Tough Mudder – Probably the toughest event on the planet

Part 5 – Arriving at Mt. Snow

We pulled into the Mountains’s ski resort area around 8:30 am and saw signs everywhere with big bold font saying “WELCOME MUDDERS”. We parked close to the main entrance. We found some bathrooms to relieve ourselves after a 4 hour drive and collected ourselves. Our wave didn’t start until 9:40 am, so we had a bit of time to register and prepare. We got our death waivers and got in line to register. If there is one thing I can speak very highly about, this event is extremely and very thoroughly organized. I had heard that it was and was not disappointed at all. With over 1,000 runners at our event, we were registered within 10 minutes. After handing our death waivers in, they gave us each our number. There was one volunteer to check you in and one with a large sharpie. The sign hanging up in between the volunteers said “We don’t care if you have to work tomorrow, you’re getting your # sharpied on your face.” After having this strange man write on my arm, leg and forehead, I met up with my team and we admired each other’s new markings. We walked back to the cars to collect our stuff and do last minute gear checks and black out our eyes.

We walked back into the area and walked around a little bit. Beyond the registration table was not just the starting and finishing lines, but a whole fair of things to see. Vendors from all kinds of sports and athletic brands were there giving free samples of stuff out to participants and spectators. We checked our bags in and did a quick keg toss before the race, NBD, tough mudder! We did one more bathroom run and then found my sister and two cousins who came to spectate. They laughed at us. The race hadn’t started and we were covered in sharpie and black paint.

Dave and I before the race. I drew the reddit symbol on his stomach. Notice he still has the camera.

The head MC at the starting line had a megaphone and started screaming for the 9:40 wave to get to the starting line. We said goodbye to our little fan club and went to the starting line.

You had to climb a wall just to get to the starting line.

At first we thought this was ridiculous but then considered what we were about to spend four hours doing and reconsidered that this wasn’t ridiculous at all. As 500 men and women filled this caged pit, a very fit, very spirited guy stood on a ladder under the starting gate. Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” began to blare, he got everyone in the pit chanting and cheering. His job is to get everyone pumped and psyched before they embark on this insane journey. After about five minutes of pure adrenaline rushing through the crowd, the MC got off his ladder and walked to the center of the crowd and told everyone to take a knee. The crowed lowered allowing him to gaze over everyone. The music stopped and he began to speak. He asked if any military was there running and about a dozen men stood up to receive loud cheers from everyone. The MC thanked them for their work and continued on. He talked about what we were doing there. This race is a lot of things, but primarily, it is a race to support soldiers wounded in action. This race is to test yourself, physically and mentally. He began to almost get angry about how we as a society don’t push ourselves anymore and nobody is pushing us. This day, this event was a challenge. How often do people challenge themselves like this anymore? Physically? Mentally? He talked about the philosophy of this event. It doesn’t matter if you finish first, middle or last, you finished something. If you can do this, you can do anything you set your mind to. He spoke about the camaraderie aspect. This whole challenge relates to life in the sense of you can’t do it on your own. You need others to help you, to push you, to motivate you. And in respect you do it for them.

He then returned to the front as the Star Spangled Banner blared and everyone, participants and spectators, silenced themselves to reflect on what he had just said. After that it got quiet and some eerie but inspiring music came on and he had everyone raise their right hand to say the pledge.

• I understand that Tough Mudder is not a race, but a challenge.
• I put team work and camraderie before my course time.
• I do not whine. KIDS WHINE.
• I help my fellow mudders complete the course.
• I overcome ALL fears.

My sister still teases me because I got pretty excited to say the pledge. This one year of waiting and working harder was about to pay off.

The three of us in the pit moments before the race started.

“Eye of the Tiger” came on and the MC’s mike belted out over it. 5…4…3…2…1…The whistle blew and it had begun.

