Frozen, (brush)burned, shocked, dropped
This will be a two cup of coffee entry I imagine.
I picked up Charlie at the airport early Thursday afternoon. It was the first time I had seen him since we played in the Rumble in the summer of 2011. He had never been to Naples since I relocated here in August of 2000.
Charlie had of course seen my house electronically many times but when he saw it in person he got a better appreciation of just how much I have to maintain. I have lots to do, all the time.
We decided to do a run to the grocery store to pick up a few supplies. We decided the rest of the night we would just hang at the house, drink beer and play video games.
Charlie and I have a long video game history. We used to play FPS (first person shooter) games together all the time, dating back to Quake/Painkeep days. Well I went back to the bedroom and pulled out a still in the plastic wrap copy of Call of Duty Black Ops.
No, this isn’t the game that was just released, this is the game that came out TWO YEARS ago. I am pretty damn sure I got the game for Christmas in 2010, yes 2010. It has sat in a drawer in my bedroom all that time. I just hadn’t found the time/interest to crack it open in those two years.
Well having Charlie in the house couldn’t have been a more perfect reason to break the seal on the two year old game.
So both of our FPS background is almost exclusively on a PC where you utilize a mouse and keyboard to move, aim and shoot. This combination allows a level of precision that I never have been able to imitate playing a shooter on a console with a joystick. Charlie was exceptionally good in these games, much better than I ever was.
Well the lack of a mouse did indeed feel weird, it just felt awkward and sloppy. What wasn’t sloppy were the intense realistic graphics of the game which was enhanced by skull thumping surround sound coming out of my Bose system. Despite fighting the controls, we both had a lot of fun playing late into the night on Thursday while drinking large amounts of beer.
On Friday I had asked Charlie if he had any interest in seeing Wreck it Ralph, the new Pixar movie that is about video games that I grew up with. Sure the primary target audience for the movie is probably kids that are 35 years younger than I am but oh well. Charlie said he was into seeing it.
The movie was mid afternoon. We headed out early so I could give Charlie a sight seeing tour of the area in the SSR. We drove down the ultra-rich neighborhoods of Gulf Shore Blvd and Gordon Drive passing one mansion after another. Charlie was dumbfounded by the size of these palaces by the water. We also drove by my office so Charlie could see where I have communicated to him from for the last decade plus.
The movie was at Silverspot. I thought Charlie would like to see Naples high end theater, he thought it was sweet.
I really enjoyed the movie, not only because it brought me back to the games that I pumped endless quarters into as a kid but more because it was just well done. After all it was a Pixar film, they always do a good job. It was fun from beginning to end and gets a solid A.
On Friday evening we skipped the alcohol and just grabbed sandwiches from the near by restaurant. We wanted to be sensible since we were getting up quite early to go to the Tough Mudder Saturday morning. I set my alarm for 4AM so we could shove out by 5.
Charlie reported he had his second night in a row of minimal sleep. He gets all worked up when he has big events like this coming up, the same thing happened before we did the Rumble. Luckily I don’t start feeling nerves until closer to the actual event, I slept fine.
The drive up to the race went smoothly, it was actually the same exit I take to go to Siesta Key, the only difference being this time I headed east instead of west. The entrance to the race was about 6 miles off the highway. We pulled in a little before 6:40am and had no problem, unlike others later in the day, but more on that later.
Unlike last year where they had issues with their registration list, Charlie and I both were on the list this time and checked in with no trouble. We spent the time leading up to the race kind of hanging out and checking out the immediate race area near registration.. The only hydration we did leading up to it was one 5 hour energy each, which was incredibly stupid, more on that later too.
So this year they changed a number of things besides the most obvious thing, the location. Another change was how you got into the starting chute. Last year when your wave was next up you walked into the corral area and went. Well this year they put an 8 foot wall behind the start area. The only way for you to enter was to go over the wall.
Ok that is kind of cool I guess. However what wasn’t cool was the dumb idea that they could have teams pose for a picture one at a time before going over the wall. There were just way too many bodies to do that. The photographers were soon overrun.
Charlie and I had the same early 8:20 start time Randall and I enjoyed last year. It really is the only way to go if you ask me for two reasons, parking and course degradation. When you do the course early you can avoid the brunt of the parking nightmare. Later in the day the parking situation became absolutely a disaster. I heard that at one point the traffic was backed up for 18 MILES and some reported waiting 4 hours to park and another 2.5 to leave. Um no thanks.
The course is in much better shape when you do it early. As thousands of bodies traverse the obstacles, many of which involved piles of dirt, it gets worn down. Plus many obstacles can develop significant wait times the later in the day it becomes.
Finally, the temps are cooler in the morning, people that started around noon were dealing with temps around 80, not exactly great for traversing 11.5 miles with 22 obstacles along the way.
