SLIDESHOW

Preheat state park to 80 degrees. Take more than 2,000 half-crazed runners and bicyclists willing to pay $70 apiece for the privilege. Tell them to run and pedal as fast as they can for 6 miles through the woods. Also have them climb walls, tumble down inflatable slides and wade through a waist-deep stream. Bake for about an hour. Meanwhile, dump 60 cubic yards of dirt into a pit. Mix with water. Then, just before the runners and bicyclists complete their race, have them crawl reptilelike through the thick goo.

The result is a tasty concoction known as Muddy Buddy, an extreme -- and extremely dirty but fun -- sporting event held yesterday at Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield County.

Here's mud in your eye.

And down your shirt.

And up your shorts.

And in your shoes.

"The mud is a lot of fun," said Patrick Fuller, a computer trainer from Richmond who is a triathlete making his second Muddy Buddy appearance as a partner with his real estate agent, Jody Korman of Glen Allen. "All my life I wanted to play in mud. My mom wouldn't allow me. My wife wouldn't allow me. The mud out here is official and OK."

The nationwide Muddy Buddy Ride and Run Series consists of nine such adventure events, in places including Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles, featuring a combination of trail-running, mountain-biking and obstacle-scaling. And, of course, mud. Participants pair up. The race is divided into several sections, with the teammates alternating between running and biking. Both must slither through the mud and cross the finish line together.

The early-morning event was serious in the sense that entrants run and pedal as fast as they can under less-than-ideal surfaces and conditions. But it had a festival feel, with more than a few participants competing in costumes. There were superheroes with capes, as well as a couple of Smurfs. One participant ran and pedaled in a pale-green bathrobe and a hot-pink shower cap. He appeared to be fast.

Friends Amy Allen and Elizabeth Vosseller, from Northern Virginia, were dressed as "Grime and Punishment." Allen, a foreign-service officer, was "Grime" and was clad in stripes. Vosseller, a professor at George Washington University, looked like a Keystone Cop as "Punishment."

"If my students see me, I'm in big trouble," Vosseller said, laughing.

Why did they do this?

"That's a great question," Allen said as she and Vosseller stepped across the finish line, well after most everyone else but beaming nonetheless. "We were trying to figure out why grown-ups would pay to get all muddy. We don't know. But it was fun."

She added, "It's going to take us the rest of the day to get cleaned up."

On a hot day, the mud pit -- surrounded by many of the 1,000-plus spectators chanting, "On your belly! On your belly!" -- proved to be refreshing in a slimy sort of way. Covered from nose to toes in glistening mud, many participants grabbed a cold drink and headed to the makeshift showers: a series of garden hoses strung together in a clearing. It looked like something straight out of Woodstock, or, at the very least, a camping trip gone very, very wrong.

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or wlohmann@timesdispatch.com.

Muddy Buddy winners

The fastest time yesterday was turned in by the Glen Allen father-and-son team of Gregory and Jacob Huber in the male 56-65 combined-age division, dad being 45 and son 16, adding up to 61. The Hubers completed the 6.3-mile course in 38 minutes, 25.3 seconds.

Teams compete in a number of divisions, based on age, gender and weight. The "beast" category consists of teams weighing more than 400 pounds. Winners and runners-up in each of the divisions received medals.

Other Virginians who turned in the best times in their divisions included: