Officially a Tough Mudder!

You may notice that I've removed the words "In training" from my blog title.  I never wanted to misrepresent myself.  So until now, I've been a Tough Mudder in Training.  Today, I am officially a Tough Mudder.  And I have the headband to prove it:

But you didn't just come for the finish, you want to know the pain and torment I went through don't you?  Well, here goes.  So, a little background. I've been training for this for about four months.  My friend Allen Benningfield decided to do this event and wanted someone to do it with him.  Allen and I served together in Iraq back in 2005.  I wanted to do something for my 30th year alive and really wanted to push the limits.  So I found Tough  Mudder and thought it fit the bill.  Extreme, unique, fun, and fulfilling.  So Tough Mudder, VA was what we did.  This is the map of Tough Mudder, VA, thanks to McAlister Drive, via Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150884339965416.750042.500040415&type=3#!/photo.php?fbid=10150361015709361&set=o.121520047789&type=1&theater

So, I'll start from the beginning.  The guy DJing the start was awesome.  He was funny, encouraging, and serious all at the same time. He told us what we needed to know, but still took time to have a little fun.  Here's a video of me and Allen Benningfield at the start.  I'm right behind the first row, on the left side of the announcer, wearing a red shirt, with a white circle on the back.  You'll see me jumping up and down just before we start. 

I'll go through each obstacle one at a time:

1. Braveheart Charge- This is pretty straightforward, you run down a slight slope and start the race.  But it couldn't be that easy.  They had those snow-making machines spraying water on the course and as I turned to go up the hill, I slipped, a mere 100 yards into the course.  I recovered really quickly, which was good, because there were 500 people running behind me. 

2. Berlin Walls- Funny thing about these walls, they were at the top of a very large hill.  This was our first wake-up call.  Everyone went charging out of the gate.  We weren't more than a quarter of a mile down the course and we hit this hill.  Everyone started running up it, and everyone- I mean everyone ended up walking by the time we hit the Berlin Walls.  Allen and I quickly got over them- they were 10 feet high, but we were already sucking wind as we ran down the other side of the hill.

3. At the bottom of the hill/mountain was The Gauntlet.  Again, they had a snow-making machine spraying water and several rows of baled hay we had to climb over.  But we quickly climbed over them to find ourselves climbing back up the mountain!

4. At the top of this hill/mountain was the Devil's Beard.  This was a cargo net laying on the ground, so after taking our turn holding up the opening, Allen and I crawled the 40 or so feet under the net to hold up the exit. 

5. After the Devil's Beard, we ran up to the top of the hill and started back down it, into a section where, if it hadn't been so congested, we might have been able to run a little.  Then it was more downhill to Hold Your Wood.  Here, we grabbed a log and climbed what looked like the Bunny slopes, carrying our logs.  This was the first time we saw Julie and Job, who had come for moral support.  Once up the hill, we went back down it to drop off our logs.

6. After grabbing water and some energy chews that were offered to us, we headed to Funky Monkey.  Believe it or not, this was the one obstacle I wasn't sure I was going to make it across without falling into the water.  But I made it and so did Allen. 

7. We then ran through the woods and the Log Bog Jog.  It's pretty self-explanatory.

8. Then there was Twinkle Toes.  This is the kind of obstacle that is just sort of pure chance.  Sometimes you'll do fine, other times, you just eat it.  I went across first, and got to the middle and the whole thing started shaking.  I wobbled back and forth and finally just gritted my teeth and started moving again.  Once I got away from the center, I was good, and made it across without getting wet. 



Me watching Allen cross Twinkle Toes



Me, blissfully unaware that this is the last moment I'll be dry on the whole course.

9. Up to this point, Allen and I have both made it along the course without getting too wet.  A little spray from the snow-makers, but we've managed to not get submerged.  Then came Chernobyl Jacuzzi.  These were those 30 ft long commercial dumpsters, filled with dyed water and tons (literally tons) of ice.  There was a beam going across the middle of the dumpster that forced you to submerge into the icy bath.  I can say with all honesty that this was the single most uniquely painful and weird feeling I've ever experience.  As soon as my body hit the water/ice, shock waves just overcame me.  I jumped in and immediately submerged, moved forward underwater enough to know I was clear of the beam and popped up out of the ice.  The blood vessels in my head and my entire body immediately yanked blood away into my core and it felt like the worst brain-freeze imaginable.  It was all I could do to run to the end of the dumpster.  I was sucking in air like I was on the moon.  And I felt like I couldn't move.  At the time, I thought I only made it out because I was pulled out, but seeing the video, I actually jumped out of the ice pretty high.  But I know people grabbed me and pulled me out.  And the water was so cold that once I was fully out, I felt incredibly warm in the 50 degree air outside.  I stayed and helped about three guys get out and then Allen and I moved on.

