REPORTING FROM THE TOUGH MUDDER:
From a diet standpoint it wasn't a good week mostly because I took it real easy from Thursday on in order to not be sore or tired for The Mudder. With not going to the gym I got out of my healthy eating rhythm as well. No biggie as I needed a mini-break before this final two months of this crazy one year mission. So I weighed myself today expecting nothing and as anticipated I put on a couple pounds this week and came in at 245 which is a 3 pound gain. So now with two more months until July 4th, and the one year anniversary of the project, I have 25 pounds to lose in order to get to the 100 pound goal and weigh 220. It will certainly be difficult to pull this off as beach season is closing in (first trip to OC MD in less than two weeks) and the food at Kirby's Pub may be to difficult to pass on.
Obviously the diet isn't why I'm sharing today, this blog is really all about the Tough Mudder. I had a BLAST, well okay I wasn't having a blast while climbing up(yes I said UP) the ridiculously steep black diamond slope. I got through this 7+ mile, 17 obstacle event pretty successfully. Parts of it were major struggles and other parts I really surprised myself how well I did. Here's a little recap (haha little):
I wake up at six a.m. because, of course, I'm a bit excited. Go to Wal-Mart for some last second supplies and hit the diner for a light breakfast. Pick up my friend Niki at 9, she's mad cuz I'm there to early, lol, just teasing Niki, but I can't help it I'm excited and couldn't sit at the house anymore. We head out and get a call from team mate Brad that the lots are already full at Bear Creek so we have to run over to the Velodrome where the overflow parking was. Due to poor planning (using two or three buses to shuttle 3 or 4 thousand people isn't to bright) we waited close to 90 minutes to get on our bus. Niki was hard pressed to get registered and to the start area in time to be with her group, me I was fine we didn't start until 1230. Checked my bag and waited for my teammates who were a few bus loads behind me. In the meantime I was people watching, there were some pretty awesome costumes; guys dress up like the Na'vi from the movie Avatar, there was a five-some of dudes dress like masked wrestlers (big respect to them as they kept the masks on the whole time even though it was like 85deg out) and one dude who ran the whole thing with swimming pool inner-tube around his waste. My favorite team was The Outdoor Carpet Munchers, I think you can see one of them in my photo album. There team motto was "We lick the competition." Yes they were all lesbians and one of them uttered the quote of the event; after being taunted by some spectator saying something dumb like 'you aren't tough enough unless you do it this way' one of the lesbians turned around and said "I'm tough enough, I'm a dyke!" I nearly pissed myself laughing! The taunter's response was simply; "Touche."
Okay so teammates show up, register and we head up to the start area. The start area is a couple hundred yards up the slope, once I got there I kinda chuckled to myself because I thought about the fact that I probably would have been sucking wind and exhausted just after this uphill walk a year ago. We watched the group before us go off and got into place for our start. For the first time that day I actually questioned myself if I was really ready to do this and got a bad kind of nervous for a bit. But we recite the Tough Mudder pledge and KABOOOM!!! go some fireworks and we begin running downhill back toward the base area. Remember that this is a ski area not your backyard there are ruts and holes everywhere combine that with a mass of people it was a little difficult to do anything but watch where my feet we going. We get to the bottom and turn right back up hill making our way all the way to the top of the ski area. I ran for a bit but I wasn't about to blow myself out by running the whole thing uphill so I walked a good portion of it. Come around a corner and there is obstacle #3 The Sweaty Yeti (#1 was the start called the Braveheart Charge and #2 was the uphill run titled Death March). Somehow the folks at Bear Creek were able to make a big patch of snow for us to crawl through, don't know how it was still there since it was like 90 the day before but I drop to all fours and crawled 30 yards uphill through what was more like crushed ice, it kinda hurt. Finish the last of the accent and meet up with the team. Next obstacle called Devil's Beard was a big blue cargo net that you had work your way under. Fairly simple but my arm did get caught a couple of times until I figured that if I walked backward the net would just slide up my back making it all pretty easy. THEN I HAD TO PEE! Ran in the woods (extra obstacle for me) and found a big tree.
Got back on the course and followed the boys on a slight downhill run to our next challenge Hold Your Wood. Each team member had to grab a chunk of tree (it wasn't that big) and haul it about 100 yds uphill turn around and comeback down. One team of retards tried to team carry this massive log up, bad move boys cuz the hardest part of the event was coming. That was challenge #6 Cliff Hanger, after a short jog from the wood pile you slowly work your way back uphill until you come to the base of the steepest slope that Bear Creek has to offer, called Sasquatch(think it was called Moose Run in the Doe MT days) in the winter. It starts off at about a 30 degree pitch for the first couple hundred yards and then it jumps straight up. I don't know if I'm exaggerating but may be close to 60 degrees now. If you stand up straight gravity wants to pull you over backwards it's that steep. People were trying all sorts of ways to get up; on their hands and knees crawling, walking backwards, switchbacking across the slope (which I thought was stupid cuz it made you travel like twice as far). Me I just put my head down and just took it one step at a time trying to just keep moving. I stop once and stood up and nearly lost my balance and fell over backwards. Had that happened I would have looked like the giant boulder in the Indiana Jones movie crashing back down the slope taking out anyone that didn't move. That would have probably hurt a little. But I managed to stay attached to the earth and pressed on, I stopped again but this time I kept my weight forward. Eventually I made it to the top, exhausted, I wondered how those log carrying boys did on that part, hehe.... We gathered ourselves and walked downhill letting the heart-rate subside until we got to the next obstacle The Boa Constrictor. This was a 20 or 30 foot long tube that you simply had to crawl through. For me this was a little tougher than expected. I had to use all arms to pull me through as my legs refuse to help, they seemed to like the idea of laying flat after that uphill.
