Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Scoop on Tough Mudder - Post Event

We did it! The finish was a bit anti-climatic though. The "mystery
obstacle," a field of hanging live electrical wires, was a non-event.
THANKFULLY. That was the only obstacle I was thinking I'd skip. I
mean, you are supposed to AVOID live electrical wires. But I saw
people running through and no one was screaming. Rebecca put her
hands over her face and went for it! She said it wasn't bad so Tara
and I followed suit. It was like running through ropes although we
literally had no exposed skin. Maybe the people who had bare skin had
a different experience. The last obstacle was supposed to be Insane
Bolt - a timed wave of people trying to sprint 100 yards before an air
horn blast. I don't know why they didn't have this but after 12
miles, I wasn't going to be sprinting anyway. We crossed the finish
without much fanfare at 2 hours and 41 minutes.

Little did we know that the next hour and a half was going to be far
tougher than the Tough Mudder itself. We went back to the car to get
someone to photograph us all muddy. We really don't look all that
muddy, do we? But trust me, We Were! Then we started trying to find
ibuprofen, warm clothes and figure out how many towels we needed. The
shower area was far away so by the time we walked there, we were every
bit as cold as we had been during the race. Rebecca and I chickened
out of the fire hose "shower" and changed in the Women's restroom
which was disgusting but had access to warm water. Tara braved the
fire hoses and said all semblance of camaraderie and chivalry was gone
with the last obstacle; I think she had to fight for her turn. We
could not figure out how to get our free beer and were way too cold to
care, so we went shopping for some Tough Mudder gear and then headed
home.

We had a lot of dirty laundry and new bruises appearing daily but I
don't think any of us are terribly sore. The WW Bridge Marathon
incapacitated me more than this event. I was telling Tara that I'm
almost embarrassed to post this publicly because many people from this
event have said they are in utter pain. But our goal was to finish
and to finish without requiring medical attention. Achieving this
goal meant taking our time in the treacherous areas (hence the 13
minute mile pace). I am thankful for my running group and CrossFit
because without them, this event would have been a lot less fun!

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

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