5 El Toro High Athletes Take Top Spot in Mud Run

El Toro High School athletes are no stranger to victory, but this one was a little different from the norm.

Five seniors from the school's varsity track and cross country teams took first place Saturday in the team portion of a challenging 10K Mud Run at Camp Pendleton.

In the Mud Run, competitors climb hills, mount tire obstacles, ford river crossings, top two 5-foot walls with mud on both sides, crawl through a tunnel, brave a slippery hill climb, and slog through the final 30-foot mud pit. 

It was the 20th annual such competition, which raises money to benefit the programs and services offered to Camp Pendleton military personnel and their families at low or no cost by the Armed Services YMCA.

The El Toro High team, which took the name Bears Upstairs, consisted of Jake Schwartz, who served as team captain, Spencer Allen, Tim Bergstrom, Kris Frey and Will Levegood.

All five will be running competitively for their respective colleges in the coming year.

"We've always loved doing community 5Ks and other fun races during offseason, and the Mud Run sounded like a great way to end our senior year," Frey said.  

And the team name?

The Bears Upstairs became the moniker because "it rhymes and sounds intimidating," he said.

According to the rules of the team race, all five athletes had to cross the finish line together.

"We were all in varying degrees of fitness going into the race, but surprisingly, we were able to stay together pretty well through the entire 6 miles," he wrote in an e-mail.

The five gained the lead after the first mile and were "stoked" to finish eight minutes ahead of the second-place team. 

"The race was really fun. There were several mud pits and river crossings and even a lake we had to swim through," Frey said. "I actually think I saw an old guy who lost his shorts in the lake."

The hills and inclines made the course a tough one, but the team persevered.

"We were covered in mud afterward, and even after showering several of us showed up to Baccalaureate later that day with a little mud in our ears," Frey said.

Bears Upstairs finished with a winning time of 45 minutes, beating out 75 other male teams.

The victory was made sweeter by the fact that their time squeaked by the 47 minutes recorded by a team from rival Trabuco Hill High School on the previous weekend.

The team's time also trumped those recorded in Mud Runs at Camp Pendleton the two weekends prior.

"All in all, it was a great experience, and we definitely plan on doing it next year," Frey said.