Monday's Bachelor episode is all about the outdoors. To truly test his future wife, Chris Soules is having the women participate in everything from an old-fashioned campout to a mud run — in wedding dresses no less. But does is the Bachelor wedding dress mud run a real thing? In a manner of speaking, yes. You can actually participate in your very own marital mud run whether you're a contestant of the show or not.
But mud runs are actual events that take place outside of the show as well, and you can participate in one while wearing a wedding gown if you so desire. Although there's no official wedding dress-only mud run, white gowns have been a popular choice of attire at regular runs for years.
Many a bachelorette party or group of friends has celebrated by donning fluffy white monstrosities and trudging through a muddy obstacle course. In 2011, Lisa Ginner, a wife and avid runner entered the Gladiator Rock ‘N Run with a team dubbed "Not Your Typical Bridal Party." Lisa detailed the excursion on her blog, telling her readers she decided to trash her 20-year-old dress because it was simply a relic of a failed marriage, and this was a fun way to say goodbye. Her one regret wasn't ruining the gown, but how the mud pit made it weigh a ton. "I seriously considered taking it off and finishing the run in my sports bra and shorts," she joked on her blog.
Ginner is far from the only woman to tackle a mud run in a fancy gown. Groups of wedding parties have been attending various courses across the country for years, and last September some women donned wedding attire for a good cause: honoring their deceased friend. Shannon Hall died in a car accident before her wedding and shortly after her friends decided to wear their ceremony gowns to the mud race to honor their friend and the wedding she never got to have.
Whether people are celebrating a wedding, or mourning the end of a marriage, it's kind of the ultimate way to treat such a fancy gown. Instead of keeping it in a box for years, why not trash it and have some fun along the way? Mud runs are very popular in many states from California to Arizona to Texas. The particular one The Bachelor participated in was the Muck Fest MS, which is conducted in support of people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis.
So if The Bachelor has inspired you to take on your own mud run, a simple Google search should find a course near you. And if you want to wear your wedding dress, more power to you.
Images: David Moir/ABC (2)
