Watson Sushi: TOUGH MUDDER!!

Not too long ago, a friend of mine (at least I thought he was at the time) suggested to me and some other friends that we should get a group together and do a Tough Mudder. I’d never heard of one before, and as I asked more and more questions about it, I was intrigued. For those of you who don’t know, the Tough Mudder claims it is the world’s toughest “race”, which it’s not actually. While it is very tough indeed, it is not a race. It is 11-12 miles, uphill and downhill, through rocks, mud and fields, with 25 obstacles.

We gathered a group of six (well, five actually because the guy whose idea this was all along decided to break his collarbone and shoulder before the event, so he couldn’t run with us), and headed 2.5 hours south of here to Winchester (I think was the name).

The first obstacle was walking from the parking lot to the start of the run – almost a mile – with three children. Yes, spectators, for a small fee, are welcome.

Getting ready for the race was challenging. We asked many former Mudders what attire they recommended. In the end I went with practicality over style. A headband to keep from sunburning my scalp; bike gloves to protect my hands while crawling and climbing, but open fingertips so I could grip when needed; long sleeve athletic shirt to provide some protection to the arms; swimming trunks because it’s bad enough to run in wet clothes, only makes sense to wear shorts that dry off fast; old and worn trainers that can be discarded without too much emotion (though ironically I’ve still got them after a good wash); socks that are dispensable (and were discarded shortly after the race).

The kids were very jealous. Alex just asked me again today if he can do the Tough Mudder with me. Sorry Alex, you have to be at least 16 to sign the death waiver (yes, that’s true. All participants have to sign a death waiver prior to participating).

Lyana’s last chance to talk me out it. Funny though, she didn’t even try.

Our team just before the race. All of us trying to look young and macho. In reality we just five old men, but still very macho indeed.

The participants depart in waves, every 15 minutes or so. We were at 11:45. The first wave was at 9:00 and they continued until 2:00 in the afternoon. Needless to say, there was a huge turnout.

Unfortunately, only a few of the obstacles were near enough to be viewed by the spectators (ie my family). The first obstacle was a low crawl through mud beneath barb wire. Then we ran for a good mile before we had this perfect opportunity to take a bath. Actually it was a high ~~dive~~ jump into water 5 meters deep.

This was one of my favorite obstacles, mostly because it washed off most of the mud.

This is us just a couple miles and two obstacles into the run. Only 10 more miles to go.

Mark was such a trooper. In the beginning he did fine, but as the day wore on, he didn’t feel well and mostly just sat in the stroller covered by everyone’s jackets.

This is 11 miles and 22 obstacles into the event. Lyana didn’t get any other photos of us because it was too hard to catch us. I hate to admit it, but we were not the fastest team out there. They kept track of some, let’s just say, hi-vis characters who had started the race at the same time as us, and when those guys came through they assumed we would be shortly following. The first few obstacles we were only a few minutes behind them, but toward the end, those hi-vis guys were a good 45 minutes ahead of us. Sorry fam. Maybe next time we’ll push a little harder.

Most of the obstacles were fairly tame. What made them challenging was usually the fact that we had been running for miles before getting to them. My favorite one was, of course, the Arctic Enema, which is a storage container filled with ice water. You have to jump in on one end, then go under a wall in the middle and get out the other end. It was easy to jump in. Before I went underwater to go under the wall, it just felt like a mountain lake back home. For some reason, when I came up on the other side of the wall, it suddenly felt like it’s name implies. I couldn’t get out of the water fast enough. And if you think it was instant relief once I got out, you’d be mistaken. That ice water stayed with me for a good five minutes afterward. And that’s all the details I’ll give about that.

The other obstacles that I enjoyed were the Gecko Crawl (a horizontal rock climbing wall), the 12-foot walls (two in a row) where we had to help each other up, and Everest which was basically a quarter-pipe ramp that we had to run up. Two other obstacles that I can say weren’t too bad were the electric ones. The Electric Eel is a low crawl through water with live electric wires of 10,000 volts dangling above you. As I approached the obstacles, I could hear “zap . . . zap” of others getting shocks, along with their yelps of shock and pain. I mentally prepared myself as quickly as I could, and dove in. I carefully navigated my way through, dodging the wires as I went. In the end, I never got shocked. Most of the others were not so lucky.

The final obstacle was another “shocker”. I don’t remember the name of it, but it’s simply more live wires of 10,000 volts, hanging from a set of crossbeams, and all we had to was run in the mud straight through. Below you can see us all waiting our turn to run through as a team to the finish line.

I put my arms up in front of my face and went for it. And, unfortunately, I didn’t get shocked. I was slightly disappointed. Yeah, I’m proud I finished the race, but there’s still a slight void in my soul because I never experienced the shock firsthand. So, I’ll just have to try again next year. That is, after I recover.

I certainly wasn’t thinking about doing the race again in this picture, just after finishing.