Mangled at the Mudder
This picture is a good summary of our Mudder experience, let me try to fill in the back story.
I left work early on Friday so I could pack and be ready to head north. I told Randall I was leaving work early, he said he would be at our house by 5. I don’t know why by this time I put any weight in Randall ETA’s because I don’t think he has ever made one yet.
True to form he showed up closer to 5:45 after making a stop at a Sports Authority to buy clothing for an event he knew he was doing for almost 6 months, fail. I need to learn to just tell Randall that things are an hour or two before they actually are to account for his Jmo’ness.
So after saying goodbye to mom, who came to our place straight from work, we piled into the Camry and headed north for Zephyrhills, a close to a two and a half hour drive. On the way we made two stops, a Dunkin Donuts in Siesta Key to battle drowsiness and at Subway to grab a quick dinner.
When we arrived at the Quality Inn the NO ROOMS AVAILABLE sign on the front door made me glad we snagged a room a few weeks prior. The woman that checked us in had a very heavy asian accent. Even with doing my best to concentrate on what she was saying I still had a tough time catching every sentence. She told us where our “suite” was.
We had decided to share a room to cut down on costs. The suite had a king size bed in one room and then a pull out sofa bed in another. It also had amenities like a full size fridge and a microwave, woo hoo. I was too tired to enjoy any of them though. After taking a shower I didn’t even turn on the tv. After glancing at one of Ali’s running magazines I was out like a light in a few minutes.
I wasn’t happy to see that my 3 AM wake up curse had followed me out of the house. I woke up almost exactly at 3AM and unfortunately thoughts of the upcoming race prevented me from falling back asleep. I laid in bed for close to an hour trying to force sleep to return to my body but had no luck.
I crawled out of bed around 4 since I had to pee. I quietly opened our bedroom door and made my way down the small hallway towards the bathroom in the dark. I made a left turn and felt my foot hit something solid, I figured that was the bathroom door. However then my hand hit a bar in front of my face. I realized I was trying to walk into the closet. The bathroom was the NEXT door down.
So I dilly dallied around for quite awhile, playing Tower Defense on my phone to pass the time. A little after 5 I decided I would venture outside to see how cold it was. Randall had both room keys and I didn’t know where they were. I slipped out of the room but left the door ajar since I would only be gone a couple minutes. I figured I would go out the front lobby door since it surely wouldn’t lock behind me like the side access doors do.
So I head outside and verify it is indeed chilly, the temps were in the low to mid 50’s. I quickly turned back to the lobby doors, waiting for the electric eye to open them for me. It didn’t. I waved my hand in front of the sensor, nothing. I then saw the sign by the side of the door stating that the door is locked overnight but I could use my room card to open it. F me.
Well I decided I didn’t want to bang on the front doors to call the clerk out to admit I was a dumb ass. Instead I walked over to the side of the building where our room was. Luckily while I was mulling about I spent some time staring out the window of our room so I knew which cars were outside of it.
I stepped up to the window and began lightly knocking on it to get Ali’s attention, who was still in bed with the lights out and eyes closed. I got no response from the knocking so I knocked some more and some more. Eventually the light flipped on but still Ali did not know where the noise was coming from. I laughed out loud as my repeated knocks had her glancing around the room, first at the ceiling then at the wall behind the bed. Finally she looked at the window and saw me. I pointed at the side door and told her to let me in.
So by this time we all had to get up and ready. We packed our bags and hit the hotel lobby right around 6. We grabbed some food from their free buffet breakfast and ate it quickly. Even so we wound up getting out of there later than I hoped. The Mudder website recommended that you arrive two hours before your designated wave start time. Our start time was 8:20 and we didn’t leave the hotel until after 6:20. I had counted on the two hour time pad being over zealous, plus we were supposedly only 15-20 minutes away from the race site.
Well when we arrived at the turn off for the race I realized that arriving a full two hours early may have been wise. We pulled into a dead stop parade of brake lights that extended around the corner and as far as we could see. We sat basically in place for at least 15 minutes, inexplicably the vehicles were not moving at all. How could this be? Finally like somebody uncorked a bottle, the cars started to flow. I am not sure what the hold up was.
As well pulled onto Little Everglades Ranch we could tell why it was chosen as a good place to host such a huge event, it is HUGE itself. We snaked around with the other vehicles until we were directed to a spot to park in the field.
