The Rogue Runner and The Color Run - My Review

Once again, it’s been a week since I’ve posted. That’s because I’m just too busy having fun!

This past week’s workout:
Monday: 3 miles + Strength
Tuesday: 3.6 miles + Yoga class
Wednesday: 10 x 400 @ 5K pace (7 miles total plus warm up and cool down)
Thursday: 5.5 miles
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 7 mile training run + 10K Mud Run
Sunday: 5K Color Run

This put me at about 36 miles of running this week! That is the highest weekly mileage that I’ve had in at least 6 months. Yay!!

For Wednesday’s speed workout I tried something a little different. Instead of just standing/walking and catching my breath between 400s I decided to run a recovery 400 at a much slower pace. This proved to be pretty damn hard compared to what I was doing. I ran the 400s between 1:37 and 1:45 (about a 6:50 mile pace), the recovery laps at about a 9:00 minute per mile pace……wow. Let’s just say the cool down run back to my apartment did not have anything resembling speed.

Rogue Runner: I’ve definitely done my fair share of mud runs. I’ve done the infamous Tough Mudder in GA (13 miles of craziness!), a 5 mile one in VA Beach (which was more like a sand run. Holy crap that is hard), the 5K Warrior Dash in MD and Run Amuck on Quantico Marine Corp Base. I have to say, this one is not on the top of my list. I will give Rogue Runner a tad bit of leeway. This was their first time putting on a mud run, so hopefully they learn from their mistakes.

Here is the course:
 

 

Here's what I suggest they fix:

1. There were very few water stops. About ½ way through people on four wheelers started to come by with cases of bottled water……
2. The lines for obstacles were anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. Serious backup. Standing around for an hour is NOT fun. They should have had smaller waves staggered better.
3. The course was not properly marked. At one point we were told by somebody who finished that we were going the wrong way and had missed a couple miles of obstacles, yet the volunteers were the ones who told us where to go. Not cool.
4. Obstacles were poorly placed. At the end of inclined monkey bars you had to drop about 5 feet to the ground, which was a HUGE flat rock. My boyfriend went down the mud slid on his stomach (really just a tarp with a hose on it) and hit a huge rock! He has a huge abrasion on his oblique along with a lot of bruising and swelling.
5. The after-party was lame. The medals were just sitting in a big pile. Nobody to put them on you. Hell, they weren’t even taken out of the plastic. There was no post-race bagels or bananas, nothing buy greasy BBQ you had to pay way too much for.

 

 

Here is my wonderful boyfriend who rocked it.

 

The Color Run, DC: This run, on the other hand, seemed to be pretty well organized. It was also held in the National Harbor in Maryland which is just gorgeous.

 

 

It was very packed.

 

 

Do you see how far that crowd goes back! I couldn't even see the end.

Packed runs are pretty common, especially in this area, the issue was that a lot of those people were non-runners, which is fine, but they had no running etiquette. If you’re walking, please move to the side. If you have to stop, please move to the side….The only real complaint I had was the color itself. It’s just a dyed cornstarch powder that people threw at you. Resulting in a big POOF of color that you had to close your eyes (especially with my contacts) to run through and try not to take any deep breaths……

 

 

.I don’t know what I was expecting but it was a bit more than that. I’m glad to have done one but won’t be signing up to do it again.

All in all a very fun, active, packed weekend:-)