On April 20th, Bruce and I put ourselves through
an intense test of physical strength, determination, and grit! We said goodbye
to my twenties in style (I turned thirty on April 23rd) by
completing Tough Mudder in Austin! For those of you who don’t know, Tough
Mudder is a 10-12 mile military-inspired obstacle course containing 20-25
obstacles. These include such things as climbing over walls, jumping over
ditches and climbing through mud… lots of mud, jumping into ice water (that’s
right, actual ice water), and running/squirming through mud with live wires
that will shock the crap out of you!
The important thing is that we made it! We completed the course together! The other important thing is that we worked
together and succeeded in focusing on teamwork, camaraderie, and just having fun!
Tough Mudder is designed as a challenge,
not a race. Although you want to make a
good course time they stress that the competition is with yourself and not
others. We got covered in mud, and
completed the course in about 3 hours and 30-45 minutes. The soreness lasted a couple days…
And, I can say I left my twenties with a bang! Tough Mudder is coming to Dallas at the end of
October and we are sorely tempted to do it again. Some may say I am a glutton for punishment,
but in reality the experience served to motivate me. It definitely makes use of your athletic
strengths, but it sure does a great job pointing out your weaknesses! I feel like I could get through it easier
next time since I know what areas I would need to improve upon. There is a definite mental aspect to the
course as well, but it’s kind of hard to “practice” that. You have to have the kind of mindset that
allows you to try something even at the risk of failure. To me the failure lies in not trying. To some the
failure lies in not doing it perfectly. If you feel that you must complete everything
perfectly then you won’t have any fun! I can think of a few obstacles I would like
to have done a little better on, so that will help me focus my training should
I choose to do it again.
Here is a picture taken right before we started. Bruce had
some friends that were running as a three person team, and the two of us made
another team.
So, let’s talk about some of the obstacles. There were walls to climb. Some of them were a
bit challenging for me, but Bruce and I were able to get over all of them
together (teamwork comes into play here). The Mud Mile was a series of trenches you had
to climb in and out of. It was tricky
because you had to squirm up out of it and everything is really slippery so you
can’t grab on to anything. Bruce was
able to boost me up each time, but to help him up I basically had to slide down
the other side while holding his hand so that my weight would give him some
stability in order to climb up. We had
it pretty well figured out by the time we made it to the last one!
Then there was the arctic enema! A word of warning to anyone who might do
Tough Mudder in the future… DON’T THINK!!!! JUST DO IT!!!
If you hesitate or think about what is to come, you’re GOING
to suffer! You have to jump into a
dumpster full of ice water (yes, there is ice floating around in it and it is
VERY cold!), then swim under a board in the middle and out the other side.
There is barbed wire on the top of the board so you can’t go over, but that
would take forever anyway and you have to get back out quick. The longer you stay in it, the more the cold
starts to cause your body to lock up and shut down. I climbed up, jumped in a few feet out, and
didn’t come up until I was on the other side of the board. Then I got out of there quick! Bruce took a
few seconds longer because he came up before the board, but he too was in and
out quick. I saw pictures from the event
of people who slid in and cling to the board in the middle… Bad idea! Get in,
get out, and start recovering before the brain freeze gets you!!!
Then there was the last obstacle… “Electroshock Therapy”! It’s
basically a bunch of live wires hanging down that you have to run through. When they shock you sometimes your muscle
locks up, which makes it very difficult to keep moving! I must also mention that the ground is wet and
muddy, ao it’s very easy to lose your footing just for that reason. The best way to get through it is, again, “Don’t
think, just go!” Bruce succeeded in this
quite well and emerged victorious on the other side! I was not quite so fortunate as I lost my
footing about half way through and went down, face in the mud. Let me tell you, it’s a good thing they kept
it muddy because you go down pretty hard!
Bruce was informed by the announcer (they have people who encourage and
comment at each obstacle) that he had a teammate down. I was busy analyzing my situation and trying
to figure out how to get up and out of there without getting shocked in the
head. Before I could enact a plan, Bruce
ran back into the wires and grabbed me to help me up. He got me a little ways forward before I went
down again. Let me explain. When you try to stand up, the shocks hitting
your glutes and thighs make it VERY difficult to move your legs underneath you
and actually use them for anything! When
I went down again I was close enough to the edge he could get out of the field and
reach in for me.
We then received our
finisher head bands, shirts, and of course a nice cold beer!
I was a tad disoriented at the end from all the shocks, but
a friend who was also running that day came up to tell us Bruce got a standing
ovation for going back to get me.
Apparently they had been watching the finish line for about 20 minutes
and NO ONE had gone back for fallen comrades!
It seemed to be quite common for the women to go down halfway, and their
husbands/boyfriends would just let them figure it out on their own. I informed Bruce later that that was why I
married him. J
I will say that I am definitely glad we did it, and I would
love to do another mud run!
Here is our “After Picture”. Yes we got to rinse off before
we took this one.
The pictures taken by photographers on the course are at: http://www.marathonfoto.com/Other/Tough-Mudder-Austin-Day-1-2013/LastName/burkhardt/RaceOID/27132013S1/Language/en/site/selectcustomer
