Empowered women race to sling mud for a good cause in Lake County

The T-shirts said it all.

"Wonder Woman."

"Supergirl."

Two thousand women came from all over the country to get down and dirty in the mud for a good time and a good cause.

It's called "Mudderella," a 13-event, five-mile obstacle course designed by women for women. From 8 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake, teams of women took the challenge of self-empowerment by working together to get through mud pits, forest trails, elevated terrain and even more mud.

For just a T-shirt, headband and a cold beer at the end?

No, for something far more valuable.

"I get a rush from these kinds of races and obstacle courses!" Woodridge resident Jasmine Ahmed said. "It's fun, I'm with my friends, I'm working out, I'm getting dirty. It's a complete rush!"

Brooke Sorensen of Yorkville agreed, "I love rolling in the mud! I think this is a very important event because it raises money and raises awareness of domestic violence."

Funds from the Mudderella experience will go to support Futures Without Violence, an organization dedicated to preventing and stopping domestic violence through educational programs promoting awareness.

"It's a good way for people to increase their relationships and forge new ones," Mudderella Event Director Barry Shaw said. "It's more about empowering each other. So when they leave, they feel better than when they got here. Nothing makes you feel more excited and alive than when other people help you and you help other people."

The lessons of Mudderella were taken to heart by one of its younger participants: a nine-year-old Schaumburg boy named Lukas Bereza.

While running the "Mini-Mudder" race for kids, Lukas suddenly stopped at the top of a steep incline obstacle and began helping other struggling runners get to the top. Lots of struggling runners. Why?

"They told us about teamwork and helping each other," the fourth grader at Blackwell School said. "My dad told me about teamwork. So I thought I should help the other runners instead of running the race."

Lukas' older brother Anthony Bereza, 10, also ran the Mini-Mudder. And won. By a semitrailer length.

The toughest obstacle?

"The ... monkey ... swings," the Blackwell fifth-grader wheezed at the finish line.

Not everyone at the race came to run.

Penny Toogood of Elk Grove Village came to cheer and support the team of her daughter Diana Magnuski. "I'm the picture-taker and the spectator," Toogood said.

Shaw, the guy who pulled the event together, had nothing but praise for the participants and the Lake County Fairgrounds.

"This location is really good," he said. "It's a mix of the hard infrastructure we need to put an event like this on, with parking lots and access roads, plus the mixture of different terrain that makes an event like this even better.

"That magical combination is hard to find, and I think we have it here."