JIM PETERS: Having a muddy good time

BOONE GROVE | "You can't write the story if you don't run the race!"

Portage teacher and Wheeler assistant football coach Rob Kania gave me grief for not running Saturday's inaugural Chicagoland Mudathlon.

And though there's no way I would've finished, I have to admit I felt a little guilty coming away from the Graeber farm relatively clean while most of the 843 participants had mud in places they didn't even know they had places.

"It takes me back to my youth when my parents would tell me I couldn't go out and play in the rain with my friends, and I did anyway," Boone Grove boys soccer coach Brian Sherwin said.

"I'm friends with Dale (Graeber). He told me about it a couple months ago, and I couldn't turn it down."

Sherwin has done two marathons and called the mucky three miles a difficult task. His assessment was a common theme.

"What made it harder was the amount of mud," Sherwin's sister and women's runner-up Laura Johnson of Lombard, Ill., said, comparing it to the Warrior Dash, a similar event in Joliet. 

In contrast, James Forys, 23, of South Bend, thought the water was worse than the mud.

"It was up to my neck," he said.

"There was a part I actually had to swim," Heather Cavanaugh of Valparaiso said. "I wasn't expecting that. You really couldn't run much."

A mother of five, Cavanaugh represented the cross section of participants in the festive affair.

"I grew up in California, and they've had them out there for a while," she said. "It sounded like fun, and it was. There wasn't anything bad about it."

Jennifer Meyer heard about the race in an e-mail and got a group of seven from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, area together for it. They camped out Friday night on the grounds.

"We wanted to take the next step up from regular running," Sandy Kreinbring said.

The Iowans went one step further, buying tuxedos and dresses from a Goodwill store in a bid to win the best costume prize.

"I feel Army ready," Sarah Ochsner said.

Other get-ups of note included Sponge Bob, Superman and a Spartan. One couple dressed as cows, which organizers had to herd from the course during the week, even sporting udders. Some of the clever names included the Dirty Girls, Mud, Sweat and Beers, and Orville Mudruckers.

"I enjoyed it a lot," former Portage football player Tom Bialata said.

Bialata and fellow former Indian Dale Fancher used the race as part of their regimen for getting back in shape. 

"I'd do it again," Fancher said. "In a heartbeat."

Forys, Fancher's cousin and a cross country runner in his prep days at South Bend Clay, was hoping for a high finish. Short of that, he was just glad, as most were, to take on the mud and come away standing.

"It's just something I wanted to say I did," Forys said. "It sounded like a good time, and I had a good time." 

From where I was standing, it sure looked like it. I'm not much of a runner, and I was never one for getting dirty, but I just might have to take Kania up on his challenge.

Some day. We'll see. Maybe. 

This column solely represents the writer's opinion. Reach him at jim.peters@nwi.com.