Home Court Haven: No Brother Left Behind: Camp Pendleton's World Famous Mud Run

Team Dyer Brothers

Last month, my four brothers and I got together for the last session (June 15th) of this year's Camp Pendleton World Famous Mud Run. This was the first time that all five of us have run together in a race and it was a lot of fun. We started off the race fast and I did my best to keep up.

Look closely and you can see Team Dyer Brothers just off to the right in our blue sleeveless shirts

I bought matching shirts (moisture wicking, of course) so that we looked like a team. It turned out to be a good call. The light blue color that I picked really stood out in the crowd. My parents were watching the live feed in Colombia and they were able to pick out all of us on the live feed (and by "all of us," I mean everyone but me! Apparently, I didn't get any love from the cameras!).

This year's race had a lot more obstacles than last year and it was a lot of fun--except for the low-slung cargo nets. They were set at about 2.5 feet off the ground and were pure torture for me. I was just too tall! I also narrowly averted disaster when the watch strap on my million dollar Garmin watch broke going over the "Wall" obstacle. Luckily, I noticed that it was loose and grabbed it before it was lost forever in the Camp Pendleton mud. That was the good news...the bad news was that I had to carry it the rest of the way and that meant I didn't have full use of my hands for the remaining obstacles.

One of the first obstacles: The Steeplechase - My brother N. successfully completes this!

The first few obstacles went smoothly...N. is my youngest brother and is just a year removed from his mission (to Argentina). This was his first race, so I kind of stuck with him and within sight distance of L. and Big S. Click here for a cool pic of L. with N. and me in the background going over the Steeplechase. SLD was gone as soon as the gun went off. Only later would I learn how amazing his race was.

SLD tackles the high "Wall"...Notice how there don't seem to be any other runners in sight.

The high "Wall" was a difficult obstacle. I was so tired by the time that I got to it, that it seemed like it was 8 feet tall. I managed to get over it somehow, but landed in the mud as my watch dangled from my wrist. Luckily, I snared it and kept going.

Here's some video of me going through the final obstacle...the Mud Pit:

One thing that occurs to me when re-watching this is how utterly exhausted I am at this point. You can see it as I enter the Mud Pit and then you can see it as I stagger out to finish the race. Even though I was tired, my motto is to just keep moving forward. Hopefully you can see my determination to keep going.

Here are the links to the videos of the rest of us going through the Mud Pit:

Thanks Nicole for taping these for us!

Here are some of the notable achievements. Indulge me for a second while I brag on my brothers:

SLD - 51:59 (for a course that billed itself as a "10k" but was actually about 6.6 miles long!). SLD got 14th overall and 2nd in his age group!! There were about 3,000 runners in the race. SLD is a frickin' amazing runner!
L. - 1:02:34 - 13th in his age group (118th overall)
Big S. - 1:06:05 - 19th in his age group (#168 overall)
N. - 1:06:53 - 8th in his age group (#186 overall). This was an awesome result for his first race ever!
Me - 1:09:44 - 28th in my age group (#246 overall). As the oldest brother, I took responsibility for making sure that no brother was left behind. Someone had to do it.... :-/

After the race, we hit the showers:

And took some more pics: