Tag: tough mudder mid-atlantic

One Tough Mudder, Part 2

Continued from One Tough Mudder, Part 1…

Where were we? Ah yes, I was freezing my cheeks off. Moving on!

Scariest: About halfway through, we had to Walk the Plank. As a kid, I jumped off the high-dive at the pool once in a while, and I can swim just fine, but I don’t know, faced with a drop three times my height all of a sudden, my heart started throbbing in my limbs. It didn’t help that the lifeguards had to save a drowning guy while I was standing there at the edge looking down on the scene.

I couldn’t contemplate my fate for very long though because a bitch with a bullhorn was up there screaming at everybody to jump, so I did, and I plunged down, down, down—the fifteen feet seemed like a mile, and the water went all the way to the center of the earth—and I felt like I might never reach the surface again. But I did, and I swam out of there, and yeah. I did it. Go, me!

Hurtiest: They actually have two different electrocution obstacles, Electric Eel, where you belly-crawl under a bunch of dangling live wires, and then there’s the Electroshock Therapy at the end.

During the former, I got zapped three times, once on my left shoulder and twice on my right butt-cheek. (Looking at our team “before” photo, I’m kind of surprised that my ass didn’t get more of a jangling.) Running through the latter, I hit no fewer than five zappy strings.

And I don’t even know what to say about how it felt. It fucking hurt? It felt like I was getting electrocuted? I don’t know. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt. It hurt a lot.

Worst, Runner-up: By far, the worst physical part of the Mudder was the running. First and foremost, I hate running. I hate running. I hate running.

I don’t think I can say it enough times or with enough emphasis to get across my vitriolic hate for running. My body doesn’t like to move fast in a forwardly direction. (And “fast” should probably be in quotation marks. Let’s say “faster than an amble”.) The impact makes my hips, knees, and shoulders hurt. And even though I can walk a marathon and dance/hula hoop for HOURS, my cardiovascular system mistakes running for imminent death every time.

Also, it’s so BORING.

And, as I mentioned in my post about the thwarted Tough Mudder Mid-Atlantic, keeping up with my teammates was going to be a real challenge. I solved that problem by scrambling through the obstacles and taking off, so I’d get a little ahead of the group. They would inevitably catch up, pass me, and wait at the next obstacle, but I didn’t get too far behind that way.

But! In addition to my loathing for the sport of quickly covering distance by foot, I’ve been experiencing some Old Lady Problems lately. A couple months ago, my right heel started feeling bruised, particularly after double-unders, but it wasn’t actually bruised, and why pay $70 for a specialist copay when you can ask Facebook about these things? Dr. Facebook diagnosed me as having plantar fasciitis.

I’ve been doing stretches and rolling my foot on a lacrosse ball and whatnot, which has helped. However, the heel was tender at the very start of the Mudder, so I knew it would be an issue, and I worried about what problems might arise if I favored that foot for 11 miles.

Z told me to take tiny steps and lift with my quads, in essence to favor both feet, and to keep them relaxed, making sure my heel touched the ground with every step so it had a split second to rest. When I concentrated, I was able to do that, but you know, there were people to watch and call-and-response cheers (One of us: “Hercu-!” The rest: “‘Lisa!” [Repeat]) to do, so it’s possible I got distracted one or two times.

About mile 8, three Team ‘Lisa members were up ahead; Hammer was just behind me because her knee had gotten totally jacked up somewhere in there. And my right leg crumpled. Just crumpled underneath me. I stopped and looked at the back of my leg, and there in the middle of my calf was a crater about three inches in diameter and an inch deep. Hammer came up beside me.

“WHAT IS THAT?” I said, pointing at the alien that was backflipping inside my leg.

“Oh! You have a Charley horse! Quick, put your foot back and stretch the calf out,” she said. So I did, and whew!, it totally helped. Hammer to the rescue.

Thanks to her, when Charley came galloping by again at mile 10 and then again when I was reaching up for the monkey bars, I knew what to do, and later in the car, Z lent me his

The Stick

to roll out my calf, and it was magically hurty and helpy. (Shiv insists on calling it The Stick, even when there’s another article or possessive pronoun in front.)

[Note to everyone: you should buy a The Stick and use your The Stick every day because it will make your life betterer.]

Now those of you who know me will say, “What could possibly be a Worse Part for Amy than running?” And it’s true, there wasn’t anything else that was so physically taxing (and BORING).

But there was one part that was, spiritually and emotionally, the Super-Worstest of All the Parts, and that was what Shiv likes to call Shitter Village, i.e., the giant bank of port-a-potties at the start line.

Of course, nobody likes a port-a-potty (except maybe Flukie), especially ones that have been enthusiastically used for pre-event lightening of loads, as it were.

And I’m not going to say, after a sausage & egg breakfast and a soy latte, that I left Shitter Village better than I found it or anything, but the first port-a-potty I tried to use, but ran out of screaming—

Actually, let me address the previous occupant directly.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I understand your impulse to squat. I really do. Nobody wants to put his ass directly on the seat of any public toilet, much less a portable one that doesn’t flush. But since you, in your crouched position, managed to miss the hole entirely and shit directly on the back of the seat, I feel like it’s your duty to wrap your hands, wrists, and forearms—whatever you need to do—in toilet paper, and sweep that pile into the space where it’s meant to go.

