Blog: Tough Mudder
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Tough Mudder - Sunday, April 13, 2014
Yesterday, a team of five from Pure made our way over to Diablo Grande in Patterson to participate in the exhilarating challenge of Tough Mudder. Our team name: Dirty Puritans. Originally we had 13 people sign up, only to have most of them flake. Their loss!
The event was quite fun, but I would've gotten way more fun out of it had I been with my team the whole time. Sadly, a small injury from last week came back and caused more pain in my knee as the event went on. At mile 3, I told my teammates to go on without me because it hurt to run, and I was holding them up too much. Making it down hills started getting tough, and I had to resort to walking down backwards to avoid landing hard on my knee. My team ended up finishing an hour before I did but was gracious about waiting for me.
A quarter mile in from the start, even before the first obstacle, we had to cross a swampy river. So much for running in dry shoes!
The obstacles on the course were as follows (with three additional obstacles available for Legionnaires only):
The event overall was well-run with lots of volunteers on the course. It was good to see staff at each obstacle and to have six water stations, three of which provided food. I missed my cup of Dos Equis at the end and when I tried to go back for it later, the lady denied me re-entry (despite still having my wristband), which really sucked. At least I got my finisher t-shirt, though.
Overall, I had a blast and just wish that my leg didn't act up so that I could've run with my team. Guess I'll have to do more hill training in preparation for my next Tough Mudder!
The event was quite fun, but I would've gotten way more fun out of it had I been with my team the whole time. Sadly, a small injury from last week came back and caused more pain in my knee as the event went on. At mile 3, I told my teammates to go on without me because it hurt to run, and I was holding them up too much. Making it down hills started getting tough, and I had to resort to walking down backwards to avoid landing hard on my knee. My team ended up finishing an hour before I did but was gracious about waiting for me.
A quarter mile in from the start, even before the first obstacle, we had to cross a swampy river. So much for running in dry shoes!
The obstacles on the course were as follows (with three additional obstacles available for Legionnaires only):
- Glory Blades: A 6ft wall, sloped downward, so once you got over the top, you just had to slide down. I asked for a boost, though I probably could've made it over without one.
- Warrior Carry: An athletic girl and I took turns carrying each other 100 feet up the hill. Not too bad; she was probably only 110 pounds or so.
- Cage Crawl: Floating on our backs, we had to make it across a pool of water with a chain-link fence overhead. Somewhat relaxing, but at times it felt like I was short on vertical room.
- Pitfall: Had to duck under a beam with electrified wires hanging down. There was enough space between wires for me to avoid getting shocked, but one of our team members wasn't so lucky.
- Killa Gorilla: Had to go up and down the steep face of the hill a couple times. Crouching on all fours like a gorilla helped.
- Mud Mayhem: Crossing over wet, muddy trenches. Not too much to this obstacle, but it sucked getting lots of little rocks in my shoes.
- Walk the Plank: Climbed up the face of a 12ft tall platform and jumped into the water below. It helped that there were three lines of people jumping, with a staffer having one person from each line go on the count of 3. Scared of heights? Too bad. Jump, and let gravity do the rest.
- Arctic Enema: The least favorite of many, but I didn't think this one was that bad. Perhaps the compression shirt and pants I was wearing helped me from feeling too cold. Getting that sudden chill on the way out was probably the worst part.
- Ladder to Hell: Climbed up a series of rungs spaced about 5 feet apart, then back down the other side. This was pretty easy for me.
- Funky Monkey: Had to climb up monkey bars first angled going up, then going down. Halfway on the way up, I reached for a bar that wasn't there and plunged into the pool of water below.
- Balls to the Wall: Had to climb over a tall wall using a rope with knots spaced 6 feet apart. This rope was very slippery and I almost didn't make it up, but when I got enough altitude, I grabbed onto the top of the wall and pulled myself over.
- Cliffhanger: I don't particularly recall this, but looking at Youtube videos from other events, it looks like this was just going up a steep muddy slope. I sort of recall doing something resembling this. I don't think it was that bad.
- Devil's Beard: Had to crawl under a long, heavy net, on a downward incline. Would've been easier doing it with more people, but since there were only a couple people running this when I was, it was harder on us to lift the net.
- Kiss of Mud: Crawling through mud with barbed wire overhead. A great way to get one's frontside completely muddy, and for me to lose my paper bib that I should've attached to my backside, not my frontside.
- Hold Your Wood: People had the option of carrying an individual block of wood (50 pounds?) or to carry a longer log. I carried a log with two other guys - it was probably a good 150 pounds.
- Berlin Walls: Two 8ft walls. I had help from members of another team getting over. Meanwhile, two shirtless Chinese guys jumped up, grabbed the top of the wall, and effortlessly lifted themselves over. Dang.
- Soggy Bottom: Fording another wide muddy river. I learned my lesson from the first one and tried to keep my shoes angled downward so as to not get stuck in the mud as much.
- Pole Dancer: Using your arms, make your way over a pool of water using two poles that are first angled downward, then upward. I was able to do most of this without landing in the pool on my feet, but at the end I strained my calf reaching out for the edge with my foot. Not good.
- Quagmire: Just running over a couple mounds of mud with shallow muddy water in the middle.
- Prairie Dog: Going through a downward tube. Pretty much just slid on my bum as I saw others doing.
- Everest: A lot of fun, but seemed a little easy. Everybody seemed to make it up in one or two tries. I was able to run up and grab onto the edge of the platform but didn't have a very good grip to pull myself up. The good people at the top helped pull me up.
- Electroshock Therapy: The emcee from the start was now here at the finish, encouraging people to run through this obstacle and take the shocks, while lots of crowd members were watching in amusement. I took the easy way out and crawled, very slowly, under the wires and got completely muddy from face to toe. The emcee had something funny to say about me taking my sweet time to make love to the mud, and that girls should get my number and give me a call.
The event overall was well-run with lots of volunteers on the course. It was good to see staff at each obstacle and to have six water stations, three of which provided food. I missed my cup of Dos Equis at the end and when I tried to go back for it later, the lady denied me re-entry (despite still having my wristband), which really sucked. At least I got my finisher t-shirt, though.
Overall, I had a blast and just wish that my leg didn't act up so that I could've run with my team. Guess I'll have to do more hill training in preparation for my next Tough Mudder!