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However, his girlfriend, Hannah Hardiman, 21, clarifies her hesitation. “My teeth were speckled with sand and dirt. I said, ‘Why are you kissing me? My mouth is full of mud.’” The Massachusetts couple, who were able to recover and finish, later say the experience “made them stronger” and they will return next year. “It’ll be like Rocky II,” says Mears, an engineer and former Bridgewater State wrestler. Later, Hardiman, a teacher at Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child, was glowing because of her unorthodox mud treatment. “My skin looks amazing, and my hair, it’s so soft.” At Sunday River Resort, 38 couples competed in the 278-yard obstacle course. This contest features a log hurdle, a sand dune, and the infamous mud hole, that’s surprisingly heated to a comfy 81 degrees. The race is inspired by the world championships held annually in Finland, based on 19th century Finnish legend, about Ronkainen the Robber, and his gang of thieves. They robbed villages, captured their spouses, and carried them back through the wilderness. The winning couple receives five times the wife’s weight in beer and cash. They also are invited to the World Wife Carrying Championship in Finland. One contestant, John Lund, won the American Championship here in 2004. He was inducted into the World Wife Carrying Hall of Fame after competing in Finland for the last 22 years. “But I’m 100 percent Masshole,” said Lund, 48, a native of Wendell, in Western Mass. He later relocated and lives in Finland. At 6 foot 5 inches and with a rust-colored beard, he looks like a Viking. He’s married but his “race wife” is the 4 foot 9 inches Karen May, a stunt woman from Los Angeles who recently appeared in the movie “Weapons.” At 88 pounds, she’s the lightest lady on the course. The duo had the fastest time of the day - 1 minute and nine seconds- in the preliminaries. But the rules call for the two top teams to race head-to-head for the championship. Their final opponents are two young rookies from Maine. William Thornton, 23, and his girlfriend Antoniette Hinitt, 21, who signed up just days before the competition. He is a mechanical engineer and former football player at Norwich University in Vermont. She studies entertainment marketing at NYU. “We don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into,” says Hinitt. The night before they practiced the “Estonian Carry,” in the backyard. It’s a reverse piggyback ride: The woman hangs upside down with her legs around the man’s shoulders, freeing his arms. Unfortunately, the partner’s view from the rear is exactly that: their partner’s tush. Jessie Wall, a two-time champion, said in a video, “the wife is in charge of winning more often than the guys. A horse is only as good as its rider.” During the competition, some women adopt unconventional methods, like flapping their arms like Philadelphia Eagle fans or flogging their partners backside like a jockey going down the stretch at Churchill Downs In the finals, things get rough going over the log hurdle. “I got kicked in the face by a football player” says May. This triggered some Dennis Rodman-like bumping. “The Worm” once showed up at the world championship in Finland, but dropped out saying he didn’t have the proper training. Thornton swears the kick was not intentional. “I swung my right leg over (the log) and it was towards the middle and it caught her in the face, unfortunately. It was an accident. I feel bad.” Thornton and Hinitt open a lead climbing the ski slope, but Lund and May mount a furious comeback on the downside. Hinitt says she was nervous because of the galloping warrior, Lund. “He spooked me, he’s so intense.” Thornton got a burst of adrenaline. “Holy crap. He’s really coming after me,” he says “I was worried. So, I rushed into the (mud) pit and I fell.” His priority was to keep his girlfriend dry. “He knows I’d be pissed if I got muddy.” says Hinitt. “You got to put the girlfriend first, and then you got to go for the win after. Always,” says Thornton. But Lund and May also fell. “It was like there was a Leviathan monster at the bottom of the mud grabbing onto my feet,” says Lund. It was a mad dash to the finish, with the rookies beating them by a single second. “I’m disappointed,” says the veteran Lund. “I’ve been doing this half my life. But it is what it is. If the judges didn’t call it, then they didn’t call it.” At the awards ceremony, Hinitt sits on one end of a giant see-saw, while officials balance out her weight with beer on the other side. Thornton pads their winnings by putting a heavy jacket around her shoulders. They also receive a check for $575 - her 115 pounds times five. Someone wonders if Thornton might gracefully lift her over the threshold in his arms, the conventional, dignified way. When would that be? “Today” blurts out Hinitt, starting to giggle. “We’ll drink the beers and see what happens,” says Thornton with a big smile.
