Definitely Tough Enough

The Tough Mudder race has done its worst, and we have made it through triumphantly...but not without some marks. (Disclaimer: There will be pictures of blood later. You have been warned.) We knew it was a different kind of race when one of the first things we had to do after picking up our packets was to go to the marker station -- to have our numbers written across our foreheads. What in the world? Apparently, it was a liability thing; they were concerned that the racing numbers would get ripped off or mauled in some other way. Ironically, it turns out the paper numbers came through quite well, whereas the forehead numbers began trickling off almost instantly as we were sweating in the sun. Oh well.

It DID get pretty beaten up, though.

The day was HOT and HUMID. It reminded me of the kind of weather we had in Alabama last July for COT. No problem, I thought, I've done obstacle courses in this kind of weather before; plus, the last time I did it, I was wearing heavy combat boots, pants, and a jacket that didn't breathe. This time, I took full advantage of the non-dress-code situation and chucked my shirt about half an hour in. Best choice ever, although there were repercussions later.

For example, this little gash right here. Let's get a close-up on that.

Yeahhh...that's a nice bit of subcutaneous tissue right there.

What can I say about the race? It was tough. (That was a given.) We began by running up a longgggg, steep(ish) hill, which was punctuated by a crawl through a patch of icy, melty snow. Our knees received their first abrasions there. The next obstacle was a "crawl" underneath a long piece of netting, but it was easy for me because everyone around me was taller. Then we were each given a log to carry to the top of a hill and back down again, after which we faced the most challenging obstacle of the day: the long, hard climb up the steepest hill I've ever attempted to scale on foot. No one could run up this thing. We were all walking -- staggering, really -- and even that was too much; many (including me) had to stop several times to catch our breaths. This thing was ruthless, and it took at least a good 10 minutes to finish. At the bottom, before the beginning of this monster, there was a sign reminding us, "Remember...you signed a death waiver." Thanks, Tough Mudder. Great to know you're on our side.

That was definitely the worst part of the course. The rest was relatively easy, and definitely fun. We crawled through tunnels, ran through the woods, slogged through a 4-foot-deep mud swamp (after which I threw out my no-longer-white T-shirt which I had plan on getting rid of anyway), and full-body crawled through the mud under extremely low wires. The "COT Facial" last summer prepared me well for that one, though the mud gave me significantly more scratches on my legs and knees. The next part of the race was the best, because we had come to the lake. We had to pull ourselves across on ropes, then dunk under 3 rows of barrels, then jump off a plank, swim to a buoy and back to the shore (which was surprisingly hard in shoes). Next, after scaling two 12-foot walls, we had to run 3 times up and down a hill (where I bit it and got covered in mud once again), and then wait in line for the slip-n-slide.

I'll just go ahead and ruin the story here. THIS is what happened on the slip-n-slide.

This is where it gets interesting. The slip-n-slide, fun though it was, was where I had my biggest problems. Sure, the ride down was a bit rough, but it was fine. The issue was the bottom. I somehow lost speed, so I tried to drag/launch myself into the water by pulling forward. Bad idea -- I slid into the water, which happened to be hiding a nasty layer of gravel at the very edge. My stomach now has a nice, wide-spanning set of mostly parallel scratches, plus the nice, deep abrasion that I showed earlier. Awesome. I tried to ignore it (it was pretty numb at the time, anyway) and finished the race strong: over one more wall, around another lake, and through the burning, stinging smoke of the path surrounded by 2 walls of fire. Total time: 1 hr, 32 min, 45 sec. We enjoyed our free beer and snacks and then made the trek back to the Bronx.

Tough team

Today, every single muscle in my body is sore, my shoulders are sunburned, and my cut is still oozing. (Thank goodness for Neosporin.) The other guys all feel the same way, but today we wore our shirts proudly to class. What was the first thing we did when we got back? We signed up for the 12-mile Tough Mudder in New Jersey in November. I can't wait!