I was happy to see they had the same enthusiastic guy starting the Mudders this year. Despite starting wave after wave of people every race he does a fantastic job of making you feel like you were THE special group. He is just bursting with good energy.
Ok so we were off and running about 8:25. One thing I noticed almost immediately was the ground was very treacherous to run on. You could tell most of the path was just mowed for the race. The ground was very rutty and uneven, exactly what a person with bad knees should NOT be running on. I spent a lot of time looking down at my feet to try to find anything close to a stable running surface. I wasn’t very successful.
Neither Charlie or I had really looked at what the obstacles were this year nor the order they were in. I was hoping the dreaded ice bath would go down very early like last year so I could get it out of the way. This year I had to wait a bit.
Before getting to the Arctic Enema we had to do a mud crawl under low barbed wire, wade through a lake and under 3 sets of barrels and do and over under log obstacle. None of them were horribly difficult but it seemed like all three of them had very long runs between them. This theme carried through out the course.
Last year there only seemed to be two or three long runs in between obstacles. Most times when you did an obstacle you could see the next one off in the distance. This year it seemed like there were 7 or 8 long runs with many of them having you running through fields where you saw nothing but others trudging along ahead of you. I suppose part of this is because this course had 3 fewer obstacles than last year which would equal longer runs between them. Whatever the cause, I really didn’t like having such long distances between obstacles, especially since the running surface was so hazardous.
Ok so we arrive at obstacle number four, the Arctic Enema (formally called the Chernobyl Jacuzzi) Out of all of the obstacles last year, this was the most uncomfortable. Also last year, although the water was VERY cold, there was hardly any visible ice in it.
This year the vats were stuffed with ice. In fact when I took the plunge it felt like the top 18 inches or so was nothing but ice cubes. Yes my skin instantly burned and my lungs contracted but I knew that speed was of the essence, I just got the fck out of it as quickly as I could. Charlie emerged after me with a new appreciation of just how cold water can actually be.
Next up was something they called the Mud Mile which was series of smallish piles of dirt with water filled trenches behind them. These were more annoying than challenging. I think what made them more annoying was the long run between them, they didn’t feel like much of a payoff. The only “challenge” to these was you didn’t know exactly how deep the water filled trenches were. Some were quite shallow, a couple were knee deep.
Next up was the boa constrictor, an obstacle Randall and I had. You get in a downward sloping drainage tube, dump out into muddy water and then have to climb another tube that goes up an incline. This year they made it easier with a rope in the up pipe. Last year we just had to inch our way up the pipe very slowly. It did seem the angle was a bit steeper this year which is maybe why they added the rope. (or to address back ups for people that struggled)
Next was something called the Cliff Hanger which was basically a steep grassy hill with a pretty abrupt decline on the other end. It was another ho hum type of obstacle.
Next up was the first set of Berlin Walls which is basically an 8 foot high wall you run up to, grab the top and pull yourself over. I was able to pretty much just walk up to it, do a small hop and grab the edge. My pull up prowness made getting over it pretty easy. I wasn’t sure if Charlie would be able to get over without a hand since he is much shorter but he was able to run up and over it without a major issue.
Next up was something they didn’t have last year, the electric eel. It was a low crawl obstacle on top of wet black plastic. Overhead were straight, narrow rows of wires. The goal was to stay low and straight. If you failed you were nailed with a painful shock which we heard being delivered to several people. Luckily Charlie and I managed to escape without being zapped.
Next up was the wood carry. Unlike last year where you carried real logs on your shoulder through chest high water this year you carried sections of 12″ x 12″‘s along a 1/4 mile course through some woods. The next obstacle was more wood based, climbing over and under some logs, followed by more small dirt piles and trenches, nothing too exciting.
Next up was the ball shrinker, I kind of like this one. They have a metal wire wrapped in black pvc strung low across a body of water. You hang upside down from the wire and pull yourself across to the other side. As you get towards the middle of the wire it sags and your body gets more and more submerged into the water. I was able to pull myself across without issue, Charlie had some problems with his head going under.
Right around this time Charlie started having issues with his calves cramping. We stopped to allow him to stretch them out. We realized how stupid it was to not plan for this ahead of time by making sure Charlie was well hydrated. He has a history of cramping, including when we did the Rumble several times.
Not only did we do zero hydration the morning of the race, the night before I think all we had was one Diet Coke each. It really was dumb of us to not plan better in this regard.
Well not only were Charlie’s cramps getting progressively worse, my right knee was a total mess at this point. I could hear noise in the joint with every stride and it was just one big ball of soreness. So although it was too bad we had to stop and/or walk a lot once Charlie’s cramping set in, with the way my knee felt I really didn’t care.