Part 6 – Tough Mudder: Probably the toughest event on the planet

After the whistle blew, we tried to just take off, but with 500 people trying to rush out of the gate, we just kind of power walked out of it. But as everyone began to space out, the running began. Up. Straight up the mountain. We could see our turning point about a 1/10 of a mile up the mountain. Not bad. Everyone still on a high from the MC’s riveting speech, people cheered and pushed hard. We got to the turn and began to come back down. Picking up a little speed we circled right back to the other side of the starting gate to come up to our first obstacle.

the arctic enema – This was Dave’s biggest fear when it came to the obstacles. He was pissed when he found out it was the first one. This obstacle consists of a dumpster filled with 80,000 pounds of ice, a board in the middle and barbed wire hanging above it. The objective is to jump in, swim under the board and pull yourself out on the other side. I really underestimated this one. I thought it would be a chilly in and out. NOPE. The guy in front of me jumped and splashed back a little. I felt the melted ice and thought, “not that bad”. I stood up and cannon balled in. When I stood up in the dumpster and gathered my footing, something I could not imagine happened. My whole body was paralyzed. I literally couldn’t move any extremity. A surge of fear filled me up and in an instant, all my mental strength had to push me through it. I ducked under the board and suffered pry my body out of the ice. I reached the other end and pulled myself out of the ice. When I got to the ground I quickly remembered reading in an advice blog that you should do some push ups or jumping jacks after this obstacle to loosen the muscles up. I did a few jumping jacks and when Dave and Greg got out, we started to make moves. But I literally felt all my muscles weakened within the 15 seconds I had been in that dumpster. I shook it off and pushed on.

In pre-race discussions, we all had our “fears” about the race. Dave hated the ice. Greg wasn’t a fan of getting electrocuted. I did NOT want to run up the mountain. Especially with a bad toe from my PCC injury. After the first obstacle we walked up to a muddy hill with snow machines blowing at us. When we turned the corner of that path, we looked up. Straight up a black diamond ski trail. Time to run. Dave and Greg moved right along and I felt weak. Between the ice and my toe, it was as if I hadn’t trained at all for this race. Getting up the ski trail was, for me, the HARDEST part of the event. And that was expected. There wasn’t much sense of surprise when I turned that corner and looked up. After about a half hour, I had arrived at not the top, but the first water check point. I filled a small plastic cup and just threw it at my face. I started seeing signs that said “If you’re huffin and puffin now, you’re in trouble”. I felt a bit disheartened by this. At this point I just wanted to chop my toe off. The searing pressure was becoming a real nuisance on this journey. We picked up a light jog and came up to our next obstacle.

kiss of mud – This was about 40 feet of uphill mud which we had to crawl through under barbed wire. As the continuous waves of mudders loaded in, we joined. I finally felt useful. This obstacle is all triceps and finally the training came in handy. Resting on my forearms and letting my arms drag my weary body through the mud, I joined in the laughing and cheering of other mudders as we laughed at the hilarious situation that was us crawling in deep, wet, sticky, smelly mud for FUN. I got out first, pulled out Dave and Greg and a few others. Camaraderie gets much more important as the obstacles go on, I wanted to start early. After a few minutes of helping complete strangers, we let some others take our spots and moved along.

When we turned the corner, there was just more straight up. The steep incline just got worse and we literally found ourselves using our hands to pull ourselves up. After a few minutes of this misery, we finally arrived to the mountain summit. It wasn’t until after the race when I looked at the map and put it together, but we just ran up a mountain. I’ve been climbing mountains for years, but we literally just ran up one, soaking wet, freezing from ice and covered in mud. When we got to the top, our little fan club had taken the ski lift up and was waiting for us with other fans. My sister tossed me a bottle of Gatorade and looked at me a bit nervous. She asked if I was ok and I admitted I wasn’t sure. This was REALLY hard. We hadn’t even gotten to mile 3 of this grueling 10 mile venture and I was already worn as hell.

Early struggles

But despite feeling tired, I pulled out some mental strength and pushed forward. I gave her the bottle and a muddy hug, and we started running hard. As the trail began to level out and go downhill a bit, we finally started picking up speed. The rocky terrain of the summit allowed for decent footing and generous speed. We ran about a mile straight until we came up to the next obstacle.

trench warfare – while some obstacles have more thorough stories than others, this isn’t one. This was a underground trench filled in pitch black. There was mud in random spots that would splash up if you slipped in. The three of us went in the same tunnel and just laughed the whole way through. At the end, the dark tunnels spit us out into a deep pool of mud. They really don’t want you dry ever during the course of the race.

If you don’t laugh during this whole race, it is miserable. The race itself is a total punch in the face, but it’s fun. If you do it, HAVE FUN. Once you start taking it TOO seriously, the mental grit will knock you down and that’s when it becomes impossible. 

Trench Warfare – Crawl Under

We came upon the next water station. It seemed like we had come SO far, only mile 3. The next obstacle was going to be our first toughie.

berlin walls – These walls were about 8 feet high. The objective, get over two sets of them. I ran, jumped off Dave and Greg and pulled myself up. Next was Greg who leaped, took my hand and together we got him up. Last was Dave who jumped up and we helped him get to the top. We all just kind of jumped down. No use in being extraordinarily careful at this point. The next wall we used the same strategy. This time before Dave came up, a man and woman came over and asked if we could help her get up. Without question, we reached down. Dave and this man pushed her up, Greg and I pulled her up and she was so thankful. We all got up and went down together.

Berlin Walls

devil’s beard – The next obstacle was right around the corner. This one was just annoying. While a lot of the obstacles are a huge test of strength and endurance. Some are put in place to wear you down (This includes the beginning 2 mile run up the mountain which weens out about 30% of the runners). After the walls we came to see we were going back up the mountain. After the nice brisk run down a portion of the mountain, we were going back to the top. But this time wasn’t so casual as power walking up. There was about 50 feet of heavy cargo net laid out up the mountain. The point of this obstacle is to lift it over your head. So while you are going up the steep incline, you are pulling a heavy cargo net over your head.

Finishing this obstacle, this thought floated through our heads, we must be close to done. We were only just getting to the 4th mile and that was only the 5th obstacle. Moving forward was the only way to go. The next obstacle was one of the hardest, but definitely one of the most rewarding.

hold your wood – When we got back to the top of the summit, there was massive piles of huge logs. This obstacle objective, grab a hunk of tree, walk down the mountain and walk back up with it on your shoulder. I really prayed hard during this obstacle. With that chunk of awkward tree weighing down my shoulder, I was had “Our Father” on repeat in my head giving me strength. I got to the top to see the fan group, supportive as ever, as the three of us reached the top with this annoying tree trunks.

I carry logs up mountain for fun. No big deal.

We threw them into the big pile and our journey continued. Since we were at the summit again there was no where to go except down. And down we went. Running through the mountain’s ski slopes we felt a bit of energy kick in. As we free fell down we quickly came up to our next obstacle. Greg’s favorite. Electricity.

electric eel– When I told anyone about this race and explained that inevitable I would be electrocuted during it, they thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy. I wasn’t a huge fan of having 10,000 volts run through my body. But I wasn’t going to avoid it, and I certainly was not here to skip obstacles, neither were my teammates. So as we approached this one, we cursed that the time had come and took our places. What I hated about this one was that I got stuck behind a slower woman. While I respect everyone goes at their own pace, with electricity forcing its way through my body, I wasn’t up for going slow. This obstacle is probably a 30 foot long, 1 foot deep pool. You would get in and lay flat so you were completely in the water. But there were electrical wires that dangled about an inch or two above the surface of that water. So when you came up to breath or used any method of pushing your body forward, you were getting hit with wires. The first time I got hit with a shock, it went right into my lower back. People who had done the race before commented that getting shocked felt like getting punched with a sharp point at the center. This is exactly right. What they didn’t mention was that post shock, you were numb in that area. After a few minutes of struggling, I finally passed this woman and found my way to the end. I got out and pulled her out after me.

If you zoom in, you can see the wires above the water.

dong dangler – (funny names right?) A brisk run continuing down the mountain and we arrived at the next obstacle where there was massive back up. Usually getting to an obstacle, there was the few moments of wait time merely to collect yourself, but this was different. There were tons of mudders waiting to get through this one. This obstacle was over a small lake. There were probably a dozen plastic heavy duty ropes that were strung from one end to the other. The objective was to grab on, thrown your legs over it, and pull yourself across. Seems easy right? Sorry, nope. What was causing the back up was because of safety, they couldn’t let everyone go at their own pace because when people fell into the water they had to get cleared to the other side before another could continue forward. When we got up to the platform, Dave went first, I followed and then Greg. I couldn’t see them because I was focusing on keeping myself locked onto the rope, but I heard a splash and looked down. Dave was in the water. I pulled a bit further and as I felt myself beginning to slow down I let go. While this was the only obstacle the three of us “didn’t finish” it was worth it. Falling into the lake was so refreshing and definitely worth not wasting strength trying to hold on. Greg fell in about where I did and we met up on the other side.

cliff hanger – This was miserable. This was just a straight up cliff. We got on our hands and knees and crawled to the top. This was just no fun at all. Blah.

