25 in 25: #19 tough mudder

#19 was tough. tough mudder, tough. 12 miles of mud, running, obstacles and then some more mud. as many of my life decisions go, on friday, we decided to sign up to run on sunday. definitely last minute, but no regrets.

the race started with a mud crawl under a barbed wire obstacle. within the first 30 seconds, my shirt was clipped to a spike on the barbed wire. great start, right? i quickly unhooked it, making a sincere attempt to not get pricked by the barbed wire, then proceeded to crawl on my hands and knees to avoid any other frightening mishaps.

then it was hill, after hill, after hill. i nearly slid down one of them. leave it to tough mudder to find hills in dallas. however, the hills were do-able. they were minor obstacles leading up to the obstacle challenges. challenges like the arctic enema. what a terrible name. a terrible and fitting name. it was a giant tub of ice and water. the middle of the tub had a wooden wall topped with, more barbed wire. therefore you were forced to fully submerge yourself in this ice bath which is said to maintain a 20-30 degree temperature, and swim underwater to reach the other side. i was in and out as fast as humanly possible.

struggle faces

once my body regained feeling, we were hit with another obstacle. followed by a number of others. there were about 3 which required you to fly over a wooden wall. a few more that were nothing but bodies of muddy water to cross. another that required you to rope climb up and over the great wall of china, called balls to the wall (who comes up with these names?!), and the funky monkey which was a row of never ending monkey bars. if you fell from these monkey bars you dropped into a giant pool of green who knows what. falling was not an option. so i pulled out my elementary school monkey-bar-swinging talents and sailed across those bars.

other obstacles entailed running up a skatepark ramp without skates. i'm 5'3 and 1/2. (gotta count that 1/2). i was certain i was not going to make this one. but with a little help, i did and i'm still not sure how.

then there was the mud mile. i enjoyed the mud mile. it was a stretch of mounds of mud in-between pools of muddy water. you had to trek through the muddy water then climb a slippery and muddy mound up and over to another pool of muddy water and repeat the process. i attempted to help as this was an obstacle requiring help, but pulling up boys that are twice my size in slippery mud is quite the difficult task. i let the boys handle this one and patiently waited for david on top of each mound. while waiting, i found myself just playing in puddles of mud. i didn't have a care in the world. i was just enjoying that muddy and very messy moment. it was wonderful.

and last, but certainly not least was the electric shock therapy. 10,000 volts just hanging there waiting for you to run through. as soon as i saw david go down, i went down. electric shock therapy really shocks. the shocks weren't painful, but they were not pleasant. the shock-factor (hah, see what i did there ;) ) didn't help either. it's not exactly a feeling you can prepare for. it just happens. we crawled our way out of the last obstacle and successfully finished the race.

whether you attempt this with a team or not, you will not be alone. the camaraderie was pretty incredible. everyone helps one another out and it is much needed. even so, i couldn't have asked for a better teammate.

i psyched myself out for this. i didn't train. i would like to consider myself an in-shape person, but i couldn't tell ya the last time i ran over 4 miles. all in all, it wasn't as bad as i thought. i expected much worse. the obstacles are difficult but make the running and distance easier. it wasn't a walk in the park and i came out a muddy mess, but it was all worth it and i'm looking forward to the next one.

hope you enjoy our muddiful pictures below :)