BackBeach - How was your Tough Mudder?

[ThrowingTimber]

Well how was it?

[Back Beach]

Here’s my review on one of the best times I’ve ever had getting my ass kicked, save for the time a chick beat me up:

We had a group of 8 people go up ranging in age from 33-53 and we’d all been busting ass for 6 months to get physically ready. We got up to West Dover, Vermont on Saturday night in preparation for a Sunday am run. After we checked in at the hotel there were a number of mudders milling around the place who had just done the Saturday run and were looking kind of beat up. After briefly interviewing each one of them it became apparent we would have our hands full, but I expected we would all make it through ok…

Enter Sunday morning:

I began with my usual 4 am wake up and started hydrating, stretching, and pacing for our 8:40 start time. With our crew assembled and ready by 6:30, we headed for the mountain under partly sunny skies and low 40 degree temperatures.We arrived at Mount Snow around 7:00 and headed for the registration booths. While handing over my death waiver and getting a number signed on my forehead with a black sharpie pen, I found things to be extremely well organized and professionally run with hints of humor and support in everything the TM staff did. (Humor and support, coincidentally, are the two things you need most in order to complete this event.)

Around 8:30 we started heading for the start line. Simply getting to the start line involved our first introduction to what lie ahead…a quick walk through 6” of mud followed by a hurdle over an 8’ high wall set the tone. Looking around the 500 or so participants in our starting block revealed most of them were probably mid 20’s to mid 30’s in age and sporting gladiator type bodies. I think the TM website said the median age was 29 for this event. Everyone was completely fired up as the starting emcee had us recite the mudder pledge, which was quickly followed by a mudslinging fight amongst our starting block. At this point I’m totally fired up and laughing my ass off at the same time. Last but not least, we recognized our fallen and wounded veterans prior to the playing of our national anthem, which really set the tone and got everyone dialed in.

The starting gun went off and up the mountain we went. Our group of 8 broke up right away as we had a few elite runners who opened it up right from the get go and separated from us quickly.( We wound up doing two groups of four with the 33-38 year old guys in one foursome and the 42-53 year old guys in my group. This worked out perfect as our “old guys” plan was to just get through the thing without killing ourselves or breaking anything.) By the time we reached the first peak I was pretty winded but recovered quickly before we went back down the mountain on an ankle/calf deep mud slope. All told we did just about 1 mile up and down before arriving at the first obstacle…

Thankfully, the “arctic enema” came early in the race as people would have probably been leaving on stretchers or worse given the cold shock you encounter here. Scaling the platform up to a huge dumpster filled with ice and sub 30 degree water, I didn’t give much thought to the difficulty of this obstacle until I leapt into the water, surfaced, and realized I could no longer breathe. I quickly tried to gain control of my breathing but had a real tough time doing so. I pulled my body up on the side for a second to get my torso out of the frigid water, barely caught my breath, and then plunged my entire body back under and emerged on the other side of the wooden dam which forces you to go under water in order to complete the obstacle. Coming up on the other side of the dam I could only feel the weight of ice pushing down on me as this thing is packed to the gills with ice and feels like frozen quicksand. Making for the exit side, another guy ahead of me extended his hand out to help me get out, but I was too panicked to grab it and relied on some adrenaline to get me out. Upon exiting, I blurted out a quick “WTF” and started laughing my ass off while I scaled down off the obstacle and began a light jog back up the mountain. This turned out to be the toughest obstacle for many, perhaps due to the fact its frigid water in addition to being the first water obstacle you encounter. I spent the next 30-40 minutes really humping it up and down the mountain while building some body heat back up and trying to get my diaphragm back in its proper place so I could breathe normally again.

[bart]

Good job, Mike! That is BADASS

[ProfessorM]

Your a nut. You make me feel elderly. Congrats
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[Back Beach]

Mile 3 through 6- The "electric eel" and a little poetic justice.

