Students and teachers got down and dirty at the Mudstacle hosted by Vandegrift High School, Saturday October 13.

LEEF (Leander Education Excellence Fund) is a nonprofit organization that helps support  and provide additional funding to schools in Leander. They put on the race to raise money for grants and scholarships to help schools and students better their education.

“So we decided to participate in the mudstacle because it’s a really great fundraiser for LEEF,” NHS sponsor Austin Batson said. “It’s a great way to help out, not only Glenn, but other schools in Leander ISD by helping teachers with grant money, things like that. It was a fun volunteering event and it was for a good cause.”

You could chose to run a 5k or 2.5k or volunteer at different booths.

“[This] was the first time I had ever done a race like that,” senior Kevin Rivera said. “The obstacles were a little hard, there was a lot of mud, some slides, some going over hay, some trunks, some wire you had to go under [and] crawl through.”

Being in cross country helped Rivera finish the race, but it didn’t prepare him for the most challenging part of the obstacle course.

“The hardest part was trying to keep my shoes on because the mud would bring it down,” Rivera said. “So I would have to hold my shoes because they just fell off.”

Four NHS members ran and five others volunteered at the booths. Batson hopes more people from NHS participate next year.

“I think it’d be fun to do it with other people because I left Mrs. Tanzer and her son behind, so it was just me running for a while,” Batson said. “[Next year]  you don’t have to run the full 5k, you can just hang out in the mud if you want to.”