Tough Mudder Seattle 2014

A couple weeks ago Bob and I did the tough mudder.  It was so hard and parts of it were fun but parts weren't.  It was a goal of mine for a while and it feels good to accomplish something.  Especially something so hard.

I was very nervous before the race.  So much that I couldn't sleep the night before and barely ate anything before hand.  Not really the way you want to start an 11 mile difficult race.
The first half of the race wasn't too hard and was pretty fun.  Bob and I worked together and were able to complete all the challenges!  We didn't skip any and we ran in between the 20 something obstacles.

In the above picture you can see the event.  We had to army crawl through the mud into these buried tunnels and drop out the other end into 7ft of yucky wanter.  And yes, that is barbed wire.

These monkey bars were tough because they were slippery, wet, and slanted up.   I so wanted to just skip them and jump in and swim across but everyone was cheering me on so I gave it a shot.   I could only do one bar at a time and I had to hang for about 5 seconds on each bar.  I think I could have done it no problem if it were toward the beginning but this was near the end and my arms were just too tired.  I ended up swimming in the water after about 7 bars anyway.  Bob made it across and did not fall.  Online it says that only about 40% of the tough mudders make it without falling in the water.

These poles were also super hard.  My gloves were too grippy and when I took them off it was too slick with my shirt covering my palms.  Bob also didn't have any problems with this.

We got this video camera for the race but it didn't work out so we didn't get any videos.  I didn't think we were going to have any pictures either because I wasn't going to carry a camera around the race.  But luckily the race had hired professional photographers who took these and I was able to download them online.  

There were tons more obstacles and lots running through the mud.  Lots of water events including jumping off a really high platform into cold water.  I was scared about that one but it turned out not to be bad at all.  Lots of walls to climb over and even repelling down the mountain.  One point of the race was the wounded warrior run where we were supposed to carry another mudder.  So Bob carried me and I surprised him by actually carrying him for my half.

The worst one was the artic enima.  That was where we had to jump into ice cold water (I mean it was filled with ice) go about 5 feet and swim under a barrier and then another five feet and out.  The entire thing was 5 feet deep so my entire body was in it the whole time.  I knew it was going to be cold but I just couldn't prepare for what it was going to feel like.  My entire body seized up and just wanted out.  It was so bad.  There were people crying at that station because they couldn't do it.  We still had four miles after that and I never recovered.  I shook and my teeth chattered the rest of the way.  I really think my body was going into shock or something.  Even in the car with my seat warmer and towel I froze.  It wasn't until 2 hours after the race when I got in a hot shower that I started to feel better.  Go here to watch a video explaining more about the event.

At the end we had to run through these live wires each with 10,000 volts.  I was able to go slow and sneak between them, but the crowed was egging me on and I did want to feel one so i ran through the last 5 feet and got shocked one time.  It really hurt, but only for a second.

Here is our feet after the race.  One spectator said i was the cleanest mudder they saw all day.  I think that just because I kept going in and out of the water.  It seemed like every other event during the second half of the race submerged me in water.

Here we are in the parking lot with our finisher headbands!  I'll make sure to wear it a lot so everyone knows that I did it!

Looking back I'm really glad I did it.  Although I don't think I would do one again unless it was warm out.  55 and cloudy was not cutting it.