Decent Entry Level OCR

My second Detroit Mud Factor, and they have improved since last year. Great venue with natural terrain, wooded trails, creeks and mud. Last year the obstacles were few and easy, but they added a few more and built the slip-n-slide on a taller hill, with none of the bottle necks from the previous year. Easy parking, a DJ, only one food vendor and no beer. As with most mud runs, the showers are woefully inadequate, and there were no changing tents. Only one water station, which is normally fine for a 5k run, but this event seems to attract a lot of newbies whose fitness level (combined with the heat) would benefit from additional water stations. I would also like to see mile markers along the course. $10 parking and $5 bag check should be rolled into the price, but that's always my gripe. Cool skull medal, but it sounds like they weren't yet available at other venues. Bummer, it's a sweet looking medal! I hope the planners at MF work on providing a more consistent experience across all their venues, or they may be negative-reviewed out of existence. The MF Michigan event was solid, and I will return again next year.

Worst Race I've ever done.

Wish they gave me a zero star rating option.
A total ripoff.
Nothing they promise is delivered.
Completely unsafe.
Most poorly put together race I've ever done (10 years).

Disappointing

The most poorly put together mud run I've been to. I took my kids to the MF Kidz run and 1)They started the run 15 minutes before the scheduled time, 2) There was NO course direction or scaled-down obstacles for the kids, 3) There was very little mud, and 4) There was no water on the soap slide. When we tried to let the company know about the issues on their Facebook page, they just made rude comments and blocked commenters.

I don't know about anyone else but I had a blast! This was my first mud run and I would definite do it again. I ran the 10am race and it was awesome. There were a bunch of huge puddles full of mud and water to trudge through. We balanced on logs, had a huge slide, walls to climb over, etc. we got there, got checked in, and were ready for our race. We got our t shirts, which was cool because we could pick whether we wanted a tank or a t shirt. Overall I was extremely pleased with the race. As a runner, I wish there were mile marks but I can live without those. :). There was water at the halfway point and the huge water puddles were nice to cool off in. It isn't a race for the weak. It's hard work but it's a whole lot of fun. I will be doing another one.

FYI, here is a video recap from Mud Factor.

http://vimeo.com/97905849

Volunteers get screwed too!

It wasn't even worth one star. This company is dishonest, unorganized, and depends on hard working volunteers that don't realize that they are being used until the whole thing is over. I was on the table at the finish line where we were to hand out water and medals. We were to get special yellow shirts to show we were volunteers, not participants, however they were out of all sizes except huge! I and most others received a regular mud factor shirt that didn't identify me as someone to come to. Maybe that was a good thing since we weren't trained and couldn't help anyone anyway. Half of the medals available were from a previous year and we were left trying to appease those that wanted one that showed they had completed this years. They gave us tiny paper cups which were to be given out only one per person (they ran out of water completely way before all the waves of people had completed, so there were some dangerously dehydrated people coming through. We were not supplied with a bag lunch as promised, had no one to fill in for us, even to go to the washroom and if we didn't grab a tiny cup of water for ourselves on the fly, we would have been without water all day too. To top it off, they had put all the volunteer "gifts" before we were finished and we had to wait around while they pulled them out and tried to find enough of everything for us. The final nail in the coffin is that we never did get our coupons for free entry for volunteering as promised. Do not participate unless you bring your own water - you will be dehydrated. Do not volunteer for them unless you want to do it as your own endurance challenge!

The whole thing was a disorganized mess. Parking took forever and was in a giant field with waist high grass. Registration was long and slow. I had prepaid for a shirt but was unable to receive the correct size since they had ran out. Like others have stated you run in sand, no wire for the wire crawl, over half the "obstacles" were 2 foot mounds of dirt you stepped over. It was very dissapointing.

If it was not for my friend that went with me, I would of been more upset about the experience. We ran at 12:00, at the time it was hot and very humid out. First off there was no mud until maybe 2 mile mark. It was all sand. Second the wire crawl was dry and sandy. It was not wire, like the photos you see on their web page, but duck tape. Third we saw a water station, mid way, very happy about that, but came to it to find out they were out of water and picking up the table. When we finished the run, they were also out of water at the end. I am so happy I had brought water with me. They had water to buy for 1.50. Very disappointed in this.