Another water station and some breath catching. We were feeling pretty good at this point. We were just under half way there and our team was filled with some positive vibes.

tired yet? – After our water break we headed up to the next trial. 50 yards of tires. High knees all the way. What made this obstacle not awful was the snow machines blowing on us. The cool ice slowly raining down on us felt quite refreshing.

spider web – As we came up from the tires, we turned the corner to see our fan club and a 30-40 foot high cargo net. We walked over to them and shared some muddy hugs, had a drink and got in line for the climb. This was one of the obstacles where camaraderie played a huge role. As we stepped up to the cargo nets, we were careful not to step on the fingers of people on the other side holding it down for upcoming climbers. What one might not realize upon looking at this obstacle is that the net is free. It just hangs from the top with no leverage at the bottom. So if you were to just start climbing it would swing back and forth. After climbing it, it was customary to take the place of someone else to weight it down so that climbers could have an easier go. My sister commented about how much she loved seeing complete strangers help one another. It was a nice site and something you kind of wished would happen more in life.

Climbing Up!

Holding down the net for the next wave of climbers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then proceeded to run. This was the first time in a little while that we just straight ran. Through the woods it was actually pretty beautiful. The nice trails were a relief for our muscles after so much climbing and such. As we came out of the woods, more uphill. EW. You could hear the groans of fellow mudders as we saw more straight up climbing. I remembered reading some guy’s blog on the event that said the hardest part of the whole thing was going up and down the mountain. I second this statement. The climb to the top led us to the next obstacle.

the ringer – This was an interesting obstacle, not particularly hard. The objective was to approach this custom built set up which involved two sets of two large heavy barrels hanging in the air. With some help, one would have to be pushed between the two barrels and then through the next two and then spit out into a big pool of mud. During this whole scene, considerably cold water poured out on top of everything and everyone to ensure you were soaked. It is hard to explain because it was considerably hard to fathom when we looked at it.

We started running afterward. We were approaching the next one when an older gentleman in a truck started lobbing bottles of water to each of the runners. He was just a funny guy having fun watching insane individuals run this thing. We shared a bottle, took some gulps of water and dumped the rest on our faces. Which was completely unnecessary as we approached the next trial.

walk the plank – This was my favorite obstacle. Though Dave might argue it was the worst. As we approached the obstacle and watched, we kind of starred for a moment. This was a 20ft high wall with ropes hanging down. We had to climb to the top and leap off into a lake. Once in the lake we had to swim around the wall back to shore. People were allowed to skip this one because of the considerable swimming skill needed. While I find it easy to swim, after running near 6 miles and climbing, crawling and swimming through other stuff, you are pretty tired and your body is pretty worn. But there was no way we weren’t going to fly off this thing. We climbed to the  top and waited for the lifeguards to give us the go. When we got to the top and looked at how high we were, it was a bit nerve racking. But I turned to Dave and said put the camera on because I wanted to back flip off. He laughed and said no way would I do it. I made sure the camera was rolling and pushed off and did an awesome flip off the wall into the water. I came to the surface and the cold water felt so refreshing. Greg and Dave were laughing at me and I pushed back and told them to jump. As I was watching them prepare to go, I looked over and noticed other guys with their Go Pro cameras in their hand. It quickly dawned on me that flying off this wall into the lake is probably enough pressure to push an elastic headband with a camera off your head. But before I could say anything I looked up and Dave was mid jump with the camera resting on top of his head. The lifeguards told us to keep swimming so I missed him hit the water. But when I climbed onto shore and spun around, his head was bare.

