After registration we go over to the starting line where we first have to climb a wall that was 7 to 10 feet tall (depending on where in the wall you are standing) to get to the starting line. That's right, there's an obstacle before the event even begins! But no biggie, at the other side of the wall we hear an awesome pep talk and someone sings the national anthem. Only problem with that was, it was still raining. Half way through the national anthem, the power goes out and all of the mudders pick up right where it left off. Which was unbelievable and so powerful. A cannon is fired and then we were off.
Under the trees we went until we came to the "Kiss of Mud" where we crawled on our stomachs through mud under barbed wire. We get to the other end, stand up, and I notice that my arms are already scraped up pretty badly. Well, I'm already hurt, might as well get something out of it, so we keep going.
The next fun obstacle that we came to (minded I'm not going to explain every obstacle, you'll have to do it if you want to know what they all are like) was the "Electric Eel". This is where we are crawling once again on our stomachs through water while live wires are hanging down on top of you. I'll repeat: LIVE WIRES! They don't hurt much, just a gentle reminder that you are alive, unless if you were me. I was going along in my lane getting the occasional zap until the guy next to me decided he wanted to be in my lane too. Well isn't that nice of him. While he was moving over (uninvited mind you) I was constantly being zapped on my ass! This quickly motivated me to encourage him to keep moving. But I got out just fine.
The next obstacle I'll tell you about was called "Hold Your Wood." An easy task really. You simply pick up a piece of wood and carry it in a circle. No problem. Only thing, the wood wasn't little sticks. They were chunks of wood. The smallest was even too big to put in a city fire pit. Well, I hoisted one up on my shoulder and was off. Don't forget, the whole path is covered in shoe sucking mud from the rain making it extra tricky to maneuver. I get to the end, toss my wood and found out that the medical person there had to send 3 people home within the last 30 minutes because of pinched fingers and wood dropping on toes and feet. Thankfully I was unaware of this information before I did this obstacle.
I was really looking forward to "Firewalker" again because last year there were two long zig zagging rows (at least 15 meters long if not longer) of wood and straw and hay that were on fire that smoked like crazy. Well, it was nothing like that this year. Instead there were two lines of wood that were on fire that we had to hop over (one could easily walk over it) and then there was this pool (as close to a pool as you could get when it comes to Tough Mudder) where we jumped in and swam to the other side and used a cargo net to climb up. As I was almost up the cargo net, a hand appears in front of me, I grab it and a guy nearly lifts me right out of the water. That is what Tough Mudder is all about. Not the obstacles, not the distance, but the camaraderie.
I was also looking forward to the next obstacle as I loved it last year, the "Arctic Enema." This one is pretty straight forward. You climb up a small ramp, jump into water, go under a board so your head is completely submerged and then climb another small ramp to get out. Easy peasy. Oh wait, forgot one little thing. The water is freezing! They dump ice in the water and add some liquid so the water will remain really freaking cold! Oh well, it was a nice short break from the heat.
Skipping ahead, we come to the "Cage Crawl." I found this rather relaxing. One simply goes in the water floating on your back and use a cage that is inches from your face to move along. The water isn't deep and with your ears submerged in the water, it was rather pleasant. Well, unless if you were the dude in front of me. I guess I was a bit faster at cage crawling than he was and ended up in his lap basically. Never know, he might have found that relaxing too!
After the "Funky Monkey" which is basically a monkey bar on steroids, we come to the pull up challenge. If all of the mudders between the two days reached a total of (I believe) 3,000 pull ups, then they would donate and extra amount to some charity (which unfortunately I can't remember but I wanna say to Wounded Warrior which is what Tough Mudder supports). I get to the bar and give it a shot. Remember, this is after 11 miles and over 20 obstacles by this time. I grab on and unfortunately I can't even do one at this point. I hope they reached the goal even though I wasn't able to help.
The last obstacle is called "ElectroShock Therapy" where like the "Electric Eel" before, live wires are hanging down. Only difference is that you have to run (or walk) through them and over stacks of hay to get to the other side. I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I can tell you that ever mudder crosses the "ElectroShock Therapy" to get their hard earned headband and that cup of cold beer!
It was a fun 11.87 miles and the scrapes, cuts and bruises are slowly healing. My mom and I already have our third and forth Tough Mudders planned out and I can hardly wait!
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