The next obstacle was the 15 foot high jump into muddy cold water, after the Arctic Enema this was not a big deal.
Next was a bigger set of Berlin Walls, 9 footers instead of 8. These had a small, thin board you could use to push upward if you got the timing right. Charlie mistimed it his first attempt, plowing into the wall. On his second attempt though he cleared it, cramps and all, without any assist from me. It was really impressive.
The next obstacle was another mud crawl under barbed wire, the repetition of obstacles was definitely a negative. Crawling on my sore right knee was an even bigger negative at this point.
The next obstacle was the wounder warrior carry. You are supposed to take turns carrying each other somewhere around 100 yards. I carried Charlie but convinced him it would be stupid for him to try to carry me with the way he was cramping. He still wanted to try but thankfully he listened to reason.
The next obstacle was a dark trench crawl where portions are pitch black, requiring you to navigate by touch alone. I tried the best I could to do this on two hands and one knee as it was very uncomfortable at this point to be crawling at all.
We were now getting towards the homestretch. We approached the Funky Monkey, one of the Mudder signature obstacles. It is a set monkey bars that first go up before going down. To make things more interesting they grease the bars.
I used the same strategy as last year utilizing the slower, but safer method of one rung at a time instead of going hand over hand. Charlie used the same method for the ascending part of the bars but tried to switch to hand over hand coming down and wound up falling in the water. He wasn’t happy about that.
The next obstacle was called balls to the wall. It was a much higher wall than we faced earlier, If I were to guess I would place it at 15-20 feet high. It had small footing strips nailed across it and a large knotted rope to pull yourself up with.
For me the obstacle was easy, for many women, the upper body strength required made it very tough. I helped a woman get up before I went by letting her use my hand as a modified seat until she could pull herself all the way up.
The only obstacles left were Everest and Electroshock therapy, two more signature obstacles.
Last year Everest gave both Randall and I trouble. Not only is the 1/4 pipe high and steep, it’s slippery. Last year I required the helping hand of fellow mudders to grasp onto me and pull me to the top. This year I got a better run at it and found a section that was pretty dry, I was able to get to the top rather easily.
Charlie made it as well however as soon as he got to the top he laid down in pain. Both of his calves were balled up in knots. I just tried to move him slightly out of the way so he didn’t get run over by oncoming mudders.
We stayed up there for a bit while he tried to get the cramps to subside. He used the two by four steps on the other side to help stretch out his legs as we slowly descended. I felt bad for Charlie, I knew he felt bad about the cramps.
So finally we were at the end, facing the final obstacle, the famous electroshock therapy chute. To be honest, last year I didn’t think the obstacle was bad at all. I ran straight through with my arms as a shield and only received one shock on my arm. The shock wasn’t severe, it kind of felt like a strong static shock, it burned but that was about it.
Well this year they made it much more miserable. Instead of flat terrain in the chute they added small hills with water in between them. There was no way to sprint through the chute without falling on your face with this layout, meaning you were more vulnerable to the shocks.
On top of this they apparently turned up the juice SIGNIFICANTLY this year. (or we just got a fresh set of batteries) I got shocked three or four times on my back and they were major shocks. Not only did they burn, my entire upper body convulsed as the current was delivered. It felt like someone plugged an AC cord into my body. I managed to stagger out of the chute without falling.
Many people were not so lucky, going down after getting shocked only to be rewarded with another shock a few feet ahead. Charlie actually blacked out momentarily after one of his shocks and fell. Yes, they were that strong.
We crossed the finish line, had some schwag shoved at us at grabbed our one free beer which we drank while sitting on a spot of open grass. We were both beat up. Even though we just finished I could feel my knee blowing up like a balloon.
We had someone take a post race pic for us. I look to be in way better condition than last years race where I had dried blood on my face and dirt everywhere. The black shirt I wore this year did a good job of hiding the dirt.
We did not have the luxury of being able to pay for a hot shower this year. Instead Charlie and I had to try to get “clean” by spraying off with a garden hose. It at least got the surface dirt off but we were both still pretty cruddy.
We then took a spin through the greatly expanded gift shop area. Evidently picking up Under Armour as the new lead sponsor meant a lot more souvenirs. I stayed conservative buying a glass, a window sticker and a luggage tag. How that added up to $35 is beyond me. Thievery.
Well by this time I was feeling very dehydrated. Being offered a 12 ounce beer and nothing else to hydrate after a nearly 12 mile mud race sounds crazy doesn’t it? Well that was the case. There was NO free water to be had ANYWHERE. The only way to get water was to wait in one of the two 30 person deep lines at a food stand and pay something like $5 for it. That was fcking ridiculous, and hazardous. I could hardly believe it.
