TUSTIN : A Perfect Day for a Volkslauf

Eric Johnson said it was mainly the physical exercise that attracted him.

Maria Heid was drawn by the chance to do something she’d never been allowed to do as a child.

And Jody Sitler said she came primarily to enjoy wallowing in the watery ooze accompanied by a few good friends.

The three were among the estimated 3,000 who turned out at the Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station in a driving rain Friday to participate in the 11th annual Volkslauf Mud Run--a grueling, six-mile obstacle course in which participants pay money for the privilege of being sprayed by fire hoses, climbing walls and crawling through mud-filled ditches.

“I like the mud and the slimy men,” quipped Sitler, 30, a systems analyst from San Diego. “I find it adventuresome.”

The race is a military-sponsored fund-raiser for the Orangewood Foundation, a nonprofit agency that runs a shelter for abused and abandoned children in the city of Orange.

Because last year’s event was canceled due to the Gulf War, organizers said, this year marked the resumption of a longtime tradition.

“The weather is perfect,” declared Lt. Col Tom Wall, catching raindrops with an outstretched hand. A retired Marine, Wall founded the race in 1977.

“The more it rains the more we like it,” he said. “We want people to be confused and uncomfortable. We want this to be the most miserable day of their lives.”

Wall said that when he organized the first race in Alexandria, Va., it was primarily an athletic competition for military types. Three years later, the Volkslauf--German for “people’s run”--moved to Orange County. While most participants in the annual event are active members of the military, the race in recent years has attracted increasing numbers of civilians.

That’s because slogging through oodles and oodles of mud can be fun, said Andrew Estrada, 34, an engineer representing the Fluor Corp. of Irvine along with five fellow employees. Although “those military guys are pretty tough dudes,” Estrada said, he and his co-workers were able to hold their own.

Estrada and his fellow workers formed one of 500 six-member teams participating in this year’s Volkslauf.

After beginning the race with a short-distance jog, the teams were required to run between fire hoses which sprayed them from both sides. A mile and a half later, the course veered into a quarter-mile drainage ditch filled with sand and water leading to a 3-foot wall. Finally, the runners crossed “Rambo’s Death Ditch,” a long gully filled waist-deep with mud, before crawling under a wire, jogging up a hill and climbing a last wall for the milelong sprint to the finish.

According to the rules, each team had to begin and end the race together.

First-place honors this year went to a Navy SEAL team from Coronado whose members completed the course in about 43 minutes and attributed their success to teamwork, stamina and lots of practice.

“This is just another training day for us,” said team member John Houfek, 31. “It’s something we do every day--no big deal.”

Others had a different experience.

Heid, 27, an electrical engineer from Oceanside whose team placed 49th, said the experience constituted the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. “I always wanted to play in the mud as a child but my mom wouldn’t let me,” she said.