Tough Mudder Race Report 4/28/12

I did my first ToughMudder and here is my race report. I hope it helps some people. Now i can't say every ToughMudder is just like this one, but i would have to think some of it is the same.
Please please excuse all my grammer. I wrote this at work and didn't have a ton of time to proof read it. Also i am not a good writer.

Tough Mudder April 28th 2012 --- PA event

Wake up at 5am, and turn on the weather to get the temp for the day. It’s going to be like 55 and a little windy, but at the current moment its 35. Oh great! Got some breakfast in me and then drove to the shuttle location. The shuttle would then take us to the race site.

I needed 2 things all weekend my ID and my race waiver. I already forgot my entire wallet, so no ID. I got to the shuttle site and thought about changing my base layer to a long sleeve shirt, i felt so rushed so i totally forgot to change my shirt and i pay the price for that. I also forgot to bring my waiver form. At least i can’t forget anything else.

We get to the race site about 1hr ½ before our start time, if fact we are the first group of racers on site. I find someone and tell them about my waiver and no ID, they send me to another both and the girl takes care of me. I did ask my wife to take a pic of my ID and send it to me, i was able to use the pic of the ID, which was great.

So now me and my partner (Britt) had to stand around and wait for our start time of 8:20am. We did the bathroom thing, now we just stood around and people watched and tried to keep warm with some jumping jacks, stretches and whatever else we could do to keep warm.

The 1st start time was 8am, and they called all the 8am races to the start line, this is where you meet your first obstacle, but not really, you first you have to climb over a 8 foot wall to get to the start line. Now you are in a holding pen. They have a guy on the microphone who gets everyone excited to go, doing the whole ra-ra thing. He gets everyone hyped up. They are playing music the whole thing. He finally yelled go and off the first group went. Now it’s our turn.

We hop the wall, we go through the same thing that the first group did, the guy is getting us all pumped up, turns out he does this for every group. Everyone around us is all excited and ready to go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. GO!!!!

We run into the woods, no trail, just woods and this is going to be a theme for the day. I guess about 1.5 mile in we hit the first obstacle and it’s the “Kiss of Mud” where you get on your belly and belly crawl under wire, this is wear not having on long sleeves and long pants really hurt, any obstacle that i had to get on my hands and knees really tore me up. I have the bruises to show for it. Back into the woods for another mile or so, we come out for #2, which is called the “Arctic Enema” which is a huge container, something you would see at a construction site and it’s filled with ice cold water, and let me stress the word ice cold, they had a ice truck next to it and guys were shoveling ice into the water. So you jumped in, and had to go under the water cause there was a huge wooden thing in the center so you had to go under it. I have heard the expression “it was so cold it took my breath away”, well i finally now know what that feels like. Back into the woods, now my fingers and feet are ICE cold, i can’t feel my feet. We finally get on a normal trail, but it is very rocky, we hit another obstacle which was just climbing up a steep hill in the woods. Back to running, we hit our first wall, about an 8-10 foot wall, we got over without much issue. Back to running. We now came to the “Death March” which was a run/walk up a steep rocky hill, which had to be at least a ¼ mile long. That was hard!!! Run again, now we came up to “Trench Warfare” which was these deep dark trenches covered with wood, but the good part was you could crawl through them on your hands and knees.

Run again, i see smoke in the distance which could only mean one thing, the “FireWalk” but you had a steep hill to climb before you get to it. The FireWalk wasn’t that bad, more smoke than anything, but Brittany almost walked into some fire, which would have been bad. At this point i ran into some other friends which would help us later in the race. Next we came up to “Devil’s Beard”, which was a huge cargo net laying on the ground and you had to crawl under it, and oh yeah it was up hill, and the cargo net was heavy. Next we came to one of the hardest obstacles, “Hold your Wood”, where you had to grab a log from a pile and carry it about ¼ mile, damn they were heavy. Next up was “SpidersWeb” which was a huge cargo net you had to climb up and over. More running in the woods. Now we came to the obstacle that had a lot of people worried “Walk the Plank” you climbed up this wooden structure and jumped into a 10ft deep pond. I climbed up and jumped, surprising the water wasn’t that cold. Now we had to conquer “Everest” which is a huge ¼ pipe skateboard ramp, with other competitors at the top helping you up, so i ran and a guy grabbed my arm and pulled me up, turned around and we pulled up Britt.

Now we came to everyone’s fear the first obstacle that had the electric shock. It was called “Shocks On the Rocks” it was long shallow pool with wire hanging down. Britt went first (i didn’t make her) and she took a path where she could fit in between the wire, and i didn’t hear her yell so i took the same path and i didn’t get shocked either. We come across the next “BerlinWall” and this wall had to be about 12-15ft. So i get Britt over, but i had to wait for those friends i came across at the FireWalk, they got me over both walls, i couldn’t have done it without them. On to “FunkyMonkey” which was monkey bars over water, Britt and I both knew we couldn’t do it, so we went around. On to the “MudMile” which was about 5 huge holes fill with waist high ice cold water water, so you climbed in and out of each one, with the final part being a big mound of dirt/mud you had to climb over. Now don’t forget i am running in between each obstacle, i didn’t want you to think the running had stopped. Now Britt and I did some walking, but we did run 90% of the time. We came across the “Boa Constrictor” which was 2 giant black tubes, the first one was pointing down into water the next one was coming out of the water, so you climbed in and went into the water and then into the 2nd tube and climbed out. That was hard, cause it was tough to climb out of, in fact someone pulled me out and i pulled the guy behind me out. Now onto the “RingSwing” just rings where you swing to the next ring, about 5 total rings, if you fall you fall into water, which is just what i did. Now we had to do “TwinkleToes” which was a balance beam, about 25ft long, neither Britt or I made it and fell into the cold water. The final obstacle and 12 miles later, it’s the one everyone had nervous “Electroshock Therapy” about a 20yard run into hanging wires and some have a electric current going through them. Again, Britt went first, about mid way i did hear a few screams. I went only got shocked once, which wasn’t bad at all.

We get our stuff get cleaned up and back on the bus, to get out car and home we go telling our war stories. We had a lot of bruises on our elbows and knees.

Ok what did i learn. You need to have good cardio cause you run a lot. I woulnd’t say you need to be a “runner” to do this event, but you need to become a one time “runner” for this event. If you are doing it and it’s going to be cold, wear long pants and long sleeves to protect your knees and elbows. Of course wear gloves, and it you can take them off for any water obstacle and pick them up when you are finished, cause your hands will be cold. It’s really all about running, of course you need upper body to do some of the stuff but if you have a team of people they can push and pull you. It’s a lot of fun, i didn’t think it was as hard as i thought it would be i guess i really psyched myself out.