The only free liquid I could find anywhere was at the EAS tent where I inhaled a bottle of chocolate muscle milk. I was really pissed they had no free water.
Seeing those long food lines discouraged Charlie and I from eating there, it would have cost a small fortune to do so anyway. So the only thing I wanted to do yet was get another set of post Mudder pull ups in, hopefully building on the 18 reps I got last year.
They actually had two pull up bars set up. One was being run by some sponsor where they were keeping score of the most reps. However the bar was a shitty design and they were allowing absolutely awful form reps to count including half reps and full fledged X-fit style kipping.
I instead opted to use the same wobbly Air Force pull up bar I utilized last year. Although they weren’t keeping official track of the most reps they were handing out prizes based on the amount of reps you could do. I saw that the top tier of 20 reps scored a set of sunglasses so that was what I was gunning for.
I did the first 19 reps consecutively and then paused briefly before pulling rep 20. If I hung I could have probably squeaked out 25 reps but I didn’t feel the need. I beat last years effort and scored the glasses, good nuf.
I convinced Charlie to give it a try as well. He knocked out a very solid full 13 reps, earning himself a towel.
We both decided we were ready to head out, we would grab some food on the way home. We began the very slow and limp filled walk back to the truck.
As we left we saw first hand the horrific traffic situation that had developed. The traffic was backed up all the way up to the interstate. Some people had gotten out of vehicles and were running to the event. I read later that many people simply were unable to get to the race site because of the delays and packed it in. Imagine paying that kind of money to do a Mudder and then not being able to even get on site because of poor planning?
So as I was talking to Charlie about this year’s event compared to last years event I told him I thought this event was harder. However as time passed I think my evaluation morphed a bit. Physically, the toll the race took on me was greater but that was almost entirely because of the terrible running surface. It literally destroyed a right knee that was shaky going in.
The two biggest obstacles from last year, the ice bath and electroshock were considerably more intense, however as a whole, the obstacles were not as good as last year and there were fewer of them, contributing to the many long and boring runs.
When we got home the first order of business was to take long hot showers. As I I was thoroughly scrubbing, I was working my man parts when I felt a burning sensation. I look downstairs and see what almost looks like a brush burn on the business end of things.
Like it wasn’t bad enough that I had a blown up knee and a couple dozen bumps and cuts elsewhere, now I had something wrong with my penis.
It looked bad, at first I had this horrible fear that I picked up some sort of crazy disease from the dirty mudder water and it infected my junk. However when I told Charlie about it he suggested it probably came from the liner of my swimsuit which upon further inspection made sense as it was a crosshatch pattern that matched the liner.
There were a couple points in the race where I was perched on top of either a wall or logs that could have pulled the liner hard against my southern regions. I wore the same shorts last year without incident. I guess from here on out all Mudder attire will include compression shorts underneath the top layer. Luckily it appears to be healing fast.
Saturday night Charlie and I crashed, both really beat from the race. I took a nap with an ice bag on my knee. When I woke up I ordered pizza from Hungry Howies. This theme of bad eating continued throughout the weekend.
I introduced Charlie to Walking Dead, starting with episode 1 of season 1. In total we watched something like 5 or 6 episodes while he was here. It’s such a good show I totally enjoyed seeing it again. Charlie thought it was very good as well.
Sunday morning we had some time to relax since we weren’t going to leave until around 2 for Titusville. I went and picked up the dogs so they could hang with us until we left. When we did head out we just left the dogs at the house, Ali came out after work and picked them up.
We decided to take a scenic route to Titusville, cutting up the middle of the state instead of taking the conventional I-75 to I-4 highway option. Going the way we did actually shaves 60 miles off the distance although it takes about the same time due to the slower speed and going through various towns. However we both figured what the hell, we are not on a timetable and we are cruising in the SSR, why not slow down and enjoy some scenery?
Speaking of the SSR, Charlie got some appreciation of why I find the truck so endearing. I treated him to the occasional 5000-6000 rpm power shifts where the engine is just screaming a perfect beastly note as it presses you firmly into your seat.
Driving itself was quite the challenge with my bad right knee. I literally could hardly bend it at all by the time Sunday rolled around. If I wasn’t popping Advil like candy I don’t think I could have driven at all.
The drive took us about four and a half hours with a couple stops, not too bad. The Holiday Inn where Charlie reserved a room was quite nice as well, clean and modern.
Sunday night we enjoyed a dinner in the attached restaurant. We had one of our many “who is going to pay” disputes. Charlie is such a nice guy he wanted to pay for almost everything. At times I had to resort to sneak paying for stuff when he wasn’t looking.
This is a good point to break so you can digest the rest of the story at your leisure. Life at 18,000 feet is not so great….