He hadn’t had the camera for 24 hours and the force of hitting the lake pushed it off. When he got to shore he called over a volunteer and explained it and all they said was you can’t dive in now. Come back later. After the race, he went to the information desk and they gave him a map to the lake. He went up and dove and never found it. Somewhere on Mt. Snow there is a Go Pro camera with my sweet back flip footage and it is lost forever. Though Dave was much more angry than I was. All I lost was some footage. He lost a $350 camera after owning it for 20 hours! 

The loss was frustrating and Dave ran ahead to blow of some steam and Greg and I slowed down to catch our breath. The next few obstacles weren’t too memorable. In about knee high mud we had to climb over and under knocked down trees. It was tough but not very eventful. Then we came to the next fun one. Another favorite of Greg’s. MORE ELECTRICITY.

dark lightning– This obstacle was actually kind of freighting. We walked up to see a bunker looking set up. It had barbed wire about 3 feet off the ground with signs that said start crawling. There were hanging curtains that we needed to crawl through before we could see what exactly we were crawling into. But once inside, we still couldn’t see. I have no concept of how long this distance was. We were in a pitch black room with water showering down on us and the loud sounds of lightning crackling all around. After 10 seconds in the dark a strobe light went off and we saw them, more dangling electric wires. What was somewhat terrifying about this was if you didn’t pay attention you might get one in the face. The crawl was a strategic one. We waited for the lightning to go off and when the light would shine in for a brief moment we would crawl as fast as we could avoiding wires. About 3/4 of the way through my ankle got shocked. This is where the numbness hurt me. I couldn’t use that ankle and had to employ my other extremities to work harder to get out of this thing.

Spectators could peek in, so my sister snapped this photo of Dave and I planning our strategy as quick as possible.

We crawled out, this obstacle took a huge toll on us. We were cut up and bloody and bruised. We did however see a sign saying mile 8. This was a big moment of hope that the end was near! We started running and saw ANOTHER FREAKING PATH UP THE MOUNTAIN. My sister who had a map shouted this was our last time going up it. Thank God. We pushed through and stopped at the top to catch our breath, trying to gather which of the obstacles we had left to do. We crossed through a path in the woods and saw our next challenge.

funky monkey – I enjoy pull ups. I was so excited for this rendition of the childhood activity of monkey bars. These were monkey bars that went up and down and hovered over a large pool of ice cold water. What few people know is that these bars are continuously greased with vegetable oil. So despite having gloves, getting a grip on this one was much easier said than done. However all that being said, all 3 of us got across. We were so proud of each other for not falling into the water. Especially as people climbed out of the pool saying it was freezing. We had a little bro hug and pushed on proud of the team.

Climbing on some monkey bars

We approached a water station and took a little bit of a longer breather. We only a 6 obstacles left and wanted to gain some energy. Drinking some water and talking about the monkey bars, we had high spirits and decided to push on.

berlin walls 2 – There are two sets of walls during the race. The first ones we did early on were 8 feet high. These were 12 feet. It didn’t seem like a big difference at first but as we walked up, we grimaced at the much bigger difference in height. Our strategy was the same as the first time. Though Dave needed a boost to get up to us. We moved through the two sets of walls and walked out. This one was very tough and took a lot out of us.

fire walker – A quick run through the woods brought us out to the fire run. This was running on very muddy ground, between two large sets of hale bales on fire with smoke everywhere. The trick to this was holding your breath. If you breathed at all, you were getting lungs full of smoke and going down into mud. This was pretty easy overall. The run through was not nearly as long as we thought it would be. Running through was just very hot. But keeping focused we got out quick.

twinkle toes + boa constrictor – Twinkle toes was a balancing beam over cold water which we all made it over without falling. Pretty easy. Boar constrictor was two large sets of tubing, one set going down into water, the other set coming up out of it, both set at about a 45 degree angle. I found this one tough because I have pretty broad shoulders and they rubbed against the sides of the tubing. I had to kick and push with my feet because my arms were pretty useless for this one. But after some consistent fidgeting I made it through. Dave and Greg laughed at me as I pushed out of the last tube. And as we got up seeing only two obstacles left, we grimaced at them.

