'nough said in the subject line
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Sorry to disappoint you: I am full-steam ahead with the couples racing thing. Specifically: This weekend Sarah and I are doing Competitor Publication’s Muddy Buddy Race in Chicago, Illinois. The race is a ride and tie MTB/running evetn for a two person team that includes cross country running. mountain biking and obstacles such as cargo nets, monkey bars, low crawls and the famous, enormous mud pit the team crawls through at the end. There are 1000 two person teams entered. Our team is called “Red Team”. I’ll be doing a “point of view” story on our participation in the race for our website www.bikesportmichigan.com including using a new waterproof digital camera to record the images from the event. The story will be up on our website Thursday, September 15 at around 1 PM.
I think the couples event format is brilliant. Muddy Buddy has a long history of success going back many years to an event started by Bob Babbitt of Competitor Magazine that featured Scott Tinley and Paula Newby-Fraser as participants.
There is a market for events like this. Of the 7 nationwide Muddy-Buddy events, 5 of them have completely sold out. These events are perfect for couples like Sarah and I who are both athletes and are looking for something to participate in and compete with other couples as a couple. I think it will be a riot.
Alright…I’m sort of sold on the idea. Nothing wrong with a bit of love in the world.
Glad that the Muddy Buddy thing has taken off. I recall talking to Babbit about this years ago and it seemed hair-brained, but he knows what’s hot so he get’s the last laugh.
It would be great to see something like this up in Canada.
Fleck
I just hate the name of the thing. “muddy buddy”
But it looks like a cool event.
Anyone know if the Chicago event is always the weekend of Ironman Wisconsin?
Are all teams co-ed?
Edit: I went to the Web site (google is a cool thing) and found most of my questions answered. All teams are not coed, but there is a coed division.
Good on ya…
Here’s the link FYI.
igo wrote: I just hate the name of the thing. “muddy buddy”
Me, too. But, it is much better than Mutty Butty, don’t you think?
I’m pretty sure there’s one in BC.
I just hate the name of the thing. “muddy buddy”
I had an asian professor with a thick accent for Statistical Mechanics as an undergrad, and she would lecture on the “muddy buddy” problems. “Muddy buddy”??? She was talking about “many body” problems.
Maybe this is the “Many Body” Race Series.
There is a market for events like this.
I don’t mind a complete event for couples. I would mind a couples division within a normal triathlon.
Apples and oranges.
Since I highly doubt that my wife or son will ever race a triathlon, I am holding out to compete in the Grandfather and Grandkid division 30 years from now :-).
I agree 100% with this. Trying to mix the two within the same race is an absolute no-go. The only way I see something like this work is to do a combined time competition where the two athletes are not working together on the course. That would create a mess.
If they just added the two times together for the outcome of the competition that would work- but trying to have some wave start where two people were racing together per se’, that would be a logistical problem and likely impose heavily on the individual race progress and infrastructure.
Interestingly, Muddy Buddy is actually an individual event until the end when you negotiate the final obstacle, the mud pit, as a team. This is the perfect formula for moderating a disparity between a couple’s athletetic ability- if one person is super fast and the other more pedestrian then the format still works.
I’m stoked- we got the “mud cam” up and running today.
Tom, watch out for the D-Town Dawgs. Well you should have no problem because we are racing to get to the “free” beer tent.
Goodluck to you and Sarah.
Will do. We are “Red Team”. The funny thing is, we don’t even drink…
Good luck to you guys too.