It was to be a day of hell but we all decided to surround that day with a great vacation out in Cali and when that Saturday arrived, we all started to get a little anxious about the unexpected. After all, before the race even started we were expected to climb a wall to get to the starting line. In the near distance we could see our first ascent and I think out all of our mouths came some form of 'You've got to be F*ing kidding me?' not realizing that this hill...is merely a pimple on the ass of Texas. This is going to be a great day.
If you're not familiar with Tough Mudder, and you haven't clicked on the link at the beginning of this post, it's an obstacle course supposedly designed by British Special Forces to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project. These courses travel the world with variations at each site but generally, it's a 10-12 mile course designed to test your all around physical and mental strength. Now let me remind you that this particular course was on a ski slope. Generally, the average time to complete these races is 3 hours but this day on the slope took about 5 1/2. Up and down a mountain 3 to 10 times takes it's toll and I felt just about the same fatigue when it was all over as if I had just completed a Half Ironman. It was that exhausting.
To start the day, we were informed that we needed to park in the overflow parking area because the lot at the ski resort was already full. You would think that's no big deal because the word "overflow" usually implies 'down the street', 'next door at the flea market', '1 mile down at the elementary school', 'the big empty field 2 streets over'. Good lord I would have taken any of those options but no, "overflow" in this context meant 10 miles in the opposite direction down the 1 lane mountain to the mini airport which then you will have to take a school bus (which apparently is required to pull over and let other cars pass every 2 minutes) back up the 1 lane mountain. This may sound like an easy jaunt but when you have thousands of participants and spectators trying to get to the resort up that 1 lane mountain and school buses that are breaking down and catching fire from being overworked, it equals about an hour 1 way. Needless to say, it was bad planning on the part of the Mudder staff. Especially since we needed to make that same "jaunt" when the race was over. Did I mention that our cabin was 3 miles from the ski resort? So yeah, we were psyched we signed up for this race. This is a great day already.
Let's get to the obstacles. As I mentioned before, we had to climb a wall to even get to the starting line. This, in and of itself, got the nerves up. What the hell was waiting for us? I'll tell ya what wasn't waiting for us...water. Dust getting tossed up from the very start of the race. Our tongues were stuck to the roofs of our mouths and everyone was spitting out dust buckets. Every corner we turned and at the top of every climb, we were on our knees praying for a water station. We never thought we'd have to wait almost 2 miles! And that's not the worst of it. The only nutrition on the course was bananas. I wish I could tell you how good those bananas tasted but when we got to every water station, all the bananas were gone and not restocked... That's right, we had no food throughout the entire race and by the end, we had no energy for the last few obstacles. Poor planning on our part or Mudder's part? Lesson learned.
Right, the obstacles! The most notable obstacles by far...
Arctic Enema. WTF?? A giant pit of water filled to the top with a shit load of ice! Not to mention the wood beam spanning across the width of the pit which forced total submersion. Holy numb nuts! Doesn't sound bad but when you come out and every part of you is numb and immobile, you wonder why you're doing this event at all. Especially when this is only obstacle #2. I believe this is where most of the F bombs were dropped that day.
Cliffhanger. This was what I swear had to be an 80 degree incline up to the very top of the mountain. I also swear that it felt a mile long but was probably not even a 1/4 of a mile. It sucked and there is no picture that does this hill justice.
Walk the Plank. A 15 foot jump off a plank into the water. But be careful, those military dudes are telling you to jump when people haven't yet moved out of the way in the water. Half the lake ended up my nose that day because I was so worried about losing my bandana.
Electric Eel: Crawling under barbed wire with active electric wires hanging down. Yay. There's no escape from getting zapped and I did come out of that one crying...not sure if anyone saw that. :) And I did have a bruise on my ass from a really good zap.
Hold Your Wood. Doesn't sound so bad but when you have to carry wood up an 80 degree incline (I swear it was 80, ok, maybe 50), it's tiring. And when we got to the top of that incline, we thought we were done. Nope. Let's carry that wood for another 3/4 of a mile, shall we? Kill me.
Electroshock Therapy: Who wants to run through live wires? Not this girl! Especially after the Electric Eel! I wish I could give details on this one but only one brave soul in our party defeated this obstacle. Yay, Jen!! She rocks!
We finished minus a few obstacles at the end due to sheer fatigue and lack of nutrition. You girls rock!! When's the next one???
4 comments:
That seems like a very good summary of events to me!!! It was a pleasure completing this race with such a great group of friends. I would do it again in a heart beat!
I was Honored to run with this Group of Ladies who are more like Family than Friends! Great Summary! Can't wait to do it Again! :)
Very well put, Stalker Bitch. I couldn't have said it better myself. I love and miss you all dearly. And despite the poor planning on the side of the TM team, I wouldn't trade this experience with my girls for anything in the world.
Great race report!! The detail with which you describe these silly obstacles makes me pretty certain that I will never do one. :)
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