Even though I had taken a leak three times already that day, during the traffic jam I had an increasingly strong urge to pee again. It was a combo of nerves and the extra water I drank to hydrate myself. Once we parked I was quite anxious to find a port-o-potty. Ali was dilly dallying at the car, trying to make sure she had everything she needed. When my bladder overruled my patience I told her we had to go, I had to pee.
They had port-o-potties right by the parking area but the line to use them was already 15 people deep. I gambled that the bathroom by registration would be less full so I started fast walking that way. Randall realized he forgot his gloves in the car so he went back to get them while we continued on my mission to empty my bladder.
Unfortunately the registration area was a long ass walk from the parking area. With each step I was getting more and more annoyed. Finally we get there and I start looking around for the the port-o-potties. I see a sign for RESTROOMS. Of course they were back in the area you can only get to once you check in! F me.
So quickly Ali and I find the range for my last name and get me checked in. I am handed a packet and my race number is written on my leg and forehead. By this time the pain from holding urine was getting pretty severe. Ali could not go into the restricted area until she got her spectator wristband. She said she would go get it while I relieved myself. Boy did I relieve myself. I swear the fluid was flowing for a solid 45 seconds at least.
So when I came out I checked my phone, Ali was calling me. She said her name was not on the pre-registered spectator list, she was directed to go stand in the hideously long INFO line. I found her and waited with her.
As we waited we got to take in the tons of insane costumes that people were wearing, most of which were totally impractical for running a 12 mud race. I think the most shocking of all was the guy wearing the Borat style green butt floss bathing suit and nothing else. I just thought to myself “Why….” You can see a number of the amazing costumes here.
As we stood there we discovered many people in line had the same issue, they signed up as either spectators or runners and they weren’t on the list, how annoying. So after standing in line at least 20 minutes we arrive at the desk that had exactly one person behind a computer and two others that were not answering questions. We told her Ali was not on the spectator list. In about 10 seconds she was able to verify that Ali was on the real list online and we were done. Wow, that is pretty damn f’d up. I would figure with as many races as this group puts on this sort of thing would be minimal.
Well the parking delay, bathroom search and registration snafu had eaten up a bunch of time. By the time it was all handled there were only a few minutes to go before our 8:20 wave start time. Ali snapped a quick picture of us before the race to contrast whatever we would look like at the end of it.
We were the second wave of the day, the first group of approximately 500 participants headed out at 8. Before the start we were given instructions and a pep talk by a cool dude. He did a good job of getting everyone pumped up for the event. Remarkably good when you consider he winds up giving the same speech probably 15-20 times each day.
So the horn sounded and we were off. After a short jog through the field we came upon our first obstacle, a human version of a steeple chase. It was a series of lower wood walls with a ditch dug out behind each one. Randall opted to leap on top of the wall and then jump over the ditch. That approach involved far too much potential knee impact for me so I just hopped over the wall and stepped over the ditches.
After another run we saw our next obstacle coming into view, the Chernobyl Jacuzzi. Of all of the 25 obstacles this is the one I dreaded the most. This obstacle was a 25-30 foot long tub of ice cold water. To make it more fun they had bright coloring in the water, some was pink, some was green, some was blue. Randall and I went the blue route.
The good thing is with waves of people behind you, you have no time to sit there and think about the horrors of plunging yourself into frigid water, you just do it.
I jumped in and instantly felt my lungs tighten. Your instinct is to catch your breath but the contraction makes it difficult to do so. To make things more fun there is a wall in the middle of the tub you have to go under so full body submersion is required. I did my best to get the hell out of that thing as quickly as possible, it was pretty awful. As Randall and I jogged away we were both laughing and commenting about our icy obstacle.
Next up was another water obstacle, this time you waded through a pond that had two sets of barrels in the middle which you again had to go under. If there was one thing good about the ice jacuzzi, it made the 60 something degree water feel sort of warm in comparison.
So after three obstacles we were totally drenched. We continued jogging along until we got our first real taste of the event namesake, mud. We had to belly crawl across a field of mud that had barbed wire maybe 18 inches above it. They made sure the mud stayed nice and wet via a water truck that was constantly spraying the field.
Next up was one of the two mystery obstacles (an obstacle they don’t reveal before the event) it was a large chute filled with tires hanging from ropes. getting through the tires wasn’t bad although if you were behind someone that thought it would be cool to shove tires out of the way violently you could pay the price. Randall did just that after the guy in front shoved the last tire way up in the air facilitating it crashing back down and smashing Randall in the chest.
