SUNRIVER — The Pink Ladies arrived at the Sunriver Mudslinger on Sunday ready to get dirty.

The team dressed up in cat-eye glasses, poodle skirts and pink T-shirts, all to crawl, run and wade through a sloppy 1.5-mile obstacle course. Still, Lorinda Tiller, 53, of Redmond, said she was surprised at how clean the team was at the finish line.

“I thought we’d get dirtier!” said Tiller, who designed the costumes. It was the first time the Pink Ladies participated in a mud run, and team member Tracie Young, 42, of Bend, said she’s game to do it next year if the weather is this good. “I’m not going to lie, I had some anxiety,” Young said of the obstacle course.

Jesse Wallace, 23, of Bend, also dressed up for the race. Wallace, who wore a plush Viking hat with horns, said he lost his breath after plunging into the water at one point in the course.

“It killed me,” Wallace said. “When we first went into the water, I did a belly flop.”

Emily Savko, recreation program manager for the Sunriver Owners Association, said the group tried to include something for everyone at this year’s Sunriver Mudslinger. More than 750 people registered for the event this year.

“We wanted to bring more activities to the Sunriver area over spring break,” Savko said. Employees at the association knew that mud races were increasing in popularity, “but we wanted to make it unique to Sunriver, which is multi-generational,” Savko said.

Children, parents and grandparents come to Sunriver together, so the association wanted an event in which everyone could participate. Savko said the Sunriver Mudslinger achieved this, with one registered participant as young as 2 years old and another registered participant who was 75 years old.

The association also added timing and a first wave for competitive participants this year, after some people who participated in the untimed race last year requested those changes.

The Brunelli family, from Boise, Idaho, spends spring break in Sunriver every year, and Thad Brunelli, 48, said it was their first mud run. “It was awesome,” he said. “We wanted to do it as a family.”

Rhoda Brunelli, 47, said that after experiencing the Mudslinger, she, Thad and their sons Shane, 14, and Jake, 15, plan to run in another similar event soon.

— Reporter: 541-617-7829, hborrud@bendbulletin.com