Tough Mudder, New England
May 7th and 8th, 2011
So, I am writing this race report because I knew people were curious and had questions (among them, “What are you, dumb?”). And I like to write. My friend Al had mentioned in February, “We’re thinking of doing this eight mile obstacle course in Vermont. There’s fire and electrocution involved.”
“Okay, I’m in.”
My, how quickly 12 weeks go by. Before I knew it we were driving up to Mount Snow, along with (I heard) 10,000 other people for Tough Mudder, New England. Only at some point between February and May they had added two miles and five obstacles, bringing us up to 10 miles and 28 obstacles, although it’s all a bit of a blur. Oh, well—here we are.
Our actual start time was 10:20am. We got there at about 8:30am. Since I had already printed out and signed my Death Waiver, the only thing I had to do was pick up my packet and have my race number written on my calf and on my forehead. Yes, my forehead. There was a sign there that said, “Yes, on your forehead. We don’t care if you have to be in court on Monday!” We were done with the registration process by 9:20, so Al was in favor of just starting at 9:30am.
“But I have to stretch!” (Alanna)
“I am not mentally prepared!” (Me).
We actually started at 10:00am. No one seemed to notice our adjustment to our start time. Our first obstacle, of sorts, was the “Death march”—walking up the ski slope for the first mile. Next was the Killa Gorilla, and that was running up and down a part of the slope. Wow, mud is slippery. There was a lot of slipping, sliding and falling down involved during the event. We also had to crawl under barbed wire and run through the woods that connect the ski slopes. This was also where the “Find a place to pee” obstacle took place, as there were no port-a-potties anywhere. They had water stops, though.
Boa Constrictors was crawling through metal tubes that were filled with water. I was able to crawl most of the way through on my hands and knees, just the last part I had to turn my head to the side and flop on my belly. This obstacle didn’t bother me, but later Al told me all he could think of was what if the person ahead of him got stuck and he was trapped? See, I’m glad we didn’t really communicate about this beforehand. Actually, my entire strategy throughout the day was not to give anything too much thought.
At about mile 3, we came to a sign that said, “Finish Line!” in big letters, and then underneath that, in smaller letters, in said, “For the Warrior Dash. You signed up for Tough Mudder, so you still have 7 miles to go!” Other helpful signs included “Dangerous Terrain ahead” and “Remember, you signed a Death Waiver”.
Mud was EVERYWHERE—up to your knees at some points, and so thick and sticky that numerous people lost a shoe trying to run through it. After a while, though, I didn’t really care. I couldn’t possibly be any more wet, muddy or disgusting than I was already. At one point Al looked at me and said, “Do I look as bad as you?”
“Actually, you look worse.” I can’t for the life of me remember why I thought he might actually look worse, because I could’ve frightened small children.
The obstacle called (if I remember correctly) “The Ball Shrinker” involved hanging onto a rope above your head, with your feet carefully balanced on a lower rope. Then you had to scootch along, going deeper and deeper into a pond as you did so. My feet were numb within seconds. After a bit, I realized I was faster if I just let my feet float around and went hand over hand on the top rope. By the time I got out, the air (by contrast) seemed warm, See, it’s all a matter of perspective.
There was a lot of walking uphill. Or downhill. Actually, I can sum up the entire event in three words: Mud, Water, Uphill.
The obstacles I was most worried about before the event were the electric shock, the fire, and the walk the plank. As it turned out, the electric shock one was nothing—I didn’t feel any shock at all, although this could have been because a). I was so excited because the finish line was right beyond that or b) I was hypothermic. The fire was running through flaming hay bales, and it was smoky, but it was relatively pleasant. At least it was warm. Walk the plank was the most challenging obstacle for me.
We saw a sign before the platform that said the water temperature was 45 degrees, although somewhere later I heard that the temperature on Sunday was actually in the 30’s. You had to climb up a rope to get to the platform—a wooden wall with a rope dangling down. I got up that—awkwardly—and then stood and stared 15 feet down into the pond. Shit. Al jumped off before I even stood up and then before I knew it Alanna had gone. Gulp.
“Motherf**ker!” I yelled and jumped. I plunged down into freezing cold water—I seemed to be going down for a long time. Eventually I reversed direction (Towards the light, Gail, head towards the light) and my first thought was, Where are my contact lenses? When I realized I could see, I enjoyed relief for about half a second before I realized I couldn’t breathe. When you jump into water that cold, your lungs seize up. I was on the verge of panicking when I saw a woman on the dock screaming, “The rope! Swim to the rope!” Oh, okay—the rope. It was probably about 10 feet, but it felt like about a mile. I grabbed the rope and guided myself along, fighting panic and the urge to scream, “What is WRONG with you people?” I was frozen when I got out, but, off we go.
The most pure fun was the slip and slide. They called it an obstacle, but really, all you did was lie down and slide to the bottom into (naturally) cold water. You could really build up some speed…whee! My favorite part, though, was everyone was so helpful and easygoing. There really was a spirit of teamwork among all the Mudders, not just the ones from your own team. People offered their hands to help people up obstacles, shouted encouragement, laughed at you (in a good way) and generally shared the experience. The whole thing was a complete blast. From time to time, Al and I would look around and shout, “This is awesome!” Which it totally was. After lunch and the drive back (with the heat blasting) with Alanna and Al, I immediately drove myself to the liquor store and celebrated. You guys gotta do this next year!