The next obstacle was the first one where teamwork came into play, the Spider’s Web. This was maybe a 15 foot tall cargo net that you had to crawl up and over. As we approached we saw a number of people on the far side of the net applying tension via their body weight. Do this made traversing the net easier as it kept it from flopping around as much. After Randall and I made it over we took our turn at the bottom. I closed my eyes and mouth to keep the mud that was flying off of people above me from entering an orifice.
The next obstacle was pretty mild, you just had to get up and over some decent sized hay bales.
Next up was another wet obstacle, the ball shrinker. They had wires strung across a pond. The wires hung a couple feet above the water. The wires had black plastic tubing over them. You were required to hang upside down on the wire and pull yourself across. Well once weight was applied to the wires they would sink lower of course. In the middle of the pull my body was 3/4 under water. Luckily my pulling strength and wet skin allowed me to glide across the obstacle pretty quickly.
We were now getting into the portion of the course that had longer runs between the obstacles. This was very challenging running conditions. It was all in open fields that were uneven and filled with potential obstacles ranging from holes to cow pies. In addition, just for fun, there were many, many sections where you would just arbitrarily run thorough canals and additional mud. On top of all that, your sneakers felt like they weighed a ton from the water and mud that filled them. Obviously it was the most difficult running I ever did in my life.
Next up was the first of several wall obstacles. The wall was probably 11 or 12 feet high. They had a narrow board nailed to the front of it, maybe 2 feet off the ground. I helped Randall up and over the wall although he was able to grab the top of it after pushing off the foot assist.. My long arms allowed me to navigate the obstacle without additional assistance.
The next obstacle was just an annoying trek across waist high water. The water hid sinkholes that many people inadvertently would step in. Randall fell a few times after trying to be aggressive in crossing. This obstacle taught us it was wise to step more cautiously in the water for the rest of the race.
The next obstacle was another one I had concerns about, the balance beam. The beams were quite long and extended over more cold water. I really didn’t feel like getting dunked again plus in general, I didn’t want to fail at any obstacles. At first I went very cautiously out onto the 4 or 5 inch plank and was doing ok with it. However as I approached the middle a lot of swaying started going on. I almost fell a few times and to be honest I was pretty sure I was going to get wet. I decided to throw caution to the wind and accelerated through the second half of the plank, just barely managing to make the finish platform. Randall cleared it as well.
Next up was another mud crawl, this time under a huge cargo net that was pinned to the ground. We emerged from the other side with inches of thick mud stuck to various body parts.
Somewhere around this time the running got extremely tough. They had constructed a series of sandy hills for us to run over. Both Randall and I were sucking major wind by the time we got done with those, they were pretty brutal.
The next obstacle was challenging, the Boa Constrictor. You had two sets of irrigation pipe. One set angled down into a pond of muddy water that had a barbed wire ceiling and then another set going up the opposite side. Going down was unpleasant as you emerged into the dirty water but going up was very tough. My wet body hand no traction to climb. I wound up inching along upwards using my toes and my elbows. Finally I got close enough to the end of the pipe that I could grab it and pull myself the rest of the way out. Randall used a better technique to escape, pressing his back up against the top of the pipe to create traction.
After another rather lengthy run we hit yet another water obstacle, Walk the Plank. For this one you climbed up a 12-15 foot high platform and then leaped off into yes, more cold and muddy water. Again the best course of action was to not think about it and just do it.
Next up was a series of small hay bales that you have to get up and over. Randall tried to jump from the first hay bale to the second to save time but he wound up short, smashing into the bale with his upper body. That was end of that. Again I took the low impact option.
The next obstacle was just another plodding march through muddy water that had a few sinkholes hidden in there, no big deal by that point.
Somewhere in there was a crawl through some very dark man made sandy tunnels. if you were claustrophobic you wouldn’t have enjoyed them very much. One section for me was totally devoid of light, I was just feeling for walls as I crawled along.
By now we were getting pretty deep into the race. The most Randall had run previously ever was just short of 9 miles. To be honest I sort of figured later in the race we would be walking between obstacles instead of running. I checked in on how he was feeling several times as we were jogging along. He kept indicating he was good to go so we kept on running.
After another long running segment we saw thick smoke across the field. We realized we were coming up on the flaming hay bales. They had the hay bales on either side of a small path. They were really throwing off the smoke. The heat you felt running between them wasn’t bad but if you dared to inhale in the middle of the gauntlet you would be choking on smoke instantly.
