Won't you be my Muddy Buddy?:
Accessible series introduces thousands to off-road multi-sport madness

On eight Sunday mornings a year, while most couples are having coffee, French toast and reading the paper, up to 950 other pairs -- whether they're married, dating, buddies from work, brothers or friends -- are racing frantically through hay bales, cargo nets, mud pits and more. The pairs -- working as a team -- share one bike (one rides, one runs, then they switch off) and leapfrog each other throughout a six-mile course. Each person rides three miles, and runs three miles. Before the team crosses the finish line they rejoin at the base of the infamous Muddy Buddy mud pit, a 50-foot sloppy, gooey mess, that pairs must enter and exit together. Covered in mud from head to toe and then some, the twosome then crosses the finish line together.

This is the Muddy Buddy series, now in its sixth season. The series started in 1998 when the Brooks shoe company approached Competitor magazine publisher Bob Babbitt, who had been putting on low-key, underground ride-and-tie events in San Diego on holidays for fun. (His races included gathering stuffed animals along the course.) "Brooks wanted to use a fun running and riding event as a promotional vehicle," explains Babbitt, who put on one race that year in Camp Pendleton, San Diego. Over the ensuing years, the series has grown to as large as seven races in one year, and has now settled on eight a year. (See schedule, Page 34.)

Since its inception, the Muddy Buddy series has drawn a handful of elite athletes looking for a fun training day ... something different. An event to do with their spouse, even their kids. But what the series should be most proud of is drawing thousands of athletes to their first multi-sport race ever -- for some, their first race of any kind.

"It's a great place to bring your bike with a kickstand, no shocks and streamers on the handlebars," says Babbitt. "We want people to have their first race here -- new people who have never done this stuff before." The race has drawn athletes who have never even competed in a 5 or 10k running race before. "Anybody can do it," Babbitt continues. "From there, if having mud on you isn't enough and you decide, 'Hey I'd love to have some leeches on my private parts and don't want any sleep at night,' then you can move on to an adventure race."

Babbitt, who is a legend in the world of triathlon (as a reporter, competitor and recent inductee to the Ironman Hall of Fame) still owns the series, but he's passed off operations duties to Michael Epstein Sports Productions, run by another multi-sport luminary, Michael Epstein. (Epstein created the Hi-Tec Adventure Race series, now called the Balance Bar Adventure Sprints.) The two deserve credit for turning thousands of athletes on to the world of multi-sport racing through their accessible, grassroots events.

The series, because of its short length (winners finish in 35 minutes or so) and non-technical riding and running, is accessible, non-intimidating and inspirational. So what do first-time racers have to say after crossing the finish line? "That was the coolest thing I've ever done," shouted a competitor in the Boulder, Colorado event last August as as he cleared mud from his eyes. "I lost a contact in the mud pit!" said another, but she seemed more exuberant and proud than upset.

"Mud doesn't taste nearly as bad as you think it will," said Jerome Stiller, who competed in his first Muddy Buddy last year.

The series has gone through some changes since the early years of muddy fun. In 2024, winning teams (and a few elite triathletes who were invited) traveled to a series final on Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California. The difference between the qualifying course and the finals was big -- 20 miles big -- as the Catalina course was a marathon distance Muddy Buddy. The race drew big-name racers Paula Newby-Fraser and Jimmy Riccitello, among others.

Having a season-ending event in Catalina is a goal for 2024, but Babbitt wants to make it an invitational race, rather than a championship. "When you present a world championship," says Babbitt, "people start taking things too seriously. I had a guy come up to me after a race, and I'm standing there in a frog suit (something Babbitt dons to get the crowd in the Muddy Buddy spirit). This guy was complaining that someone got in his way in the mud pit and that's why he didn't qualify."

But that's not what it's about, says Babbitt. "You don't go to Muddy Buddy to get a medal. You go to Muddy Buddy to get muddy."

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