I also noticed this trend, and wanted to give it a shot. So, in my usual style, I signed up for the toughest, most hardcore event I could possibly find...in this case, Tough Mudder. With most mud runs clocking in at a modest 5k, the Tough Mudder stood out by offering 12 MILES of pain and suffering. I was sold! I had several months to train for it, so I figured it'd be good motivation to get out there and exercise.
Summer began and I trained with slightly more fervor than usual, knowing what awaited me in October. However, the training slowed to a crawl thanks to a vacation in Colorado and triple-digit heat indexes. I tried commuting to work by bike for awhile, but I didn't keep it up either. About the only thing I did consistently was some basic weight training, since it was comfortably indoors.
As the weather started to cool with summer's end, October was looking awfully close. So I got back outside and started logging the miles again. Because of my busy schedule, though, I was only getting a couple of runs in a week...but I was improving. I started getting past 5k territory and into 10k's. I wasn't losing much weight, but between the running and the weight training, I was feeling OK about my fitness. I also started watching YouTube videos of prior Tough Mudders to get psyched about my training. The kiddos were also getting interested in what I described to them as an "adult obstacle course". I really wanted to show them what I was doing, but I wasn't about to ask Katie to haul the kiddos out there, so I got a GoPro camera to wear instead.
Finally, after months of preparation, the day had come! I woke up early that morning and met up with several folks from church, and we all rode the church bus up to Maysville to experience Tough Mudder. The first thing everyone noticed after getting off of the bus was that IT WAS COLD. Overcast, windy, and somewhere in the low 40s, we were all shivering and ready to get moving. The shuttle bus system was remarkably well thought out, thankfully, and we were quickly transported to the registration area, where we got our race numbers written all over our bodies with Sharpies, our bibs pinned to our shirts, and our bags checked in. I was thoroughly impressed with their logistics. And that I had 78182 written on my forehead.
Our group stretched out for a bit while everyone finished with registration, and I got the camera strapped to my head and tested it out a bit. Everything looked good. I was ready for this! We soon headed over to the starting area and we got to see the post-run party zone, complete with Dos-Equis-branded stage, beer tent and keg-tossing zone. We also saw the infamous Electroshock Therapy setup, right in front of the finsh line. Hundreds of sinister-looking electrical wires dangled over a muddy path strewn with hay bales placed to keep you up among the wiring. That was 12 miles in our future, however, so it was quickly forgotten as we approached the start line.
To say it was a starting "line", however, is a bit of a misnomer. To even SEE the start, you had to climb over an 8-foot wall. So we made our way over there, and waited for the folks in front of us to climb the wall. But nobody was climbing! We stood there in the cold among our comrades wondering what was up, and soon we heard the Star Spangled Banner being performed. I went ahead and turned on the camera and put my hand over my heart and took in the pre-"race" festivities. I put race in quotations since Tough Mudder is not actually considered a race, but rather a challenge. After the end of the national anthem, some hooting and hollering ensued, and then the folks on the other side of the wall started running. Once that happened, they let us start climbing over the wall to get to the start.
To be honest, climbing these walls was on my short-list of things I wasn't sure I would be able to do. Even after my training, I was still pretty overweight. And pull-ups weren't my strong suit. But when it was my turn to scale the wall, I was able to pull myself up-and-over with no trouble at all. Once we were all over it and in the starting area, we were told that if we were in the 9:40 wave (we were), then we should start running and catch up to everyone who just left. We did. As we started to run, I looked to check on my camera to ensure everything was still OK, but I noticed it wasn't responding to my button presses. It looked like it had locked up, and that I could probably fix it if I could pull the battery and reset it...but everyone was on the run now, so it would have to wait.
A short distance later, we got to the first Kiss of Mud, which is a fancy term for crawling in the mud under some barbed wire. I was hoping for a bit of a backup in the line so I could work on the camera, but when I got there, there was no wait for the mud, so I crawled on through. After that, it was a bit more running and then some knee-high-ish liquid mud to walk through. Over the course of the run, we would see all kinds of viscosity of mud, from dirty water to suck-your-shoes-off slop. But more on that later. We got through that mud and soon arrived at the...Arctic Enema!
Several construction-waste dumpsters full of green-colored ice water awaited us. Again, the lines were moving quickly, so no time for camera maintenance. In moments, I was standing at the edge of the icy pool, waiting for the poor soul in front of me to go UNDERWATER and to the far side of the dumpster. I heard a quick countdown and then "GO!", and with little hesitation, I threw myself into the water. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't fathom just how quickly one could go from feeling OK about life to WANTING TO DIE. Sure enough, as I stood in that water, I wanted to die, but since that wasn't going to happen right then and there, I had to GET OUT. So I waded over to the middle of the dumpster where there was a wooden barrier to force you underwater, and I went under. As I went down, I felt the camera start to slip off of my head a bit, so I quickly put a hand on it and kept it on. Once I was certain I had cleared the barrier, I came back up for air, and felt even worse, because I had just voluntarily stuck my head in ice water, and that's a good way to get a massive brain freeze. I finally reached the end of the dumpster, but had to wait for the guy in front of me to get out, so I got to enjoy the water even more.