This is video of Allen and I jumping into Chernobyl Jacuzzi

10. So now were were wet.  As long as we kept moving, we didn't feel cold, but once we got to the Spiders Web, we had to wait for people to climb over before we could keep moving and it got rather chilly.  We climbed over quickly, took our turn holding the net taut for others and then moved on. 

I'm the one in the red shirt with the white circle, Allen is to my right.

11. We ran down hill and came across my favorite obstacle: Greased Lightning.  Allen and I decided to go down this head first, and it was worth it.  At first, it looks like they just put down regular black plastic, but as you slide down, you realize it's really thick and I didn't feel any rocks or anything going down it.  It was a really long slide and honestly, provided a nice bit of relief and fun.  It was still extreme, which makes it fit into Tough Mudder perfectly.

12. Further down the hill, we hit the Boa Constrictor.  These were two pipes sloped into a pit of water.  Cold water.  They lined them with the same smooth plastic, so it wasn't as hard on my knees as I worried it would be. 

13. We continued even further down the hill until we reached the Underwater Tunnels.  I think these would have been more intimidating if it hadn't been for the Chernobyl Jacuzzi.  After Chernobyl, the other water obstacles were mere shadows of water obstacles.  I liked that.  I think mentally, getting that out of the way early made the other obstacles easier to overcome.  That being said, having to traverse 30 feet of freezing water and ducking under four different beams, submerging yourself again and again, was difficult enough.  I'm just saying, it was no Chernobyl.

14. And then it appeared.  Like a hurricane waiting to devour everything in it's path.  There was no way around it, no one would evade it.  The Death March.  This was the single most difficult obstacle on the course.  The beauty and brutality of this obstacle is this: it didn't matter how many marathons, burpees, squat lifts, or sprints you'd done, no one- absolutely no one ran up this mountain.  And it was a mountain.  I don't know the incline, but I measured the distance on Google Earth and it was over .6 miles.  Straight up a mountain!  

15. According to the map, Cliff Hanger was supposed to be somewhere along the Death March, but they may have removed it from the course. 

16. At the top of the Mountain, the Kiss of Mud was between the Death March and an aid station.  Here, you had to crawl underneath barbed wire and through mud.  But it was a relief after having just climbed up the mountain.

17. We did some push ups with the guy at the aid station, grabbed some water and a banana and finally got to really run for the first time on the course.  And run we did- right by our condo.  Right by our trucks parked in the parking lot.  This section of the course was the flattest we had experienced, and it was five miles into the course!  The next obstacle was Tired Yet.  It was simply a bunch of tires you had to run through.

18. We ran some more and hit Logjammin'.  These were a series of logs that you had to alternatively climb over or under.  Here is where we saw our first casualty.  A girl must of slipped on the log and twisted her leg pretty bad.  Her teammates were carrying her off to the side.  I couldn't help but feel really bad for her since she had made it through the toughest of the course and over half the course only to get hurt on something relatively easy.

19. The next obstacle was really close- Bale Bonds.  This was just a big stack of hay bales we had to climb over.

20. Then it was a lot of running through the golf course to the last set of Berlin Walls.  These were 12 feet tall and not easy to get over.  You definitely needed a boost to get over them, but we both got over them quickly.

21. Then we had the longest stretch without an obstacle.  It was probably close to a full mile without one.  Most of it was through the golf course, which allowed us to make up valuable time.  Finally, we hit the "Mystery Obstacle", which was the Smoke Tunnel.  This was my least favorite obstacle.  Basically, you climbed up about 12 to 15 feet, and dropped into a smoke-filled slide.  The problem I had with this was that it was completely vertical until the last 4 or 5 feet.  It wasn't "Tough" or fun, it was just painful.  I got banged and scrapped up on the stupid thing.  I just found it obnoxious.  It was the one obstacle I suggested Tough Mudder never use again.