After another long run we ran into our second set of walls to climb. We utilized the same technique as before although it felt slightly tougher since we had expended much more energy by this point in the race.
Next up was the log carry. I saw this on the website. It looked like you grabbed a big log, threw it on your shoulder and hiked with it for awhile. Well they decided to make it a little more challenging. After grabbing your log, your marched out into a lake with it, carrying it around a marker and then returning to shore. Again like most water obstacles, the footing was always a crap shoot. As we walked multiple times feet bumped into logs that were dropped into the water before us, adding to the fun. Both Randall and I managed to carry our wood securely until the drop off point.
The next event was another that I was not looking forward to, the monkey bar climb. It was right around this point that Ali found us. She started shooting video with the Flip cam.
These monkey bars were extra tough because they go upward instead of straight across. If that wasn’t challenging enough they grease some of of the bars to make your grip tougher. Having wet and muddy gloves on didn’t help either. If you slipped and fell off you had more wet and muddy water waiting below.
Randall took off quickly across the bars, going from bar to bar with each arm movement. Initially I did the same thing but then I hit some of the slippery bars and almost lost my grip. I decided to go conservatively the rest of the way, grabbing a bar securely with both hands before reaching for the next. My slow and steady technique kept me dry.
Next up was the second mystery obstacle, it was kind of annoying. You had a ridiculously thin piece of wood for your feet and a slightly wider piece of wood for your hands to grip onto. The object was to cling like Spiderman down the 20 foot length of wall.
It was tough for my size 13’s to find any sort of traction on the foot board. About 5 feet from the end I slipped off for a moment but I hopped right back on so I would complete the entire distance. I heard the volunteers say people were cheating on this obstacle, grabbing the top of the wall instead which would make it significantly easier.
So during the run to the next obstacle I ran into an unintended obstacle, Randall. The running path lead under some very low hanging branches, probably between 4 and 5 feet off the ground. Randall went first and I was a couple feet behind him, running with my head down, bent over at the waist.
Well Randall evidently got caught up in one of the branches and continued to run forward with the branch, sort of loading it up like a catapault. Well once he cleared the branch it came whipping back and smashed me in the head. I was stunned by the impact and staggered around a bit. I then continued running but felt liquid streaming off my head. Great, I am bleeding.
I told Randall he just smashed me in the head. I was actually bleeding from several spots on my head from the impact. The blood was running into my left eye. At first I was worried that it was bleeding bad enough that I might need to get a hold of a medic on the course. As I ran along the flow started to slow down. I still looked like hell though with large blood stains all over my shirt and dried blood all over my face.
Ali had peeled off for a bit and hadn’t seen me get hit. She didn’t realize I was bleeding until she got to my left side and saw the mess. Of course she was worried but I told her I was fine.
So next up was a crawl across a a stretched out cargo net followed by a dirty crawl under it, complete with barbed wire. I had multiple people ask if I was ok because of my bloody face. I assured them I was. By that point I had totally enough of crawling, my knees hate the movement.
We were now finally in the home stretch. We had to now climb over a small mountain made out of hay bales. It was an impressive structure. As I approached the pinnacle the one volunteer said I was the first bloody participant he had seen so far, cool.. 
Climbing the hay wasn’t too bad. Randall did a gymnastic dismount on the far side that Ali didn’t catch on tape. She asked him if he wanted to climb back up and do it again, he declined.
Late in the race Randall had some issues with his calves cramping. A few times we stopped so he could try to stretch them out a bit.
So our second to last obstacle was another teamwork required one, the 1/4 pipe. This looked like a skateboard ramp, a muddy, slimy skateboard ramp. At the top of the pipe were mudders hanging down to help pull others up and over.
This was tough. I certainly didn’t have much spring left in my legs after completing around 11 miles of the course. Luckily my long arms allowed me to reach a set of hands up top. I was awkwardly pulled up by hands that had grabbed onto my two arms and one leg.
Once I was safely up top I used my long arms as an advantage again to reach down far to grab on to the next guy coming up the pipe. After pulling him to safety we headed down the other side.
We had only one obstacle to go, the electroshock treatment. By this time Randall’s cramping was really slowing him down. I was accelerating towards the finish when I glanced back and saw him walking in pain. I doubled back so we could go through the chute more or less together.