I eventually was able to stumble out of the dumpster, and feel the warmth of the overcast, windy, 40-degree weather. I decided to try once more and get the camera battery out, but my hands were understandably non-functional at this point. A couple of folks from our church were standing there watching the icy misery, so I had them try to get the battery out as well...but with no success. At that point, I made the call to just leave the camera with them, since I didn't want to hold up my running crew any longer. We continued on, and while I was quite annoyed with the whole camera saga, I was glad to be done messing with it and moving on with the Mudder.
The next few miles were slow-going and muddy, with lots of people slowing down for the slick downhill trails (which were generally best-navigated sliding on your butt) and the steep, equally slick uphill marches. This was an ATV park, and most people who navigate these trails do so with...an ATV. But we soldiered on. There were more walls to climb, a series of muddy-water-filled trenches to hurdle over, and some hay bales to climb over...all of which weren't much trouble. Then we found some underground trenches to crawl through. It was just my luck that I got in line for the trench filled halfway with water, I wasn't deterred. I had done caving before, so the prospect of confined spaces (even with a bit of water) didn't bother me. I went in, and soon could not see a thing. I pushed forward, waiting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I couldn't see it. Soon, my head went *bump* and I stopped. *forward* *bump* *forward* *bump* I was for sure the trench went in a straight line! After a few more attempts at forward progress, I glanced to each side, and saw a glimmer of light to my right, so I turned and continued, eventually finding my way to the surface.
The Tough Mudder continued, and after my stint in the water-filled trench, the wind and the cold and my thoroughly soaked clothes started to chill me a bit. But there was hope. Coming up was the Fire Walker obstacle, and I was overjoyed at the thought of feeling some heat, even if I had to walk through the source of it. My hopes were dashed a bit, however, because the Fire Walker forced us to climb in and out of muddy, water-filled ditches as we breathed in the smoke. The last part had us jumping over the fire, but into a deceptively deep pool of muddy water, which was not at all warm. So I jumped into, then swam and crawled out of the pool, still uncommonly cold.
Next we spent some time trudging through the take-your-shoes-off kind of mud...I got in waist-deep muck a few times, but I managed to keep my shoes ON. I'm sure others weren't quite so lucky. Awhile later, we hit some log barricades that we had to weave over and under, barbed wire carefully placed to show us which way to go. I had little trouble with it, and found it rather entertaining.
More running and trudging up hills, and then we worked our way over a mountain of hay bales, under more barbed-wire crawls, and around an amusing loop where we carried logs of wood to make sure our upper-bodies were getting good exercise too. At the aid station after the aptly named "Hold Your Wood", I could see that more and more folks were taking the emergency heat blankets. These are the simple foil blankets that reflect your body heat back onto yourself in order to keep from going into hypothermia. I was cold, for sure, but my exceptional BMI was working in my favor for once, and I felt no need to grab one. I did, however, make sure to grab water and bananas whenever offered. The bananas were amusing in that you ended up usually getting an extra helping of mud to eat while you chowed down. Calorie-free, right?
I also took some time to wash my sunglasses off at each water station. I realized as I went that taking any sort of eyewear along on a Tough Mudder was a mistake. They just kept getting coated in mud! To add insult to injury, the sun was nonexistent, and so sunglasses were pointless, prescription or non-prescription. If I ever do another Tough Mudder, I will leave the glasses behind and endure a little nearsightedness.
The next series of obstacles really start to put the hurt on us. While people always tend to fear Electroshock Therapy at the end, the Electric Eel could very well be worse. Instead of running through charged wires, you're crawling through them. In water. This combination is generally frowned upon...and with good reason. It hurts. I approached this obstacle and saw that you could take a running start and "slip-n-slide" your way through a lot of the wires quickly. So I did just that, and it worked great. I flew through 2/3 of the wires without getting hit once. As soon as I stopped, however, the voltage kicked in. Hard. I crawled my heart out, but I just kept getting shocked and shocked all over. I crawled so fast that I had caught up with my teammate ahead of me and started yelling to get him to crawl faster, because I was being shocked without abandon! I made it out, but I couldn't tell you how many times I was hit. But I can tell you it didn't feel good...