Sincerely,
EVERYONE ELSE THAT HAD TO GO IN THERE AND WITNESS THAT, THUS LIVE WITH THAT IMAGE FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES

I guess you could say that the Most Worstest of All the Parts, Much Worserer Than Everything Else By Far was the shit show.

And we’ve come full circle.

One Tough Mudder, Part 1

[Before we begin, a note for my mother and any other worried parties: A friend of mine suggested I solve my ragey eye infection problem by wearing goggles during the Tough Mudder, so I dug through some stuff in my shed and found a pair of ten-year-old swim goggles. They more or less did the trick. ‘Course, they were real squeezy on my head and always opaque with condensation and I looked real cute, you guys. But between them and the drops, which have been actually landing on my eyeballs, thanks to Shiv’s steady hand, it looks like we might be able to save the eye. Onward!]

There were so many Worst Parts of the Tough Mudder Carolinas, I don’t really know where to begin.

We’ll get to them in a minute, but I should start with this: it was SO RIDICULOUSLY FUN. After the Shit Show known as Tough Mudder Mid-Atlantic, TM management was clearly back on their game for this one, and Team ‘Lisa

(from left, me, Kate M. “The Ginger Menace”, Shiv, and Hammer)

had SUCH a good time, y’all. People kept asking, “Are you all really named Lisa?” and we would explain that we were all Herculisas! Ha!

The fifth member of our team, Z, is not pictured, as he was behind the camera. Also, this counts as the Embarrassing Photo of the Week, considering that my “booming system”, as Dan NJ calls it, makes everyone else’s systems look like subwoofers.

Anyway, there was laughter and camaraderie. There was psyching each other up, cheering each other on, and hoisting each other over walls. There were inspiring athletes: one dude carried a pumpkin the entire course (you know, for Halloween!); a guy with a prosthetic leg ran our heat.

Some Mudders dressed in costumes: a caveman, a couple bumblebees, a bunch of superheroes, folks in interview suits, some jailbirds, and two guys who wore nothing but sneakers and pink lamé thongs. With their race numbers written in Sharpie on their ass cheeks.

It was hilarious and awesome and inspiring.

But the Mudder is supposed to be hard. When it’s hard, it’s good, and the good is bad, and the bad is good, because you’re doing it; you’re really doing this ridiculous thing. And so I present to you:

The Worst Parts of the Tough Mudder Carolinas, Ranked from Least Worst to Most Worstest of All the Things Ever

Least Worst: I’m actually kind of impressed that I didn’t have a panic attack in any of the tubes and tunnels we had to crawl through. My knees and elbows got scrapey and bruised, but apparently my theoretical claustrophobia is worse than my practical claustrophobia.

Worse: The upper body obstacles. Not the walls or the haystacks—those were fun because people let me climb on them and/or they shoved me over by my legs, feet, and ass—but the Hangin’ Tough and the Funky Monkey.

To be honest, I didn’t even really try on those because I knew I would be dropping into the water at some point, so I figured I’d just go ahead and put myself there. I KNOW, NOT THE MUDDER SPIRIT. Next time.

Also maybe for next time… Everest. (Z did it!)

Worser: Remember how I was worried about falling into the series of trenches full of water? Well, I didn’t fall in, but I did fuck up some other Mudders’ rhythm because, even though they say not to stop in between, I stopped. Sorry, people!

Kinda Bad: It wasn’t the carrying of logs that was bad. It was carrying the logs a long fucking way that was bad.

Definitely Bad: At one point, you had to fireman’s-carry a partner up a hill. I called dibs on Hammer, threw her over my shoulders, and started trudging. And even though she was the smallest person in our group, I still had to stop mid-way and take a break. She piggy-backed my ass from the switch-off point to the end. Beast!

Goddamn Terrible: The very first obstacle is called the Arctic Enema, a dumpster full of ice water with a board in the middle that you have to swim under. And when I say “ice water”, I don’t mean “really cold water”, I mean, water, but with a shit-ton of ice in it. As someone who grew up swimming summers in

Buzzards Bay,

I liked to consider myself a person who knew something about submersing oneself in cold water, but after experiencing the Arctic Enema, I imagine it’s more akin to winter-swimming in

Baffin Bay.

And even if I’d had the upper-body strength to hoist myself out, which I didn’t, being in that water for eight seconds made all my systems go beeeeeeeeeew brrrwwww booooo, and I was functionally dysfunctional. Fortunately, Z scooped me out by my arms.

Coming soon: One Tough Mudder, Part 2

Shit Show

[This post is going to be lousy with #firstworldproblems. I know a girl (she’s 11) who has a prosthetic leg, so all of the words henceforth can go in the chapter of the Avid Bruxist narrative titled Complaints About Shit that Doesn’t Matter in the Grand Scheme. There’s my disclaimer. And yet…]

In February, five friends and I registered to do the Tough Mudder Mid-Atlantic, a 12-mile course with 25 obstacles, obstacles to be overcome by doing such things as swinging across monkey bars, climbing over giant piles of logs and/or hay bales, and getting electrocuted.