everest – This is a 15 foot high half pipe slicked with vegetable oil with pool of water and mud before it. Objective is to get to the top by any means necessary. Again, a very proud moment for team rage face, we all made it up in one run. This is a famous obstacle for TM and is known for the camaraderie aspect. Along the top of the ramp are about 2 dozen mudders laying on their stomachs with their arms hanging down. As you run and jump and launch up the ramp, they grab and pull. A few guys helped me up first and then I helped the other two. We decided to stay up there and were helping for about 10 minutes. After watching some attempts to get up I was so thankful we made it up in one go because some guys would launch in a full sprint, leap over the mud pool and slip on the oily ramp to fall face first into a plexy glass ramp. All you could hear was the LOUD thud of their skulls against the ground. There was a woman who kept falling and me and a guy laying beside me told her to run to us. She did and we got her up and gave us both a peck on the cheek. Cute moment.

The three of us began our venture down from top and soon found ourselves facing the last obstacle.

ELECTRICSHOCK THERAPY

The last and most dreaded obstacle. A straight shot through 40 yards of dangling wires charged with 10,000 volts. Once we got through here, it was all done. Underneath the wires were pools of water and mud with small walls forcing you to jump into wires of all lengths.  We waited til it was clear and the three of us shared a moment. We knew this was it. We screamed a little OOH RAH and we were off. At this point I was only in my head. I had read that people get shocked on this one and just drop because of the pain. As I entered the electric field I realized something that I didn’t know before going into this. The wires collected on your body. So as you ran, they would drag up until they fell off.

Through the first pool, over the mound.

I started feeling the zaps. The adrenaline was so high at this point I wasn’t stopping. Months of training and anticipation lead to this moment.

Through the second pool and over the middle mound. I felt the wires collecting more and more on my chest and felt the hard shocks hitting me all over.

Through the last pool and a leap over the last mound to get out. I felt a shock hit me in the face as I came back to connect to the ground. And it was done. I through my hands in the air. I did it.

The little smudge on my face is a wire hitting my cheek.

Final moments of the race in beast mode

As the adrenaline cooled down I spun around to see Dave crawling out and Greg beside them. After watching the video later on, I saw that they had fallen in at the second pool and crawled out. I hugged Dave and we waited for Greg and had a team hug. We had started and finished together. All the pains of the race led to this great success.

After crossing the finish

lineWe walked through and some volunteers placed the Tough Mudder Orange Headband on each of us. We moved forward and got our runners shirts. Each of us grabbed a cup of water and scarfed down a banana. We then followed finisher tradition and picked up a beer each. We walked through to find our fan club all excited and we hugged and stood speechless after this whole ordeal. What a freaking day. We took pictures and showered under some cold hoses to get mud out. Though I didn’t get all the mud off for about 3 days. Dave went up the mountain to search for the camera so we said our goodbyes. I walked over to my cousin’s car and we loaded in. Slowly as the adrenaline began to fade, ALL THE PAIN SET IN. I was a hurting pup. Everything hurt. Literally parts of me I didn’t know existed hurt. I would soon learn that I was electrocuted between the legs so I was hurting there as well. I passed out in the car and they drove me to work. Yeah, I freaking went to work after all this insanity. I got there late and got smiles and thumbs up from friends. People asked about it and all I could really process at the time was, “it hurt, a lot”. I laid in bed that night with the sweet smile of satisfaction. Sure I was in pain, sure I was going to be struggling the next morning. But I did it. I accomplished something. Something that took both physical and mental strength. Something that took determination and will power. Something that I would never forget and something I would strive to accomplish again.

If you have read the entire story to this point. THANK YOU. It means a lot that you have followed my journey. When I taught the workshop on the race and it’s philosophy to students over the summer, their reactions were interesting and hilarious. A group of boys asked if I would do it with them when they were of age. A few said that the idea behind it was quite inspiring. One girl told her proctor she pretty much learned 23 ways to kill herself by listening to Mr. Frazier. I apologize to my friends and family who have heard about it way more than they may have liked. But as you can see it was very important to me. Thank you to them for listening to my stories, giving me support and believing in me when I didn’t.

Greg in beast mode

Dave in beast mode

Now equipped with mudder’s shirt and famous headband

My little sister and I

The three of us amazed we did it

TOUGH MUDDER!!!