This was another obstacle I sort of dreaded, after all who enjoys getting shocked? Race staff tried to make sure you conducted electricity well by spraying you down with water as you entered the electrified chute, bastards. I didn’t hesitate and decided to just barrel down the middle and take my amps like a man. I actually only got shocked once on the arm. It burned a little bit but after the other torment my body had been through it seemed pretty mild.
Randall and I completed the course in a little more than two and a half hours, well under the predicted course time of three hours. We were pleased.
As I came through the finish line the medics spotted my bloody face and asked me if I wanted them to clean it up. Sure, why not.
They directed me to a chair in the medical tent and sat me down.The EMT said head wounds typically bleed a lot because of all of the small capillaries. She did a decent job of cleaning the wound. They said I just needed to make sure I cleaned it out well when I took a shower. I signed a release saying I didn’t want to be transported to the hospital and that was that.
I went over and grabbed my post Mudder free beer (yes singular, you only get one free one) Randall and I walked around and relished in our accomplishment. It was doubly sweet for Randall, completing the Mudder along with running the farthest he ever has on foot, across fields in wet and muddy sneakers no less.
I was beat up and tired but intact. Hell I wasn’t even walking with a limp. I told Randall that Ali and I were going to walk back to the car to grab my change of clothes. He had his spare clothes in backpack he left at bag check.
On our walk back to the car we walked past people showing up for later start times. I can’t tell you how many of them stared at my bloody, dirty as hell body, wondering what exactly they had waiting for them out on the course. We were following another guy that had just completed the course. He is an ultra-runner, you know one of those crazy bastards that do stuff like run 50 mile races. He said the Mudder was more difficult than any ultra he ever did. Wow, that is saying something.
So after retrieving my clean clothes we walked back to the race area. They had “showers” there. Basically hoses shooting cold water. As we walked along I unknowingly dropped my clean underwear which I discovered later. Oh well, someone got a souvenir.
Well as we reentered the registration area Ali saw a second sign for showers that pointed to the right instead of the left. These were not garden hose showers, these were real showers, complete with a door and HOT WATER. Well of course this was a for profit operation. The shower itself cost $7. Shampoo was $2. If you wanted a towel you had to fork over another four bucks.
Sure it was expensive but I was so disgusting I didn’t care. I tried to moderate the cost by opting just for the shower and shampoo, skipping the towel, figuring I would air dry quickly, especially with no underwear.
The shower was well worth it. After spending that much time jumping in and out of cold water, the hot shower felt fantastic. The stinging sensation on my head when I washed my hair reminded me of the open wounds that were on my scalp. I emerged from the shower feeling much better about life. We clued Randall into the hot showers and he took advantage of them as well.
After we cleaned up we grabbed some food which like everything else at the Mudder was very expensive. They had an odd system in place where you bought tickets and used the tickets to pay for the food instead of handing over money. I am not sure why that was the payment method they utilized.
Ironically, even though the Tough Mudder is obviously suited for individuals that live a relatively healthy lifestyle, their post race food selection was anything but. I wound up having what may have been the most unhealthy cheese steak of my life, coated in mounds of nasty melted velveeta.
After we finished eating we walked the grounds a bit. Randall and I dared each other to get race tatoos and/or on the spot mullets. We both respectfully declined.
We came across a stand the Air Force had up, complete with a portable pull up bar. Well of course I needed to hop on there and see how many reps I could do. Before I got my shot we waited while some little hispanic guy got on the bar. He did a bunch of pull ups maybe 13 or 14. However only maybe the first 4 or 5 actually were decent, the rest were half reppers at best.
So I hopped on and knocked out 18 real solid reps. To be honest I surprised myself a bit. I didn’t think I would have the energy to get that many after the Mudder. One of the Mudders that was watching expressed the same thing, surprised I repped that high AFTER doing the race.
Randall jumped on the bar after me and did the cleanest 10 reps I ever saw him do. We both scored Air Force can kuzzies for our efforts.
After a bit more walking around we were ready to roll. We left just as they were sending off the last wave of the day at 1pm. When we got to the parking area the vast open fields had been transformed into huge parking lots, stuffed with vehicles.
The drive back was long. It was broken up by stops for gas and more coffee. We didn’t get home until close to 5pm. During the drive Randall and I did a lot of recollection about the event. Ali really went above and beyond capturing footage of the race, taking a bunch of pictures and running alongside us for a good portion at the end of the event. You can see all 15 minutes of video she captured here.
