Tough Mudder - Event Recap

SO, if you have never heard of a Tough Mudder, check out the website or Facebook page. They have lots of pictures and info! Along with the 21 obstacles we completed, we also hiked up and slid down SEVERAL hills (yes slid, they were SO muddy and slippery that it was easiest to slide instead of walk.) We also trudged through mud, some of it was as deep as my knees!

• Kiss of Mud #1 = Army crawl through cold water under barbed wire for about 20 yards. Not a terrible first obstacle.

• Artic Enema = Nightmare! You jump as far as you can into an ice bath, swim under a large piece of wood, and walk to the other side where you hoist yourself out (or in my case, have your team pull you out quickly!) As soon as I got out of the water, I started running. It was SO beyond cold. 

• Berlin Walls #1 = The first set of walls (2 of them) were 8 feet high. Here's where you team comes into play. My teammate Jason hoisted up to the wall where I could use my upper body to pull myself the rest of the way up. Then I rested at the top, before positioning myself to safely lower my body down. My other teammate Danielle went before me and she was on the other side to help lower me down a bit.  

• Dirty Ballerina = Pretty easy. We jumped over 7 water filled trenches. The key is to look for a patch of grass to land on so you don't slip in mud.

• Bale Bonds = Loved this one. Jumping up onto 3 huge hay bales. 

• Trench Warfare = This may be scary if you are claustrophobic  You have to crawl through a twisted trench with very little light. I wasn't scared, but this one did hurt my knees a bit since the ground was hard and kinda rocky.

• Fire Walker = Not nearly as scary and smoky as I thought it would be. We jumped over 2 or 3 fired. It just sucked jumping into water at the end. I was just drying off!

• Mud Mile = VERY muddy and wet. We had to climb over 5 huge mud piles from waist high water. 

• Log Jammin' (going over and under logs) = The logs were high and low, and at this point my knees started hurting. This was physically challenging but not terribly hard. 

• King of the Mountain (YouTube video) = LOVED this one! Climbing 4 huge hay bales again, but we got to stop at the top and get a good view of some of the other obstacles. Great half way mark.

• Kiss of Mud #2 = Same as the first obstacle. 

• Hold Your Wood = You pick a piece of log and carry it through a twisty path. I personally grabbed the smallest piece I saw (it was like a huge wedge of cheese, but way smaller than all the other pieces). Could I have grabbed a bigger piece  Yes. But I didn't want to over exert myself because I knew what was still ahead.

• Electric Eel = When we got to this obstacle, I cried. Yup, I'm a huge baby. I was terrified!! I saw a lot of people run and slide half way through, then army crawl the rest of the way. My knees were killing me at this point, and there was a large 2x4 that you had to slide under to actually enter the obstacle. I was scared I would hit that. But eventually I womaned-up and went for it. I was zapped probably 3 times, but it wasn't as "shocking" as I thought it may be. 

• Berlin Walls #2 = These second 2 walls were 9 feet high. That extra foot made it super challenging. But again, with the help of my awesome team, I made it up and over. Dropping down on the other side hurt a bit more, my ankles and feet weren't a big fan.

• Hangin' Tough  = Do you remember American Gladiators?! That is what I thought of at first, but it wasn't that dramatic. We had to use 6 rings to cross over a cold pool of muddy water. When we arrived, one of the volunteers told us that there had only been 1 female to make it all the way across so far on Sunday. I told her "its about to be 2!" The volunteer got all excited and said "I like your spirit!" I quickly told her, "o no, not me...that one" and pointed to my teammate Danielle. And I was ALMOST right, but unfortunately she fell on the last one. It was hard to grip the rings when your hands and the rings are muddy. Even though we had gloves, they didn't help much. I fell on the second ring, bummer.

• Boa Constrictor = Crawling down a long black tube into a muddy puddle, crawling through that for a second, then climbing back up another black tube. Not difficult, but killer on my already sore knees.

• Walk the Plank = Jumping off a 15 foot ledge. It doesn't look so tall from the ground, but once I got to the top, I fell to my knees (fear and exhaustion started to set in at this point.) I forced myself to stand up, held hands with my team, counted to 3 and jumped. Fifteen feet is a long drop! And of course, the water was frigid, but we swam to the edge and climbed the ropes to get out. 

• Everest = Climbing up and over a greased quarter-pipe (like a skateboarding half-pipe.) Danielle was a COMPLETE beast on this one, and was able to get to the top on her second try (and with a little help from some other mudders at the top. Me, I was able to get to the top on my second try also, but my strategy was a little different. First I tried the traditional run, jump and pray, but that didn't work. So I went back to the running start point and waited for others to attempt their tries. Then I saw some firefighters that were forming a human ladder to help their other teammates tackel Everest. I said "I'm climbing them!" and my teammate Jason said "Go for it!" so I did! I climbed 4 firefighters, and had 2 strong people at the top help pull me the rest of the way up. I'm pretty sure this is the obstacle that I have to thank for the massive bruises on my left leg! 

• Warrior Carry = Carry a fellow Tough Mudder, then half way through switch. Yeah, this didn't happen. We didn't skip it on purpose, we just didn't see the sign and there was no one there to remind us. I was still trying to warm up from all the water obstacles so I am ok that we skipped this one.

• Funky Monkey = Monkey bars. But the added challenges of a slight incline then decline, plus the mud on the bars from others, and the bars spun instead of being anchored...very difficult. I made it to the 4th bar before falling into (surprise!) cold, muddy water. One last 1/2 mile to hike to the final obstacle! 

• Electroshock Therapy = 10,000 volts of electricity on wires, while jumping over a few small hay bales. I don't know how, but I went slowly and kept myself as tight as possible so I didn't get shocked AT ALL! SUCCESS!! 

I looked at some pictures from other Tough Mudder events, and I'm pretty sure the KY one was the hardest. There was SO much mud and SO many hills, my knees hurt like crazy. After 12 miles, 20 obstacles, and 4.5 hours, we were SPENT. But I have never felt more accomplished in my life. My goal was to do every obstacle and to finish, and thats what I did. I wasn't the fastest, and I feel like I slowed down my team. But they were amazing at encouraging me to keep going.