For the 4th Straight Time, Navy Seals Team Overcomes All Obstacles and Grounds Out a ‘Mud Run’ Victory on Marines’ Own Turf in : A Dirty Little War

Scores of Marines arrived at the Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station here Friday morning knowing two things: To win the 10-kilometer race ahead of them they had to make it through the “Rambo Death Ditch” and they had to beat the Navy Seals.

A little less than an hour after the opening cannon blast, the first group of Marines stormed across the finish line of the 10th annual “Volkslauf,” having mastered the mud ditch and various other obstacles strewn along the course. Their “Team Hard” shirts were soaked to the skin, and their faces were caked in thick, gray mud.

But by the time the Marines conquered the course, in about 48 minutes, the Seals were already wrapping up their showers after clobbering the Corps.

“You get tired of all these Marines coming up and giving you their oorah-oorahs,” said Bob Richardson, a member of the winning “Instructors From Hell,” the Navy Seals team from Coronado. “We just stay quiet and win.”

With a near-record time of 43:50, the Seals ran away with their fourth straight victory on the obstacle course, capping a day that combined the finest elements of road race and fraternity blowout, with Marines and sailors competing--and drinking--alongside civilian competitors.

The race has grown steadily in popularity during the past decade, expanding from a purely military face-off to an increasingly broad-based competition. This year there were 3,300 competitors, about 1,500 of whom were civilians, including groups from high schools, colleges and area police and fire departments.

The Los Angeles Police Department took top honors in the co-ed civilian category, finishing in 59:50.

The Costa Mesa Fire Department fielded two teams, both of which finished with respectable times, despite one team member’s stated goal of merely not “getting run over in the mud by any of the women’s teams.”

But most eyes were on the military teams, which dominate the event and which regularly post the most impressive times. As racers milled around the starting line before the event, scores of Marines debated strategy while quaffing pre-lunch beers and ogling their women counterparts.

Most of the teams taped shut the pockets of their camouflage pants and strapped their cuffs to their combat boots, required gear for teams that compete for trophies.

“The goal is to keep the water and mud from filling up your boots,” explained Marine Staff Sgt. Gerald Bates, who sported a cobra tattoo on his right arm and a T-shirt that read: “No Wimps! No Bozos!”

Chief on the minds of many teams was how to get through the “Rambo Death Ditch,” a 100-meter-long, mud-filled drainage canal. The competitors have to cross the ditch several times, and at least five of a team’s six members must finish together, so getting through the ditch without abandoning lagging teammates can be the event’s most daunting challenge.

Some groups suggested sticking together to help teammates through the obstacle; others proposed sticking to the sides of the ditch as much as possible and trying to leap the goo on the bottom. Some even proposed tackling it head-on and just trying to swim across.

If there were many strategies in play by the time the groups got that far, however, most were not evident. Before competitors even got to the ditch, they had to dash through fire hoses, negotiate a lumber “zigzag,” push through a stream and tackle a grueling assault on a series of four-foot-high obstacles.

By the time the ditch rolled around, exhaustion was evident everywhere. Competitor after competitor bogged down in the muck, one even collapsing from exhaustion and requiring treatment by an ambulance crew on hand.

After the race, members of the Seals revealed their ditch strategy, such as it was: “It’s out-and-out running,” Richardson said. “Your lungs are exploding, and there’s nothing you can do, but you just run all-out.”

Sponsored by the “Ridgerunners” of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 163 at the Tustin base, the event raised $7,500 for the Orangewood shelter for abandoned and abused children in Orange County. Anheuser-Busch Inc., which supplied beer for the occasion, donated another $2,000 to the shelter.