So with my breathing barely restored we complete the last obstacle on mile 3, which is the mud crawl under barbed wire. This was a real cool obstacle, not super difficult and one of the most fun obstacles of the day. We then proceed back up the mountain again through a mud bog which was real steep, slippery terrain. People were laying all over the place with leg cramps once we got to the top. Finally, we wind up at the first water station..whew. We're thrilled to be almost 1/3 into the run within the first hour and our confidence was starting to build until I noted we had only gone through 2 of the 30 obstacles thus far...

Next obstacle was the underground tunnels. Kind of scary to look at as there were a bunch of people hesitating , possibly claustrophobic or the like. I ducked in and got about 10 feet into a 40' tunnel and everything turned black. My buddy and I were head to feet and kept up the banter while crawling through. Not a real tough obstacle, but the sudden darkness made you wonder what might be lying in wait for us. A few people were freaking out, but we blocked them out and made it through with a few scrapes, but nothing serious.

We then barreled down the mountain a couple thousand feet once again in heavy mud until there it was, the dreaded "Electric Eel." Thoughts of my past atrocities towards the elver species began to resonate in my head. "Payback time," I told myself. As we neared the obstacle, people were all shouting to keep your head down and go real fast. I got up to the tank, which really looked like a back yard skating rink, and noted dozens of strands of electric wire hanging just above the water, some of them carrying 10,000 volts. We were politely reminded before jumping in, "It's the amperage that kills you, not the voltage. " As I ducked under the entry wire my eyes were focused on the finish about 50' away. The object was to stay low and crawl fast, so I put my feet up against the outer box and pushed off real hard, rappelling myself very quickly for the first 20' or so. Once my momentum from the push off subsided I began a fast, low crawl towards the exit...then it happened...I felt a sledgehammer like blow to the right side of my head and couldn't believe it...this shot hurt really bad and left me reeling for the exit. I made it to the exit without getting hit again, thank god. I was seeing double for a little while after and had a good crook in my neck, but the coming obstacles would wake me back up real fast as we were about to find out.

[Back Beach]

The mud crawl was one of the better obstacles in terms of fun, the electric eel was one of the better ones in terms of pain:

[bart]

you animal you

[ThrowingTimber]

You're a beast! Outstanding!
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[Back Beach]

Home stretch?

Miles 6-8 were a blur as I was shuddering uncontrollably from the electric shock and cold water. Every so often the sun would pop out and provide just enough heat to keep things going. Fortunately, our workout regimen positioned us well for the long distance as I never felt overwhelmed in terms of physical need, nor did any of my buddies. One of them had done several Boston Marathons and was really impressed with the level of challenge as well as the diversity of the obstacles. At this point, though, it seemed like time had stopped. There was a good number of people bowing out around mile six as it seemed like the miles were getting real long at this point.

We encountered a couple real challenging water obstacles at this time. One of them was called, "walk the plank" where you plunged about 15-20 feet into real cold water, then had to swim back to shore. My buddy Joe jumped off and disappeared under the surface for what seemed like an eternity. I did a straight jackknife and wound up way under the surface. I was thinking I would touch bottom and push off to get back to the surface quickly, but guessed wrong. The water was real deep and cold, thus I had to claw back to the surface. My buddy Joe was in the water when the guy next to him popped up and started convulsing from the cold water. The medics responded real quick and got the guy onto a board, then delivered him safely ashore where he came to his senses shortly after. There were some sick dudes doing back flips off the board which made for some fun viewing:

[Back Beach]

These weren't too bad, but there was so much dirt suspended in the water I couldn't see for a bit once I got out. You had to duck under these trees in about 3' of real muddy water to get past the obstacle. I got mud in every orifice of my body. This was easily the dirtiest obstacle of them all, but pretty fun:

[Back Beach]

Pretty challenging, but real fun series of obstacles leading up to the finish:

[Back Beach]

Good team work obstacle as it made for an interesting setup to the finish. Add in the cold water hose down and we're almost home...