Unsafe sand run !

First, they said at registration we would get a bag with a bib, 4 pins, a tattoo, and bandana. We didn't get a bag and they ran out of pins so we had to ask runners who were done for theirs. There was no water offered along the way and they ran out of water at the end. Then they said stick around for food and beer at the tent and they ran out of beer !!!! There wan not even any mud until mile 2, and that was water, not mud. They have a picture on their we site of a wire crawl showing people crawling through mud. IT WAS NOT MUD. This was more of a desert run than a mud run. The only mud was at the very end. And to top it off the medals they gave us were engraved 2013 with a 2014 sticker over them!!! I wrote on their Facebook page and they removed it of course. It was fun to hang with my friends but seriously what a joke !!!

Horrible race, total lack of costumer service

This was awful. No water on the water slide. Only my feet were muddy. The last heats were pushed together without runners knowing. No drinking water on the course or after the race. The same two songs played, no showers, no food vendors, no changing tents, no medical personnel. We were given 2013 medals with a 2014 sticker over the engraving at the end, as they were already taking down the finish line. When people complained on their Facebook page, they were deleted and blocked. Emails haven't been answered. They even used the term "shit talking" on they're Facebook page. This was not at all what I paid for.

To hell with these people

Getting one star because they make me. Absolutely horrid mud run. Thank God for the other people running it because it would have been intolerable. They gave my teammate the wrong bib, so we had to beg the security to let us run together. The crew refused to make any corrections. We finished at 12:50. The "shower" was already turned off. There was no water on the water slide. The A frame was horribly dangerous- there was no warning that the back side of the obstacle was open.

Then the was the cargo net. I don't know what moron allowed that "structure" to pass but dear God. Hurricane straps are not that same expensive. But clearly everything is too expensive for these people- they just toed-in the main supports and called it a day.

Dangerous, horribly run, gouge you at every turn ($10 for parking, $10 for every spectator, and $5 for bag check). Awful, awful people. Will never do this run again.

Oh, and the music? Same few songs set on repeat. And people were given 2013 medals because the 2014 ones are on a boat from China. Riiiight.

MF Nebraska - don't come back

Not only was this a poorly organized, designed and ran run, the company is all attitude. Problems began before you even got to the race - they gave the wrong address - missed the actual location by a mile and there were no signs at the opening of the event indicating where it really was. The kids run - no mud. Hard to be a mud run with no mud. They ran about 1.5 miles and had a couple of obstacles. Including the 'mud slide' which was a tarp on the dirt with no water running down it. One dude stood at the top and dumped a bucket of soapy water once in a while. The kids just walked down the slide. Oh - and they started the kids race 15 minutes early - kids were still checking in . In the adult race - very poorly marked course - very easy to get turned around on it. One big pond of mud and two small pools of mud - nothing involving crawling that's for sure. All the cool obstacles posted on the web site - all they had was one rope climb, one vertical wall and one angled wall. They pulled down the finish line stuff before everyone was done running (two hours before scheduled). No DJ/music as advertised except for one boom box playing the greatest hits of the 80's.

Once reviews started going up on Facebook - MF would delete the reviews and block the posters. They claimed this was OK because it was all - in their words, "shit talking" and vile reviews. They told one person - "well if that's your only problem I guess you had a damn good time".

Find a local race, go do a Spartan or Tough Mudder or just find an open field. Don't waste your time nor money on this attitude filled, non-mud run mud run.

Good Time For All

This definitely was the most family/kids friendly course around. The obstacles were pretty standard, 10 and 15 foot walls, cargo pyramid, incline climbs, rope swing. They had a fair amount of mud you mostly waded through, only one spot you crawled. The course was nicely laid out, with music all through the trail.

It. Was. Great!

This event was great! We did the Texas event in 2013. We had read plenty of bad reviews concerning the Mud Factor, but it was nothing short of an awesome experience. I ran the Warrior Dash, Mud Factor and the Rugged Maniac last year and the Mud Factor was the most difficult of the 3.

Crazy fun!!