Soon after the Eel, we reached the big, 12' walls to climb over. While the previous 8-footers could be easily done alone, the 12-footers required teamwork. We had a couple of veterans in our group, so with their experience we quickly had a plan together and were lifting and pushing folks up the wall. I'll admit that I wasn't very good at this and probably lifted and pushed at the wrong times, but despite this we were getting people up there. Finally, it was time to hoist my short, dense carcass up the wall. It was a bear for both me and everyone else pulling and shoving, but I eventually cleared it. But there were two walls, so we had to do it all over again. I will definitely make sure to lose more weight if I sign up for another Tough Mudder!
Very shortly after those walls, we had to get past the rings exercise. Swing from ring to ring or fall into more cold water. Most people were failing this, since we were all getting tired and those rings were feeling pretty slick, even with gloves. When my turn came, I felt the first ring, and knew immediately that I wouldn't be able to hold on with one hand. So I looked at the pool of water, saw where the ladder OUT of the pool was located, and swung out on that first ring straight for that ladder! My strategy worked, and I was quickly out of the water...but I was wet once again.
The Boa Constrictor was after that, and it forced everyone to shimmy down a tube into a barbed-wire-covered pool of cold muddy water. To get out of the pool, you had to shimmy back up another tube, but you would have to be underwater in the tube for a short time. It's meant to be claustrophobia-inducing, but it didn't bother me a bit, even though I was underwater in a tube. When I pulled myself out of the tube on the other side, it was so slick that I slid down the hill and off of the course! I found it rather funny...
The water-park fun continued after that with the infamous Walk the Plank obstacle. Climb a tower, then jump 15' into more cold water. I was really starting to get tired of being wet...the wind was relentless! But after awhile of being on this course, you stop thinking about it and just keep going. So I climbed the tower and felt the cold bite of the wind, and I looked down, and it seemed higher than I had anticipated. But I had done this sort of thing before as a teenager, and threw myself off the platform without hesitation when I heard the 3..2..1..GO! I had to keep a hand on my face as I jumped so my sunglasses wouldn't disappear in the deep of the pool. I hit the water, sank for awhile, then went back up and wearily swam to shore. After getting out of that pool of water and feeling the wind, I almost started looking for one of those emergency blankets...but I continued without.
The next obstacle on the trail was Everest...a massive 14' quarter-pipe that we had to run up and attempt to grab and climb over the top. Several people were up top sticking around to help pull people in. It was fun to watch folks try and fail to get up there (though some fell rather violently face-first into the slick ramped surface), but I had a feeling I would be doing the same, because earlier in the run I had slipped on the trail and turned an ankle. I felt pretty sure I could finish the course on it, but I would not be setting any speed records. My found myself at the front of the line, and I tried to make a sprint up the pipe, but I fell way short of the helping hands reaching for me. So I slid back down, went back to the line, and waited a bit. A few moments later, I attempted it again, but again, I failed. Rather than keep throwing myself onto Everest, I decided to walk around and cut my losses. I gave it the college try, so I didn't mind too much.
The remainder of the course was a slow, weary march to the end. There was a Warrior Carry section, where you had to take turns carrying a partner, but with my ankle in poor shape I wasn't about to try it, so I walked on. More hills, more mud, and then we found the monkey bars. When it was my turn, I felt the first bar, and just like the rings, knew that I would fall almost immediately. But I tried anyway, and I fell into the cold cold water. After that, there was just one more left...the Electroshock Therapy. It was a quiet last mile or so. Everybody was ready to get out of their soaked clothes and the cold wind, but everyone knew they still had to hazard the wires one more time. The heat blankets were getting ditched, since what fool would wear a metal blanket through electric wires? I jokingly dared a couple of people to try it out, but I had no takers.
We trudged up the last of the hills and we were there...we could smell the finish, but we could also smell the voltage. A small group of us formed at the entrance, quietly psyching ourselves up for one last dash. The crowd was watching, and an announcer was on a microphone giving the play-by-play and urging us on. One of my group made a run for it, but she fell face-first in the mud halfway through, and the crowd moaned in sympathy. I saw a few guys make a break for it, and I ran up behind them, hoping they would take the brunt of the charge, as I waved my hands wildly in front of me. My strategy worked, and I only got shocked once or twice at the very end. I gave a shout of delight, clambered my way past the last few tractor tires and crossed the finish! A man then came to me with an orange headband, placed it on my head, and I became a TOUGH MUDDER.
I then shuffled through the finish-line logistical maze, getting a t-shirt, some protein bars, and of course, the free beer that was prominently advertised along the course. I would like to have lingered around the finish line for awhile and see others finish the course, but I was more interested in getting some warm, dry clothes on (along with everyone else), so I got my bag and changed. I had just enough time to snag a couple of souvenirs before everyone with my group was ready to hit the road.
All in all, it was a highly miserable, but highly fantastic experience. The cold, windy weather made everyone suffer, but it was a blast to run the course. Two days later, I am still bruised and sore, but am proud to have earned the title of TOUGH MUDDER!
