1 thought on “Monster Mud Run at Loon Mountain”

  1. jmegillon149

    This was my second time running the race. Last year, I ran a middle of the day heat, this year I ran in the newly formed Elite Wave.

    The course was pretty similar to the year before with a mix of steep up and down on some technical trails, ski trails and access roads – very tough terrain, biggest challenge of the race. I had to hike a good amount and finished in 53 minutes for a 5k, and still took 30th place out of over 450! The obstacles once again had some wall climbs, monkey bars, a few different crawl variations and the trademark hose carry – only a couple new ones, though a pretty different sequence. Nothing was overly challenging, for the second year in a row, I had no issues with completing anything, any only really heard of people failing the monkey bars.

    This year, the weather was a bit chilly and damp from raining until right around the start, compared to last year’s crazy heat. Despite this, the course felt a lot less muddy – even my after pictures look WAY different. I think this is in line with the sport shifting from an muddy profile picture focus to more of a competition.

    The new Elite heat was no joke, while only 15 people signed up, the slowest person broke 55 minutes, something less than 10% of the race accomplished. It was good to see this wave attract who it was meant to attract and not just people who want to go early – even if it did mean I was back of the pack for the heat – I was pushed and humbled in a good way! It actually featured at least five people who finished top 20 at the Boston Sprint, so if you are looking to participate in a local race with a competitive field – this is a good one to race.

    One flaw, was that Elites couldn’t compete for the age group or team divisions. This was especially discouraging in that my teammate was the fastest 40+ by a good margin, and that the two of us would have been the number two duo, additionally, a number of should have been elites went the first open heat just to win the team title – they even said as much. Hopefully some of these kinks are ironed out moving forward.

    When I got done, and cleaned off, it looked like the fun runners and the costume crew made it out for the later waves, and appeared to be having a blast, so don’t be intimidated if you aren’t competitive – just sign up for a later heat than the Elite, or earliest Open.

    The swag was standard, a nice wicking shirt, some Monster energy stuff and a shake. The festival was scaled down from the prior year, but the weather had people leaving when done running, so I am guessing they called off the extra vendors, unlike last year when it was a fun party atmosphere afterwards – maybe that’ll come back if the weather cooperates.

    After running five different local races in the last year, this remains my favorite of the independents. Even as I am moving more towards focusing on Spartan and Battlefrog, and less on small races as I did my first year in the sport, I will prioritize keeping this one on the schedule. I love the mountain, love the scene, and its clearly the best race my state has to offer, highly recommended!

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