture in endurance sports in the last few years. This year event companies will rake in about 250 million in profits and more than two million people will sign up to participate in over 400 events worldwide. \
Utah will host at least six of those events in 2013 that will attract hardcore athletes, weekend warriors and even some couch potatoes. The season will kick off with Dirty Girl, a great option for women looking to get their feet wet with an event that is on the mellower side of the obstacle race spectrum. Men can join in on the fun when Dirty Dash heads to Salt Lake City. The 5k event will most definitely live up to its name: mud pit after mud pit litter the Dirty Dash course, along with plenty of mud-caked obstacles.
Beginners will have three more options to choose from later in the year. Kiss Me Dirty is another women’s event heading to Ogden in June. Then in late August, the locally organized Man Vs. Mud will test the grit of participants on a 5k course filled with 30 obstacles. Finally the quirky themed event, Devil Dash, will tempt Ogden once more with a course full of hellish obstacles (ie: Web of Lies and Satan’s Steeple) as they try to escape hell and make it to the Beer Garden of Eden.
For endurance athletes looking for a longer and more intense challenge, the Spartan Beast is coming to Utah on June 29th. Spartan is one of the oldest and most respected obstacle course races with four race distances: Sprint, Super, Beast and Death March. The Beast will be 10-12 miles through difficult Midway terrain with some exhausting obstacles such as a sandbag carry and rope climb. And the Spartan is known for its exhausting penalty if you can’t complete and obstacle: 30 burpees.
So whether you want to tackle one of the most intense races in the sport or enjoy a locally organized course, the Utah obstacle course lineup won’t disappoint. Go get muddy!
For more information about these and other mud runs, visit Mud Running HQ where you can find a calendar of Mud Runs in Utah,
training information, and promo codes for races.