Spokane gets messy at the Dirty Dash | News

For the second year in a row, the Dirty Dash graced Spokane with its messy presence. This year, 6,000 people participated in the 5K race that is less about the running and more about playing in the mud. Participants run on trails through the beautiful Riverside State Park, stumble through obstacles and fall into a mud pit or two.

I am not from the most athletic crop. However, I am all about running a few miles, scaling walls and climbing rope if it means that I get to run and crawl through mud!

Unfortunately, I didn't find out about the race until it was sold out. I hopped on the waiting list, hoping some spots would open up. There were enough people like me who were pleading with the race directors to let them in that they finagled 300 more spots. I was one of the lucky 300.

Being in news, I knew I had to strap on a camera for this great event. I grabbed the KXLY GoPro and headed to the race.

The Dirty Dash had sections of runners going from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, starting every 20 minutes.

When it was my turn to head to the start line, I was greeted by a bunch of hay bales to jump over. And not too long into the run, I was reminded why I signed up in the first place... a huge, gigantic mud puddle. My inner three-year-old self was squealing with joy.. .and this time my mom couldn't get mad at me for jumping in!

As the journey continued, I encountered some other lovely tasks, such as scaling a wall, crawling across gigantic muddy tubes and jumping over pipes. You can see all of these lovely feats first-hand in my video. As a disclaimer, all of my friends call me "Little." I am 5'2" and at times I forgot I had a camera on my head. Needless to say, I occasionally got a little over overzealous when I successfully jumped over tubes that were nearly at my shoulder!

The race was a ton of fun and a great workout! I highly recommend giving it a go next year, if you're interested: www.thedirtydash.com/