This event surely set the standard in the 5k mud run field. The weather was a bit cold, but other than that the course was soooo much fun (11 am wave). This was my second Mud Factor event and they just keep getting better! Already signed up with 4 of my friends for 2014.

My kids and I ran this race today and we had a great time. We got there later than we wanted to but had no problem getting a parking spot (for an additional $10). Picking up our packets was easy, as was finding the starting line. There were plenty of outhouses to use and they did not smell bad (at 9:30 am). The race started exactly on time (10:00). We thoroughly enjoyed the run. There were plenty of mud pits and obstacles. My daughter enjoyed it more than the Warrior Dash because she liked the many mud pits. I preferred the Warrior Dash myself. The reason I liked it less is because they do not time your run at Mud Factor and I prefer the competition. The reason I gave this a 3 instead of a 4 is due to a safety issue. They had a series of pits that you had to jump over which I felt were actually quite dangerous. They really should have lined the pits and filled them with mud/water or at least lined the bottom with foam. If anyone fell into one of those pits they would have been quite seriously injured. Another safety issue was the last obstacle which required you to run and jump onto an inflated slide. I did not slide down and had to push myself but instead of holding up the next group they were came barreling down right behind me and knocked me into the water. I could easily have been seriously hurt there. At the end of the race we were given a very nice, good quality medal engraved with the year. They also had a water truck there to wash off with. Overall we are very glad we participated in this race. If they fix the safety issues I would give this event a 4.

This was by far the worst mud run I have done. There was one person collecting money for parking which resulted in a huge and slow backup. As we were walking in with our bag, we were informed bag check was closed or not accepting any bags. Not sure how you are supposed to run with keys? We hardly saw any one working the course, never saw any medics on standby or at any obstacles. The obstacles were poorly put together, a few didn't even look safe. Other obstacles had huge wait times. We had to wait over 25 minutes to climb up a cargo net which only allowed 3 people at a time, the net was so small, and not accommodating for a large group of runners. None of the obstacles were challenging, it was cheap and not much effort put into this series. The few workers I did see didn't want to be there and we're rushing everyone. The slides were very scratchy, the bottom of the slides was way too shallow. Some of the obstacles were just holes to walk through. They ran out of safety pins, and at the end we got stuck with last years medal...that's pretty weak, how is that for planning. No shirt, but I was aware of that....beforehand. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

TERRIBLE! Waste of $$

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS RUN SO BAD. Worst obstacle course race ever. Horribly disorganized, extremely lame obstacles with huge lines at each one. If this was my first obstacle race I would never want to do one again, this should get shut down so it doesnt ruin the sport for first timers. And from reading the other reviews here I didnt even experience the worst of it, as bad as the sandpaper slides were.

Not worth it at all

This is by far the worst Mud Run I ever been too. When we arrived they had shut down the bag check in.. SERIOUSLY!!! what are people supposed to do? Run with their keys and IDs, leave their cars unlocked with the keys in there? They also ran out of safety pins for the bibs.
There were not enough obstacles or even anything that could resembles a slight challenge. There were a few trenches that you could just walk through. I did not bother as I was irritated by the long lines at several obstacles. 20 minute wait time is not acceptable.
It was clear the course was not designed by someone that cares about their reputation. I will never participate in this even again. Could have watched the Seahawks play instead.

SEATTLE MUD RUN 2013

Event Name doesn't list the Seattle run on my page, I am assuming this is due to the reviews it is receiving so they pulled it to hide the fact that it was very disappointing. I showed up at 9am for the 10am wave, I have to say the parking should have been free for one, the other was as stated earlier, a huge field on the side of a hill, which i did take my truck and was glad for that. The bottom line here is the race was poorly constructed, this was an amazing spot to make an obstacle course outside of a crappy parking situation. They failed at both. I found it to a run through trail with potholes for obstacles pretty much. I don't understand how you can have a small cargo net knowing the waves were all booked out. I also want to note what the heck was up with the slides. They felt like sandpaper all the way down due to a trickle of water. Too cheap to turn water on more i guess. And a show tree, what a fail. We just ended up using out towels to wipe mud off and just called it a day. I hope this thing gets shut down for good next year. GOD HELP US.

Ugh!

I have to give it one star????

