Running in the mud. It's fun! Who cares if you get dirty!

We have reached that time of year where it is going to be rainy on a regular basis. But don't worry, it gets much worse because we are not even into the official rainy season yet, we have about another month to go before that joyful time of year begins.

These days though, it is very likely that the trails are going to be a muddy mess so make sure that you bring clothes with you that you don't really care about or are prepared to spend a bit of time on washing.

Since we do most of our runs in places that are as far away from civilization as possible, even the roads we encounter are generally not paved and this makes for some good mudboggin'. When we do go out into the jungle, things have potential to get even more muddy and wet.

Depending on who the trail-setter or "hare" is, they might intentionally force the crowd to go through these points and there have been instances where people's shoes have been sucked off of their feet in the mud. There is one place that we don't and never will go though.

While I am sure those of you that live in South East Asia know this already, these are rice paddies or rice farms. The land here is intentionally flooded and most of the time the barricades that keep the water in are simply made of earth or dirt. Therefore, since our presence is tolerated at these places much more so than it is actually allowed, we always steer clear of these parts. It would be disastrous if we were to accidentally knock out one of the flood-walls and the owner of the land would be rightfully very upset with us if we managed to do that. Therefore, we steer clear of these places on our runs in order to keep the farmers ok with us being out there.

We do encounter some of their makeshift bridges on these farms though and we are quite careful to not break them. This has in fact happened in the past where we broke one by accident and this happens mostly because your average western Hasher weighs twice as much as your average Thai farmer. Get a look at the mud on those boots though and this is on the feet of the guy that already knows where the trail is going. So if you are one of the many that doesn't actually know where the trail is, you are going to get substantially more muddy than this.

Trails like this are a lot more fun than ones that are covered in cement though and we try to get out there as often as we can. If you have some shiny new trainers that you were planning on running in, I highly suggest that you keep those at home on the runs for the next 3 months because they are going to get impossibly dirty. Also, it is recommended that you bring an extra pair of socks or flip-flops for after the run lest you want to be standing in squishy boots for the rest of the day!

Check out our upcoming runs at our official website if you want to come and join us. All are welcome and we do at least 3 runs per week!

ON ON!