Tough Mudder Part 1 – A year to get there

I have been wanting to write this blog post for just over a month now. I could have tried to write it during my time working at Stonehill, but I didn’t want to half ass it. I apologize now to my PCC friends who heard nothing but students screaming “TOUGH MUDDER” for the last 4 weeks of the program. I taught a workshop about the philosophy and training for the event and it lead to kids screaming it obnoxiously all summer. Regardless, it was a very significant event in my life that I won’t forget anytime soon and absolutely something worth writing about. From hearing about it a year ago to crossing the finish line, this was a process and challenge that really put me and my friends to the test. This is a long story, definitely worth telling, and I think worth hearing.

Part 1 – Discovering and Deciding

Last summer, a year ago, I received a message via Facebook chat from a close friend. It was a link with a comment that said, “Check this thing out. This is absolutely nuts.” I clicked the link which brought me to the Tough Mudder page on YouTube and watched the trailer for one of the events. I watched the muddy display of pain and struggle before me and was hooked. She was right, this looked insane. But I wanted in. My friends know I am not one to turn down a challenge any time soon. I picked up my phone and quickly called my oldest friend David Muir. I told him I was sending him  a link for a video to this event I just learned about and that we were going to do it. If anyone was crazy enough to join me in this insane venture, it was him. After about two minutes of hearing the faint sounds of the intense video through the phone, Dave laughed and just said, “YES”. At the time we were both working at Stonehill. We slowly started to spread the word around that we discovered this race and we were going to do it next summer. We found ourselves obsessed with training videos and occasionally did little spurts of training for it.

One day in particular we were at the beach swimming and drinking with friends and he looked at me and said, “Let’s run to the end of the beach, it’ll be good TM training.” I agreed. A belly full of beer, a three mile run, on a beach…not a good combination, nor a good start to the “training” we engaged in.

The summer ended and we both went back to school but both promised not to forget the race. As the Fall semester began, I spent a decent amount of time in the gym, but never focused on any specific race training. Winter break came before I knew it and we were out at a bar and after a catching up and reflecting on the fact that we were about to have our last semester, we talked about the summer. TM was brought up and we both quickly agreed that it was still definitely going to happen. We agreed that when we went back for spring semester, we would train hard so that by the time summer came, we would be in great shape to run the race. While in Ecuador, I became friends with two girls who ran track at Assumption. They gave me great advice for training to run. I got back to Assumption and ran for about three weeks. But as the semester went on, like every other semester, it became harder and time spent at the gym was limited.

A few days after graduation I called Dave. His was a week after mine so he was still engaging in senior week activities. I asked if he was serious about running the race. It was late at night and he was a bit drunk, but screamed yes into the phone. I could hear him screaming in the night air of his actual location that we were going to be “Tough Mudders soon enough”. About a week after his graduation, I called him and said we needed to register. It finally came time to decide. Were we going to do this? Commit to this insane event? After some back and forth, I got a phone call from a good friend from high school who we remained close to over the years named Greg Grillone. Dave called him and chatted and he was calling me to ask if he could run it with us. The three of us thought about it, talked it out and made our decision. We registered and we were officially, TEAM RAGE FACE. If you are an imgurian or redditor you will understand the reference. If not, it’s a comic strip. Time to train.

Part 2 – Training

I’ve been an avid gym goer for about four years now. But never have I trained as hard as I did. I did a lot of thorough research about the event. I read blogs, watched videos, analyzed obstacles. I probably over obsessed in preparing for the race a lot, but I wanted to be prepared. I was not in any way going to show up on event day and leave without finishing this thing. For the first two months of summer, I spent every day in the gym for about 3 or 4 hours. If I wasn’t lifting in the gym, I was running.

On top of the research that went into training for the race, I changed my diet to support myself for heavy lifts and long runs. I didn’t lose much weight in this time period, but I gained a lot of muscle.

SIDENOTE – When I get into talking about obstacles, I had little trouble with them because I had an immense amount of body strength to get through them, however I wish I ran more in the training period. 

The tough mudder training site recommends being able to a minimum of the following before running in the event.

• Run 5 miles
• 30 Push Ups
• 6 Pull Ups

That was it? After running this thing I can say, I’m glad I trained harder than that. But by the time I had to slow down my training I could run 5 miles and was plenty satisfied with it. After I finished a four week intensive weight training regime, I switched over to the tough mudder endurance training workout. This was a 50 minute workout that had me crawling out of the gym the first week of doing it. It was an interval based workout that rotated between hard cardio and hard strength training for 50 straight minutes.

