I went to Seaside’s Three Course Challenge cross country meet this weekend expecting some good clean fun. I was sorely mistaken. Things got real dirty real quick, and the result wasn’t pretty. I think the source of the problem was the huge 25-meter-long mud pit planted at the base of a long hill in the middle of the course. While most of the race leaders dodged the shoe-sucking mud by running around the outskirts, the middle of the pack was herded straight through the center, resulting in face plants, voluntary cannonballs, mid-race mud warfare, and dozens of lost shoes.  

At the end of the last race, me and the other mud pit spectators took a moment to survey the damage, flicking off the globs of mud stuck to our pants and camera lenses. I thought things were wrapping up so I started gathering my things to head back up the hill. But the carnage had only just begun. A girl already half covered in mud and surrounded by three other teammates stepped up to the mud pit and gathered up a hefty mud ball in her hands. Then she looked across the mud pit into the eyes of the other half of her team, who had also acquired mud balls, and said “Ready?”

The menacing tone that she used for the word “ready” made the rest of us semi-clean folk fairly nervous. Ready for what exactly? Whatever it was they were ready for, I was fairly certain that I was not. Noticing that faces of the two-dozen other kids standing around the pit had taken on a steely pre-combat look, I decided it would be a good time to head for higher ground. I got about half a step back from the pit when the muddy girl suddenly yelled “NOW!” and before her mud ball had reached the face of her teammate, the air was filled with a crossfire of mud balls and screaming.

By the end of it all I was fortunate to walk away with only minor splattering, but others weren’t so lucky. It’s been almost a week now since the fight, and my clothes are now clean and mostly spotless. I’ve picked most of the mud out of my hair and gathered up my life where I left off. But the shell shock still lingers. Every now and then I’ll be walking through a crowd and hear someone behind me say “Ready?” in that low, menacing tone; and a chill will run down my back as the taste of mud fills my mouth.