My Review Of HOGWILD MUDRUN 4, PLANT CITY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2013 ... with selected videos

This was probably my 12th mudrun since starting with the SuperHero Scramble back in July of 2012. It was my first HogWild Mudrun and it was a very positive experience with challenging obstacles, a beautiful wild ranch location, and great people.

I always wear a GoPro headmount camera while I mudrun, so there are some YouTube video clips farther down in this critique.

Let's start with the POSITIVE STUFF first:

1. Beautiful location. The ranch had a mix of lush pastures, piney woods, and cypress swamps. For a nature boy like me, it was tempting to stop and dip a dipnet in the wetlands or do some bird photography in the flooded pastures.
2. Efficient check in and friendly staff. Very smooth packet pickup, etc.
3. Obstacle quality was very good. There were very few ... lame ... token obstacles like a couple of hay bales. Most of the obstacles were well done with some real challenge included. I liked the "Wild Side" --- "Mild Side" options at the more challenging obstacles like the rope wall climb and the "rock" wall climbs.
4. The final obstacle obviously was meant to super challenge any human being. It was actually a combination of many obstacles and a great test of one's ability. AWESOME!
5. Free food and generous beer. The food was real and tasty. I skipped the meat portion, but the black beans and rice were actually seasoned and pretty good. I only had one beer as I was driving 2 hours back to the house, but it seemed like folks were getting seconds. This was only the second race out of many where free food was offered. (The other one was the Muckfest)
6. Updates and communication through email and Facebook were positives too.

Now for the Negative Stuff:

1. Parking was so far from the Main Area that you could hardly see it. The HogWild folks did have a tractor and flatbed trailer running back and forth, but it was never there when I was ready, so I walked the long walk about 3 times that day.  To their credit, it did rain3 inches the day before and the pastures were mostly flooded and soggy. It may be that they had planned closer parking, but had to move it to high ground at the last minute.
2. Water stations were setup at the mile marker points mostly, but only the first and the last had any water when I rolled by. When they did have water, it was one guy with a gallon jug pouring tiny cups half full. I heard a lot of grumbling about the water situation. I super hydrate before a run, so it didn't bother me that much, but it has to be noted.
3. Bottlenecks at some obstacles ... like the final slide were pretty long. I quit worrying about my time when I saw the line for the slide, because I never skip an obstacle and certainly not the fun slide. It was probably a 15-20 minute wait in the slide line ... BECAUSE it was a single person slide.  HELLO?  Most runs have a 3 person slide.

Overall, this run was a fun, positive experience and I will do the HogWild again. Every race has room for improvement, and the negatives here were minor to me.

 

 

Here are those video clips: