Mud race to work up appetites

Taste Tasman will begin with a taste of Mariri mud.

The lead-in event to the festival will be the Sport Tasman Muddy Buddy, an adventure fun run around the muddy flats of the Moutere Inlet.

Organiser Jodie Fa'avae says the idea is to have an event for families and schoolchildren on the morning of Taste Tasman to get them primed for the festival.

The Muddy Buddy will leave them primed and slimed after completing the slippery course.

Racers will tackle the course in teams of two, says Mrs Fa'avae, so friends or parents and children can enjoy facing the challenges together. Families can enter in larger teams, but children under 10 must be accompanied by a parent or caregiver and the course is designed for children five and over.

The estuary zone of the course includes some crawling obstacles, which should guarantee facefuls of mud, but Mrs Fa'avae wouldn't reveal too much about the freeze zone beyond saying it involves lots of ice. "Those who do it will be pretty satisfied and will have some good stories for the next few weeks," she says.

The course is designed to be completed by all as long as they display some persistence, she says. It is fully marked and more ambitious entrants have the option of doing either two or three laps of the 2km course.

But she cautions that shoes, which are compulsory, will need to be laced tightly or risk being sucked off by the estuary mud.

The Mapua aquarium is providing a water truck for simple showers after the run and entrants should bring a change of clothes.

The $20 per team entry fee includes a $5 per person Taste Tasman entry fee, a Talley's icecream and a downloadable team photo. There are prizes for placegetters in all categories as well as spot prizes, with two major spot prizes of boys' and girls' Avanti kids' mountainbikes.

Enter on the day at Tasman School between 9.30am and 10.15am, with the race beginning at 10.30am. For information, tasmanmud@gmail.com or tastetasman.co.nz.

- © Fairfax NZ News