[Back Beach]

"Everest" was one of the very best obstacles as you had to scale a 15' tall half pipe, which a lot of the better athletes did unassisted. After you got to the top you hung out for a bit and helped fellow mudders to the top if they needed assistance.

As expected, my tangle with the electric eel made for a lot of anxiety as I knew the final obstacle was the now famous, "electroshock therapy." This required another pass through dangling 10,000 volt electric wires to reach the finish line...

The four of us approached electroshock kind of bewildered until someone finally shouted "GO"... and we went...I just put my head down and charged. Amazingly, I got through without getting nailed and crossed the finish line. I looked back and Joe was not in sight yet...apparently he took two hard shots and got knocked down twice before escaping the dangling wires. As the four of us gathered at the finish line a huge sense of camaraderie, accomplishment and teamwork was apparent. I was so effing happy as was the rest of our crew. What a day away from the office this was:

[Back Beach]

I was not looking forward to this one, but it looks like a lot of people ran right through without getting banged up too bad, cept for my friend Joe:

[Back Beach]

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this event to anyone. It's got so many elements to it they're impossible to enumerate. Look at the pics, talk to someone who's done it and I'm sure you'll hear all kinds of stuff. Some people got banged up real bad, but most complete the course (about 70% of all entrants) in 3-5 hours. We finished in just under 4 hours while the younger guys in our group did it in about 3. I feel great today with only a couple very minor abrasions on my left knee.

By no means do you need to be a super athlete, although it certainly helps with many of the obstacles from what I witnessed. I found all the squats, pull-ups, and body planks I do to be the best exercises to prepare yourself. Surprisingly, all the rock hopping along Narragansett, Cutty, and LC I've done in recent years was extremely helpful in terms of my foot placement and preventing some bad dumps. The "arctic enema" seemed to be universally difficult for everyone. The "electric eel" messed me up the most while all the hill climbing and dexterity obstacles came the easiest.

All told, I give the Tough Mudder 5 out of 5 stars. It #^&#^&#^&#^&ing ruled...

Almost forgot...If I was single again I'd attend every one of these things worldwide...hot single chicks galore

[tysdad115]

Wow, congrats.

[5/0]

Holy crap,you are an animal Mikey!Congrats on your journey you have some serious drive, motivation and stamina.That is something else hat's off to you!
Thank you for sharing in detail what you went through and nice pics are cool

[niko]

Very cool
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[PRBuzz]

They probably don't have anything like that except at Parris Island, or maybe not even there!

[JohnR]

You are now "The Dude"

Awesome Mikey. Really awesome.

Originally Posted by PRBuzz

They probably don't have anything like that except at Parris Island, or maybe not even there!

There was this thing in Berlin though no electrical....

[JackK]

Awesome

[Clammer]

holy #^&#^&#^&#^& /////.f uck that ><><><

[MotoXcowboy]

looks like fun

[Piscator]

backbeach = animal!!

[Slipknot]

I'm with clammer

I might entertain trying that but no way no how would I jump in ice water my boys would jump so far up inside they may never come back down I'd probably breathe in water trying to get my breathe, F that

that's a hell of a thing you accomplished, glad you had fun, you should be proud.

[bassballer]

Sick Mike! I talked to my buddies on sunday they said they had a blast, and were drinking themselves into an oblivion afterwards.

[Moses]

Impressive. Curious, what was the history for you joining this event?

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by Moses

Impressive. Curious, what was the history for you joining this event?

A friend I go to cross fit with mentioned it and told me to check their web site out...that's all it took for me. The whole Tough Mudder rage started back in 2010 with their first ever event and 5000 attendees. This year had close to 14,000.

[ThrowingTimber]

Awesome job Mike looking at the pictures and reading your report it definitely stakes stones to finish that! You're humble dude! I think I'd do it as long as Im in the first group that gets to pee in the ice, I'd hate to be the last group to pee in the ice bath thing..

[The Iceman 6]

Solid work, great job on finishing!