We hit the water station and pushed on, ran for a bit, and came to what I thought was one of the funner obstacles The Swamp Stomp. They dug a three foot deep trench and filled it with silty, muddy, FREAKING COLD, water that you just had to charge through. Everyone loves jumping puddles, right? Well this was the mother of all puddles! Soaked from the bellybutton down we came to a two mile trail run which was kind of treacherous as the trail was very rocky and muddy. So since a few thousand people had already run this part the rocks were also muddy and a little slick. At one downhill point, I had a little to much momentum building and I was certain that I was gonna crash or snap an ankle, but I made it through unscathed. This part was one of those moments that I really felt proud of myself because I was able to run pretty much this entire trail at what I guess was a decent pace after that ridiculous climb. Being able to bounce back from an intense cardio burn(like that climb) is a pretty good measure of your fitness and I felt great during this run. When I came out of the woods I was amazed at how good I felt. Gathered back up with Team Mumm-ra and headed downhill, all the "hard" stuff was over. It was a long downhill run and I took my time as I know that a 240 lb man still generates a ton of momentum when set in motion and I didn't want to get out of control. At the bottom of the descent was challenge #9 Kiss of Mud. Wires were stretched out across a muddy zig-zag and you had to crawl under them. They advertised barb wire, but seriously do you think they would be allowed to do that? lol Started another long run after that and came out of the woods next to Bear Creak's ponds and found challenge #10 The Ball Shrinker. This was two ropes stretched across the pond, one for the feet and one for the hands and you were to make it across kinda tight-rope style I guess. I just jumped in the pond knowing I would fall off anyway, and grabbed the bottom rope and pulled myself across that way. I didn't really think about why they called it the Ball Shrinker until I was in the 40 degree water. SHRINK? They disappeared! Immediately following this we hit Underwater Tunnels, back into the water to go under some floating barrels. Fairly easy but COLD! Do you know what happens to muscles that are scorching hot from activity and outside heat and then the get dipped in freaking cold water? CRAMPS! My legs were just turning into knots after this event and what made it worse was there was now a line for the next challenge Walk the Plank. Stood in line here for a good 20 minutes probably before I got my turn. I walked out on the plank and I did my water entry in style, Bellyflop style! There is video of it look on my fb page. Dan's entry into the water was the best, he was the first to go in our video.
After swimming to shore we headed to the Berlin Walls. This was one of the few real disappointing challenges in my humble opinion. For starters there were four of them but they were only 2 people wide so there were big lines at each wall. They were also only 10' tall at best. It would have been much cooler if they were made of logs or telephone poles and then made muddy and slippery so that they were a bit tougher to get over. Anyway, we clear them and proceed on to Killa Gorrila, a few times up and down the steep bank and then we came to Greased Lightning. This was a gigantic slip and slide back into the lake. It looked like a blast but all of the poly sheeting they used tore and they had to shut it down. :( So instead we run back down the hill, some chose to barrel roll (god bless 'em) down. Back into the lake one last time to cool off some more and then it was home stretch time. We could literally smell the finish line (cuz it was on fire). A 1/2 mile jog back toward base area and my legs were starting to shut down, cramps with every stride but there was no way I was stopping now. I turned my jog into more of a speed walk trying to avoid lifting my feet any higher than I had to. We came around the bend to our last real obstacle called Fire Walker. They made a path flanked on both sides by burning bales of hay. Now we were in no imminent danger of getting burned, but let me remind you that we just ran about 7 miles up and down a ski area. Running through an insanely hot, oxygen depleted home stretch was not ideal, in any way. I could barely keep my eyes open through the smoke and heat and breathing wasn't really much of an option either. This part really did suck and it felt like it lasted a lot longer than it probably did. But we came through it alive and we cruised to the finish line.
As we crossed the finish line we were given bananas, bagels, beer and a headband. I found that combo a little odd. Dogfishhead sponsored the event so I had me a 60 second IPA, one of my favoritest brews out there. It was good, it was REAL GOOD. It was so good that I had two more. The post race party was cool, kind of a blur though as the 3 IPAs hit me quick. Burnt Sienna (no Jeff anymore) played the party, people were mudsliding at the base area, prizes were awarded, it was all good fun. They raised over $200k for the Wounded Warrior project which is a really cool and worthwhile charity.
Like I said I had a blast, it wasn't nearly as hard as advertised. Don't get me wrong it was certainly challenging, but it could have been harder. I did have a little moment where I started to feel a bit emotional when I began to think about how much work it took to be able to even consider doing something like this. Big thanks to my teammates Brad, Dan, Justin, and Adam! Even bigger thanks to my friend Laura who threw the idea to enter this thing my way. It was perfect timing and just what i needed when I needed something else to focus on.
If you check my FB profile you can find some videos shot by Laura and Dan's girlfriend Qunin (thanks again girls for the photog work) also there are a few vids I found on YouTube including one that has us in it even though I have no idea who shot the vid. I also swiped the pics the girls took and added them to my Tough Mudder photo album. So check that stuff out!