The things I was worried about were myriad:

  • Running 12 miles. Not the hugest deal—my sister and I lumbered a half-marathon a few years ago—but, this time, I would have to do a reasonable job of keeping up with my teammates, all of whom (a) own legs at least nine inches longer than mine, (b) weigh 50 pounds less than me, or (c) participated in the 2011 CrossFit Games.
  • Doing some of the obstacles. See, there were some I planned to stroll right around: Everest, for example, a huge quarter-pipe, slippery as a snake, up which one must fling oneself and hope that another Mudder grabs at least one body part with which to hoist one the rest of the way. I was planning on skipping that one. But it was the obstacles I knew I should do but was really unsure about that caused some agita. For example, there’s a series of about a dozen shoulder-deep trenches filled with water, spaced five feet apart, over which I was supposed to jump, and I just knew—I knew—I would fall in and not be able to hoist myself out, and my teammates would have to double back and drag me out by the armpits. It was gonna be real embarrassing.
  • Using wet and muddy port-a-potties. While wet and muddy. Gross.
  • Getting electrocuted.

Turns out I worried about the wrong things.

Friday evening, my gang and I drove 280 miles to Germantown, MD, where we had booked two hotel rooms for two nights. On Saturday morning at 7:20, we received a text from the Tough Mudder management telling us that, because of traffic delays, we needed to use an alternate route to the site. OK. Odd that there were congestion issues before the first heat had even run, but OK.

Our start time wasn’t until 1:00, so we had breakfast, got dressed,

When I say Hercu, you say ‘Lisa. Hercu!

ran to Target for last-minute gear, and headed to the course (about 20 miles away) at 11:30. Plenty of time, we thought, to get there, get registered, and get psyched up.

Approximately five miles from the course, traffic stopped completely. We sat there for half an hour and then, using our handy telephones, navigated our way to a back entrance.

Ooooh, Mudder Nature, what are you cooking up?!

This time, we got to half a mile from the course before we were stopped. One hour later, we were still a quarter-mile away (correct my math, but I think that’s a quarter-mile an hour). That’s when the skies opened. After another 45 minutes, we arrived at the parking lot, which was 20 acres of nothing but mud. We watched even SUVs having to get pushed out by already muddy Mudders who had completed the course.

Hope sprung eternal, tho’, and several members of Team ‘Lisa grabbed IDs and the it’s-your-fault-if-you-die-doing-this-bullshit waivers we had signed and sprinted through the rain to the registration tents.

The final heat of the day was scheduled for 2:40. It was 2:35. As we ran back to the car to check on parking progress, we heard them over the megaphone announcing last call. We could do it! We were sure!

But, woe!, the attendants were (probably wisely) not allowing cars into the mudbath/parking lot. We were ready to ditch the car on the side of the road, but right then, a group of Mudders came out saying that site management had closed all the obstacles, and if we were to start, we’d basically be doing a 12-mile mud run.

The obstacles are the point.

Fuck.

Team ‘Lisa conferred and decided we would just get up at sick:30 in the morning and do the course the following day. We were Tough Mudders; we would prevail!

In the middle of the night, TM management sent another text saying that, due to safety concerns (flooding from the storm on the course), the Sunday event had been canceled.

Well, see, but the part about safety concerns wasn’t true.

I mean, even at that moment, it rang false because, um, the nature of the event is to slog through a 12-mile flood, but later, news reports indicated that Mother Nature was not the problem. TM management pointed the finger at uncooperative local authorities, who in turn blamed TM management for overselling the event. But the upshot was the mayor pulled the permit.

Shit show.

On the part of TM, I think it was a case of good ol’-fashioned hubris. They’ve been the popular jock strutting around the fieldhouse of mud-runs for a long time. They stopped showing up for practice, didn’t listen to the coach (sanctimonious jerk, though he was), and got their asses handed to them in the Friday night game.

As for the police department and mayor’s office, a.k.a. sanctimonious jerk coach, I do believe there was a lot of hitching up of pants and saying, “You big-city folks might do it that way where you’re from, but not in my town.”

Since then, TM management has backed off the “safety” charade and said essentially, “Even though local authorities were being badge-waving pissants, the responsibility lies with us to make a good event for you, and we failed.” (Which is true. They’re projected to take in $75 million this year. How ’bout you’ns invest in some goddamn ombudsmen?) They’re offering refunds(!), which they never do, or free transfers to upcoming events.

Team ‘Lisa is determined to triumph, so we’re requesting entrée into Tough Mudder Carolinas late next month. (That would give me seven weeks to generate some real good worries.) Alas, TM Carolinas is not on the list of approved transfers that was sent out today, so who knows if they’ll let us in?

All in all, I’ve gone through a lot (of #firstworldproblems) in the last few months. The chapter title for the summer of 2012 will be Wherein Our Heroine Learns to Deal with Disappointment.

I guess we all need struggles, right?, to learn and grow and change… That’s what life’s about, right?, learning and growing and changing… So I guess I should be thankful, right?, for all the learning experiences…

Nah. Summer 2012 can eat a dick.