22. We then ran about halfway back down the mountain, through some woods and came across the Kinky Tunnels.  I'm a bit claustrophobic, but throughout the course, Tough Mudder always left enough room to crawl through on your hands and knees.  The Kiss of Mud might be the exception.  But if you've ever been in the military, you know a low crawl when you see one, and never once did we have to do a true low crawl.  Which honestly, was nice.  Kinky Tunnels was an obstacle that you had to crawl through where you couldn't see the daylight ahead of you because of the bends in the tunnels.  But even I didn't get too claustrophobic from it, so it wasn't too bad.

23. From here, we ran part of the way back down the mountain alongside the people doing the Death March.  It was hard on the knees to run back down that mountain, but you were just thankful you weren't on the other side going up the damn thing again.  We ran through some woods and came out to a ton of spectators cheering us on.  But there it was- another damn hill.  We climbed the hill and hit Shake and Bake.  Basically, exactly like Kiss of Mud, but sand instead of mud. 

24. Then we hit Turds Nest.  This was a suspended cargo net that you had to traverse while someone was spraying you with a fire hose.  It was different, but not difficult.

25. Then came Everest.  This is a quarter pipe about 12 or 15 feet high.  When Allen and I got there, there were about 300 people standing at the bottom of the damn thing standing around looking at it.  I had seen photos from previous events where people made human ladders to get over the obstacle.  So I told Allen about it, and we walked up to the bottom of the thing, sat down and formed a ladder.  We tried to convince other people to add on, and got on guy to join.  But then people started trying to run up and then push off of our three-person ladder and it didn't work.  So the three photos that were taken of both Allen and I on Everest is just us basically setting up the ladder.  Instead of running and summiting it.  Thanks a lot.  Needless to say, we gave up the whole teamwork thing and Allen ran up the quarter pipe and was over it on his first try.  Then I tried and fell the first time.  The second time, I grabbed two guys at the top and they pulled me over.  I stayed at the top and helped two guys over.  Then a huge guy who was about 6'4, 280 lbs came barrelling up the pipe. I grabbed his hand and arm and started to pull, but the guy who had grabbed his left hand let go.  Thankfully the Hulk let go of me, or he would have easily pulled me back down the pipe.  I helped one more guy up and then he took my place at the top.

26. We ran a short distance and hit the Firewalker.  This was tough because you're catching your breath from sprinting up Everest and all you're doing is sucking in smoke.  But you know the end is so close, you just don't care.

27. And then you hit another freaking ski slope!  But you can see the start and hear the after party.  Just when you think you're at the end, they run you back down the slope, away from euphoria and back up the slope again. The whole time, spectators are riding the damn ski lift above you.  Finally, we came to Electroshock Therapy.  This was the obstacle that held the most anxiety for me.  It was the most unknown factor.  There was a fountain of water just before it that you had to run through.  If the finish line had not been right there, and tons of people standing around looking at us, I might have stood there for a minute to psych myself up.  But it was the end, and there were a ton of people.  So we just ran through it.  Allen ran in front of me.  I saw him react slightly to a jolt, but as I ran through, I felt....nothing.  It was somewhat of a disappointment, but I didn't have the energy or the inclination for disappointment because the finish line was right in front of me. 

Allen and I ran across the finish line together and were greeted by women with the coveted orange Tough Mudder sweatband.  Then there was a smorgasbord of goodies.  Dos Equis beer, Myoplex recovery drink, water, Clif bars, and our Tough Mudder t-shirts!

Julie and Job met us at the end, we drank our beers, took in a few minutes of the glory and headed up to the condo for a nice hot shower.  I didn't realize just how cold I was until after I had taken a shower.  I came out, shivering like crazy.  I put tons of clothes on and it took me about 5 minutes to finally stop shivering. 

Stay tuned, I hope to have some more photos once Tough Mudder posts their official photos of the event.  And I'm going to try to put together a video montage of the whole event. 

As an aside: the only equipment I purchased for the event were my New Balance Minimus shoes.  This event was truly the Gauntlet and these shoes performed above and beyond my expectations.  They gave me traction when I needed it, protected my feet, and self-drained water each time they were submerged.  I never sloshed around.  I had absolutely no hot spots.  I never had to re tighten or retie them.  They were absolutely superb.  And despite having run the furthest ever on them- 9 miles, I didn't have nearly the joint pain I had experienced on shorter 6- mile runs.  So I think the issue with my knees was from training on concrete and asphalt less than the shoes themselves.