Nearly 2,500 Tutu and spandex-clad
runners race through a makeshift
course, hurdling five-foot “hog
bales,” running through abandoned
barns, and slipping through mud
pits. Add fire hoses, beer, sunshine
and 2,000 spectators, and you’ve got
Montana’s first-ever Dirty Dash, held
Saturday, July 30, at Metra Park in
Billings.
“There were more cars in the parking
lot than there are for concerts,” said
Matt Ward, a founding member of
the Dirty Dash. “[Metra Park] was
blown away.”
A nationwide phenomenon, the
Dirty Dash is a 5 or 10K “mud run
obstacle course where a military boot
camp meets your inner five-year-old’s
fantasy and subsequently converts
boy to man and then…man to swine,”
according to its website.
In Billings, the intensity (and filth)
built during the “hometown special,”
which required racers to swim
through 100 meters of thick
brown mud under a wall of
zig-zagging pipeline. The “hog
wallow” and “pig pen” led
adrenalized racers through a
rubber-tire field, over high
walls and through narrow
chutes.
For every race, “The end goal
is the same. We want to get
people off the couch, and
outside working out,” Ward
said. “We get people who’ve
never in their life run a race
before, [because] our race is so
unintimidating.”
In Billings, the last mile
included a well-received beer
stop called the “slop and slide,”
and then the “pig sty,” two
giant mud pools a team from Big Sky
deemed the best thing ever.
The Dash will return to Billings next
year under a different name: The
Montana Dirty Dash. People showed
up from all over the state, Ward said.
And the best part wasn’t the filth or
the fun, but the $100,000 that goes
to charity, he added. This year, a
little over $4,000 went to the Billings
YMCA.
Don’t miss other Dirty Dash events
this summer in Spokane, Wash.,
(Aug. 20) and Boise, Idaho (Aug. 27).
Look for two new locations next year,
Eugene, Ore., and Las Vegas, both
slated for April.