We opted for a relaxed evening at the house. I ordered pizza and we enjoyed it while watching Little Fockers. I now understand why it was rated the worst of the three installments. It was funny at spots but it was stupid at more. I’d give it a B.
By the end of the movie I was falling asleep. I told Randall I was taking a shower and crashing. He was pooped as well and went to bed. Our long anticipated Tough Mudder day was finally over and was successful in every way I could imagine.
Sadie didn’t seem to care that I had an exhausting day Saturday, she woke me up bright and early at 6am. I didn’t mind much though. It gave me a head start in processing the various A/V we had from the event. In addition to posting the full video on youtube, I also made an edited version that was about half the length. I also had a number of pictures to upload to Facebook with all of the associated tagging and describing. Randall got up as I was close to finishing up.
Randall and I piled in the van with the dogs to do a coffee run. It didn’t take long until Sadie planted herself squarely on Uncle Randall’s lap. Both of the dogs love Randall and I think the feeling is reciprocated.
We had an unusual plan for Sunday. Normally when Randall is over our weekends will involve physical challenges and video games. Well we had plenty of physical challenge the day before. Instead of video games we decided to go shopping.
You see I told Randall about the Under Armour outlet we have close by. Randall is a big Under Armour fan so he was very interested in checking the outlet out both for himself and for X-mas presents for his nephew who also loves UA stuff.
It also gave us a good excuse to pull the SSR out of it’s lair. Randall quickly got a first hand appreciation of why I enjoy driving the vehicle. As I mashed the pedal heading up the on ramp to I-75 he got to experience just how quickly 90mph + comes clicking by.
We parked at the outlets in a spot far from other cars although the parking lot was only a fraction as full as Ali and I experienced. I hadn’t realized the outlet was keeping normal Sunday hours, meaning it doesn’t open until 11. Luckily we were only 5 or 10 minutes early. By the time we walked down to the Under Armour outlet it had opened.
We spent a BUNCH of time in there, the most by far of any of the stores. We spent the most time thumbing through the clearance racks. The deals weren’t quite as good as what I saw on Black Friday but they were still strong.
I saw a couple potential purchases for myself but I wound up passing. Instead I scored a few Christmas gifts for Ali. Randall did well getting several items for both himself and his nephews for far less than you would pay in a retail outlet.
We checked out a few other outlets including Nike, Adidas and one I never went to before, Oakley. I always associated Oakley pretty much with just nice sunglasses, I forgot they have a nice clothing line too. I surprisingly scored a nice shirt and pair of shorts. At Adidas I grabbed a couple more pair of shorts that were similar to what I snagged on Black Friday.
Before leaving we grabbed lunch at Luna Rosa. The meal was good although I found myself annoyed when the waiter informed us that the bill came with a 20% gratuity added on. What the fck? I have heard of this practice being done with large parties that are more demanding on restaurant staff, but to do it with a two person table? That really pisses me off. So despite the good meal and decent service I doubt I will be frequenting Luna Rosa again. I don’t appreciate a food establishment making the tip amount decision for me.
On the way back home we listened to the Dolphins game on the radio. When we got back we followed up by watching the game on tv. The Dolphins surprisingly crushed the Raiders.
Randall headed out towards the end of the game for his long drive back across the state. It was the last time I would see him this year. For the first time he will not be joining us to help with the Shark Shoot out this upcoming weekend. I thanked him for doing the Mudder with me. Doing it with a friend made the misery much more manageable.
After Randall left I told Ali I would like to finally get the decorations on the Christmas trees, they had sat undecorated for a week at that point. We did a good job of using up most of our copious amount of ornaments between the two trees.
The rest of the evening was laid back. We ate the left over pizza and took in this week’s Biggest Loser. It’s weird, although completing the Tough Mudder is a pretty large feather in the cap I didn’t feel a monumental sense of accomplishment. I sort of knew I would just do it, just like I normally do most other things that are in my way.
One thing the Mudder did do was renew my interest in doing another half marathon. I emerged from the Mudder with two intact knees except for a number of scratches and bruises, which is very surprising based on the tests the Mudder put them through. I even went through the entire day on Sunday without popping a single Advil.
If you would like to see the photos Ali took from the event you can look here.
I think it is pretty much a given that Randall and I will once again accept the Tough Mudder challenge next year. I am trying to recruit Charlie to do it with us. He would love this stuff.