The Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS) is bringing back the orientation Mud Run event for the first time in four years.
The Mud Run is set to take place at Bernie Robison’s Farm in Sept. 2023—pending approval from Queen’s Health and Safety. The Mud Run was a fan favourite event in 2019, but was cancelled due to COVID-19, according to Head Gael Georgia Dean-Savage.
Given the event’s previous success, Dean-Savage and her team have decided to bring the run back in all its muddy glory. The ASUS orientation team hopes the Mud Run will increase student engagement during orientation week.
“Since COVID-19, we haven’t seen the engagement we saw in 2018-19,” Dean-Savage said in an interview with The Journal.
Mud Run participants can choose to run or walk a muddy course around the farm with fun obstacles. For students who want to participate in the festivities, but aren’t looking to get muddy, there will be food, music, and other activities around the farm.
Due to COVID-19, ASUS orientation was forced to operate online, and the Mud Run did not make the cut for 2022’s orientation week—something Dean-Savage’s team was determined to change.
“We were talking amongst our committee and about how ASUS orientation could use a staple event that is ArtSci specific. When you see the Grease Pole, you think about [the Faculty of Engineering] and when you think about camp, you associate it with [the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies]. We really wanted a staple event for ArtSci.”
The ASUS orientation team decided to shorten the length of the Mud Run to make it more accessible to students.
“The race was almost five kilometres [in 2019]. We’re greatly reducing it in size. [It should be] one to two kilometres,”Dean-Savage said. “The big slide at the end will no longer be a part of [the race].”
The Mud Run finale was a huge slide into a mud pit, but the current orientation organizers chose to omit the slide this year to mitigate injuries. According to 2019 Head Gael Noam Epstein Ross, two students sprained their ankles during the last Mud Run.
Past mud runs reduced injuries by stationing orientation coordinators on the side of the course, and by having Gaels running the race alongside their orientation groups, instead of changing the course itself.
To ensure the event becomes part of ASUS’ orientation legacy, Dean-Savage and her team are hoping to give the Mud Run a creative title. They have proposed to call the event “Robinson’s,” after the farm owner, Bernie Robinson. The name change places focus on the event’s hosts and encomes all the farm’s activities.
“We want to emphasize that this event is not just a mud run. It is an event at a farm which includes a mud run,” Dean-Savage said.
The first Mud Run took place in 2018 in partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS). This year the CCS is back to organize the event which will include multiple fundraising opportunities.
The ASUS orientation team is currently hiring Gaels for September. Gaels lead
first-year students through all their orientation events and welcome new students to Queen’s. Gael applications close on June 5.
“We are really hoping [the Mud Run] will get people excited about ASUS orientation and get [students] to participate in some of our other amazing events as well,” Dean-Savage said.
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