Mud is fairly simple. Just combine two of the four basic elements of earth, air, fire and water, and you’ve achieved a mud puddle.
In E.E. Cummings’ poem “in Just-” he celebrates youth and joyousness, particularly “when the world is mud-luscious … when the world is puddle wonderful.”
Adults now have their own “mud-luscious” events, but you have to pay to participate.
Earlier this month, there was the Survivor Mud Run 5K in Carnation.
Coming up are the Dirty Dash in Olympia and the Tough Mudder 12-mile challenge in Black Diamond.
Mud is fairly simple. Just combine two of the four basic elements of earth, air, fire and water, and you’ve achieved a mud puddle.
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Add adults and it’s the opportunity to hoot, holler and “do something different,” says Joan Yun, of Seattle University, emerging from a mud pit covered by netting to force a belly crawl.
Nancy Smith-Shaw, 57, says she’s “trying to get in shape for the second half of my life.”
“You don’t do this every week,” says Courtney Erskine, of Chehalis, who did the three-mile event with her husband and friends. She slid feet-first down a watered slide into a thigh-high mud pit, sending up a hold-your-nose, close-your-mouth muddy wave.
Almost 5,000 came to the Survivor 5K, paying $49 to $80. There’s another $10 for parking.
Kathleen Flenniken, past Washington State poet laureate, says Cummings’ words “perfectly describe the messy, sensual pleasures of mud and rain.”
Many at the 5K emphasized the dubious healthful benefits of the mud, but the “puddle wonderful” silly fun carried the day.