Ok, first of all, the event was not in Seattle. Not even close. If you are going to label it geographically, Tacoma is much more accurate. I'm sure that this probably wasn't an issue for most people in the area because we KNOW how long it takes to get from place to place, but if people didn't pay attention, they would be in for a huge surprise if they lived anywhere close to Seattle.

Second, the location was a joke. On the top of a hill, one way in, one way out. Huge traffic jam going in. Took forever to get up the hill and parked because of the traffic. And the parking area was just a big field. I was lucky that I didn't get stuck going in/out. All of this, for $10! Yes,they charged us $10 for parking in a grass field. Awesome.

Third, there was no packet pickup prior to the race. Now, a lot of races do this and usually it goes off without a hitch. Here, there were huge lines. By the time I got there, they had ran out of safety pins, and were told "good luck figuring out how to attach that to yourself." Um, ok. Who runs out of safety pins at a race?! All I got for this frustration was a bandana and a race bib that I couldn't even pin on. And this was a race that they were charging $100 bucks for day of registration. If I paid $100 bucks for this, I would have beyond livid. I'd be livid if I paid $50. But I got out easy and only paid for a groupon. Thank goodness for that. They should really consider having a pre race pick up somewhere. Since they don't offer a shirt with the entry fee, it would be relatively easy for them to load up the boxes and lists to the local Sports Authority (or whatever) and sit and check people in for a few hours.

After picking up my packet, I made my way to the start area. There was so much mud. And it was cold and raining. (This wasn't the fault of the race organizers, well, a little, they scheduled it for the rainy season in WA). I looked at the course, and it just looked like a traffic jam at the obstacles I could see. Ridiculous. The announcer wasn't enthusiastic at all. Everyone looked miserable. I weighed my options and decided to cut my losses and go home. That's right. I was so disappointed by everything that I just left without running the course. It just wasn't worth it to me.

As stated, the price is incredibly excessive. I hope that no one actually paid $100 to run this thing. Honestly, I don't think it was even worth the $24 groupon. Just choose another race. Blah.

Very disappointing!

Mud Factor Seattle 2013: Poorly organized event: no bag check, no before/after photo op, no clock at start/finish to figure out your time, and most of the obstacles were incomplete (trenches dug with no water/mud) or inadequately constructed for the number of entrants. The first cargo net could only accommodate only three people at a time. We skipped it after calculated it would be a 20+ minute wait. There were only three true obstacles of any merit. A 12ft high wall with ropes, the "roof" climb in which you had to get a running start to get up a 12ft wall sitting at a 45* angle then clamber down the "rafters" on the back side and one final cargo net climb. Other than that the course was lots of trail running, two slides (one was an inflatable and the other was deflated) and a couple of ditches with water and muddy berms in between. We passed up at least 4 incomplete water ditch obstacles. Had 2-4 inches of rain not fallen here yesterday the course would have been dry and dusty. Many who prepaid for their shirt didn't get the right size because it was first come, first serve and an hour into it they only had one style of shirt left in small ladies sizes or an ugly mens XL with cutoff arms. Thank goodness I used a Living Social coupon because had I paid full price I would have been livid. Won't enter this one again! Many people complaining the entire race. One water station mid-way through. When we crossed the finish line less than 45 mins later, the "DJ" was gone, no sign of race officials and only half the PVC pipe rigged as a "shower" worked. The volunteers (?) at the merchandise booth were subjected to lots of mumbling, grumbling the entire time I was near it which probably accounts for the bad attitude they had dealing with people.

Did not enjoy this at all. Deserves 0 stars. Pretty much a trail run with very few obstacles. Lots of up and down hills that no one expected. By the time I got to the only only water station, petty much everyone was walking. There was only one person at the water station and mentioned many times that there were no more water until the end. Plus the water tasted horrible and my wife and I felt sick and then at then only time you got muddy was at the end when you crawled under wire. My wife did this event last year and enjoyed it. Last year there were more obstacles, less trail running plus they gave you a free beer at the end. Not this year. I saw a lot of people not happy with this event and count me on this list. Don't waste your time.

I would have given this 0 stars if I could. The event was more like a trail run with a few lame obstacles and very little mud. Lots of waiting for obstacles, water, and medal at the end. No t-shirt, no water/food at finish. What a poorly run event!

There are several reasons why this is the worst mud race I've done:
The race had only 1 water station halfway through the course.
Most of the course was though the woods with no obstacles.
The course map was poor planning having you weaving in the middle of fields and around the woods.
The only mud was the mud pit at the end of the race under not barbed wire.
$5 for bag check!
4 obstacles (a small inclined ramp, jumping over empty plastic barrels, climbing a vertical wall, and climbing a 20 ft cargo net) that's it for a 5k mud race?
And the 1 hour long wait at the the water cow or hose to get cleaned up.
Spent $30 on Groupon for the race and it still wasn't worth it!

This is the 1st Mud Run I've done, so I don't have any to compare it to. But, I will say, there was very little mud until the end when you had to crawl through a mud pit to get to the finish line. Very few obstacles and easy at that - going up boards and climbing over, running through the creek, hopping over downed trees. The major obstacle was that the majority of the run was uphill!! Only one water station and staffed by one person. No staff along the way to make sure everyone was okay. Parking was $10!, not enough wash stations, so the crowd to get through was so thick, it wasn't worth it. Not enough port a potties. Not enough staff at any table, so lines were long. The weather was good and I like hiking, so it was fun, but this was more of a big group hike rather than an obstacle run.

Great obstacles, great run, great fun and looking forward to next year!

Worst event ever

If I could give this event NO stars I would! Out of all the mud runs I've attended, this is the worst one I have ever seen. The venue parking filled up so fast that the majority of people had to park/walk a mile to the event. The staff still tried to collect $10 for this parking even though it wasn't their property. The lack of obstacles was a joke! There was a ton of mud/water but only due to all the severe weather and floods our state had the week before; so it was stagnant pond water, not man made mud pits. There were only 4 main obstacles...2 of them you had to wait 10-20 minutes because of the line so most people just skipped them. The course…I mean motocross track…was so poorly marked that many people were running around in circles. They even showed a huge slide on the course via Facebook, and then took it down before the event started! $10 parking, $5 gear check, no free shirt, no free drink…this was my first Mud Factor, and it is definitely my last. PLEASE save your money and try a different event!!!

Disappointed

Disappointed at the lack of obstacles......registered and tried it due to the obstacles listed on the website, which we only had 1 or two of. Not worth the money and won't do again.

Save your money

I give this so called mud run no stars but i had to choose one. There was no mud obstacles at all. There was only one water station. The obstacles SUKED!! There was poop everywhere, flies everywhere too. The only good thing about it is that I didn't pay full price for it, and still think it was a waste of money. I have ran a lot of mud runs, and this one totally sucked. PLEASE DO NOT waste your MONEY people.

Not worth the money

This event was so disorganized and nothing but a lot of time waiting. I would definitely not call it a mud "run". The whole run was only about 3.1 miles but it honestly took almost 3 hours with wait times of 30 minutes at each challenge. Many people walked off the course due to the long lines and only one water station. When offering suggestions and reporting our disappointment, a guy introducing himself as Scott Davis the course developer told us "that was too bad and if we don't like it to go F*** ourselves. We were shocked to say the least, he was the most unprofessional business man I have ever had to deal with. Truth be told we didn't even as for our money back (Which we should have) we just wanted to make him aware of how unhappy everyone was and that people were sick from no water etc. He said he had not had any complaints except for "you whinny babies" and dismissed us. Granted there were only 8 people with us but when we offered to show him the video of many other unsatisfied participants he told us to leave. So ... if you're thinking of doing a mud run, I suggest you save your money and not participate in this event. We have been to 4-5 mud run events in the past few months and every single one of them was worth the money ... but not this one. If you watched the video of this event when you signed up don't be surprised if it's nothing like that .... the only mud you see is at the end after you wait 30 minutes in line and go down the slide. Needless to say ... most people didn't stick around they jumped out of line and said "forget this" I typically don't do reviews but this time I just had to warn people that this is a HUGE waste of money.

Lame obstacles

Very lame obstacles. One mud obstacle. Lots of running. Probably six total obstacles. Needs to be upgraded with many more challenging obstacles. Worth the registration $$ fee.