First I would like to say, I did not get *really* injured! Wooo!
If you don't want to read my write up and are looking for my short one sentence reaction to the Tough Mudder here it is:
If I wanted to hike up and down one mountain all day, I would have picked a prettier mountain.
For all those that want more detail and to see some pics please continue!
The day started off better than other obstacle courses races I've done (i.e anything that takes place at Amesbury Sports park). We had to park at Loudon raceway and get shuttled over. There was hardly a wait get into park and a very quick wait at the buses. The registration line was annoying but tolerable so good job Tough Mudder with that. However, I still have yet to see a race be able to successfully drive people back to their cars without some sort of chaos/confusion but their system was at least better than the ones I've experienced before. O I should probably mention I had my 5 year college reunion the night before so I was working on like 4-5 hours of sleep.
As you probably noticed, it was really hot on Saturday. I think I'm just so done with working out in the cold after training for the marathon, that I didn't even care it was so hot. As you might have also figured out, I ran this race with my co workers. I was the only girl. It is definitely a bonding experience given how many hours it is and that you do need each others help. I would say, this race did a very decent job of promoting team work but until you have an 18 year old stop during the biking part of a triathlon to help you put your bike chain back on, you don't know what camaraderie is.
The race started by going up Gunstock mountain and down Gunstock mounatin, which we did several more times throughout the day (hence my hiking comment.) There was a lot of trail running which was awesome-just not a lot of people actually running. For the most part the obstacles were fun. The barbed wire just cut you up a lot and since it was so hot out the water obstacles just felt nice. I did get my hair stuck in the barbed wire a couple of times. Jumping in the ice was very shocking but it kinda felt good because it was so cold. Your toes just froze afterwards but that quickly wore off. When it came time to carry a log around I saw this awesome small, smooth log and I went to pick it up and then this other woman went to grab it. She just looked at me with this look of desperation so I was like o..ok...and grabbed another heavier one with bark all over it. O well. I lived. I got shocked a bit when I was crawling through the hanging electric wires and then not at all at the end. I also had the best bib number with SO MANY 8's in it...and it got riped off my shirt after the first set of crawling under the barbed wire. My KT tape also didn't last past mile 4.
I'm not the most graceful person so I found the hardest part of the obstacles was getting out/off them. Like getting out of a tube you were just crawling through or rolling off a log onto your face. So just imagine doing all of those things in front of the head of your company haha However, I kept up with the group and we ran the majority of the 11+ miles. So yes we had a lot of laughs, it was nice being in the mountains, it was awesome to be active for that long with a group of people... it just wasn't THAT great.
For example, I feel like their were overwhelmingly three kinds of people who came out to do the Tough Mudder:
1) Hardo bros who have such much muscle they can't run so they beast through the obstacles (some of them even wore lead vests) and then walk the rest of the time-they were fun to pass ;)
2) Girls who would say things like, "Now we don't have to go to the gym for like 3 months!"and wore the short short spandex (even when it wasn't the most flattering) and were whining. Note to them: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG
3) People who didn't even TRY to train for this thing
It kind of proved all of my assumptions (and points I made in the previous post before I did the race.) Granted, my group wasn't like the ones listed above and like I said, it was good bonding with my co workers who I didn't know that well outside the office. I actually thought, it would be really funny if you took a client out for a meeting than you were like surprise! Let's do the Tough Mudder! Because yes, you could do it without training.
Before the race they make you state this pledge about being a Tough Mudder and helping your fellow mudder out etc... One of the pledges is "No whining, whining is for kids." I think it would be pretty awesome if they had whining watchers and made all the whiners (see people listed above) do burpees or something. THAT is something I would get on board with.
My conclusion is: when it all comes down to it, it wasn't worth the price tag. Yes, it was nice being outside and I did get a good workout in but there are a lot of other races that would be more worth my time. I still don't get what they are trying to achieve by putting other races down and saying triathlons are boring etc... Like I said, it got pretty annoying going up the mountain, down the mountain and there is A LOT of running (well, walking to most) during those 11 miles. I mean, if people need taglines like those seen on the Tough Mudder website to get them off the couch then I guess the Tough Mudder is a good thing. At least I can check that box off that I tried one but it's just not my thing.
My favorite "LOL" moment of the day was when you were suppose to jump over the "fire" into this water. I guess I didn't really get the whole fire part of it because the flames were so low so I didn't realize they were part of the obstacle so I just stepped over the fire and then jumped in the water. So tough! Oops.
Here are some pics from the day:
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| Out of focus but hi! |
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| About to jump in the ice bath |
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| Mmm love me some mud |
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| Climbing out more mud piles |
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| Running up Everest the quarter pipe |
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| Thanks for the help Team! |
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| At least they didn't lie about the beer! |
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| Driver/photographer/best sandwich maker |
So after all that I finally get home and realized I had to complete the final obstacle of the day: I was locked out of my house. I had to do the familiar motion of Chris putting his hands out to put my foot in (like what happened 6 times that day) to give me a boost so I could pull myself through the window:
Also...if you would like to see all the scratches/bumps/bruises I sustained after this "challenge" this see my Injury log!
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