IT. HURT.

But after a week, I could finally do it pretty decently. It still had me keeling over by the end, but I was definitely feeling prepared for the race.

Part 3 – Keeping fit at Stonehill

I was well aware that my job was going to be an interesting obstacle before the event even started. I had been training hard for two months and I was starting a 24/7 on call job two weeks before I would run this race. Would I still be able to train during the program? Would I go without any kind of training and just have to show up the day of and hope I was still at my peak condition?

My two weeks were interesting. Some students remembered from the year before that I would be running in it and were quickly interested in hearing updates. At PCC, it is pretty hard to keep something quiet if a student knows about it, so naturally within the first week, I had a lot of students asking about it. I tried to organize my days to force me into hard activity to keep my body conditioned. I kept in as much tough with Dave during the first two weeks and confided that I was nervous about the lack of training to which he responded, “a day at PCC is harder training that anything you could do in a gym.” Sad thing is, he was kind of right. But I kept positive and did well keeping active. Any spare time I had during the day I would work out in my room trying to just keep up.

In all my time of ruthless training, I was very cautious to not get hurt. I started the summer off boxing a lot and despite it only being against a heavy bag, I slowly strayed away from it to not get hurt. I was very aware of pains and aches and treated them thoroughly. But then the worst happened. My race was Sunday morning. It was the Wednesday before. The REC directors asked me the night before if I would be interested in hosting the proctor/student kickball game that afternoon. I agreed and showed up to a very popular event. We played for about an hour and a half and had a lot of fun. After our “at bat” we ran to the outfield and I hopped on first base. A few students went and then one walked up to the plate. The balled was released and  he gave it a light bunt right back to the pitcher. Keeping my foot on the base, I reached out to her and shouted for her to throw me the ball. With my eye on the prize, it happened, the most searing pain. In an instant, I fell to the ground. I didn’t see what happened. My boss explained it to me later.

The student was running to first base and saw that I was about to catch the ball and decided his best option was to throw his body at the base. In doing so he slid / fell / THREW HIS FREAKING BODY on my foot.

I quickly climbed to standing position to make sure I could, but it hurt. The pain just wouldn’t give up and I felt the blood drain from my face as the pressure built up. My boss who was playing with us ran over to me and asked if I needed the nurse. I nodded and hobbled to her golf cart. I put my name tag in my mouth and bit down until we were out of earshot from any students and just started screaming in pain. She said the second I fell she knew it had to have been painful. I went to the nurse and after taking my shoe off, blood was just draining from my toe and my nail was welling up. The nurse just shrugged and said, you are going to lose the nail, just a matter of time. I quickly snapped back that I was running a 10-mile military obstacle course in 4 days and “a matter of time” wasn’t going to be good enough. After some back and forth, I went to the ER where I had a hole drilled in my toe to drain the blood so I could run without pressure.

I called Dave to tell him the story and he asked if I could run still, I said I didn’t care if I had to walk, I was finishing this race.

I returned a bit disheartened. All this time training and it seemed like it might all go to waste because of this accident. But I still tried to stay positive. Two days later the kids were packing up to leave class when my fellow intern screamed out loud that there was one more thing to do before the weekend. I had no idea what she was talking about and out of her bag she pulled a big card signed by all my students.

A card from my fellow intern and wonderful students.

Thank you Ms. Grab and company!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It definitely cheered me up after a disheartening week. I felt good and ready. That night I went to a bonfire at a friend’s house. Dave was there and as we left to go home and get a good night sleep before this crazy adventure, our friends hugged us, wished us luck and begged us to not die and come home safe. We said goodnight. The next day, the adventure would begin.

Part 4 – Getting to Tough Mudder

I awoke the next morning around 10 am. Filled with nerves, I double checked I had all my gear.

• Waterproof under armor shirt
• Light weight shorts
• Running shoes
• Gloves
• Energy drink
• Protein bar

Check, check, check, I was good. I printed off my team’s death waivers and confirmation papers, kissed my mom and sister goodbye and drove off. I pulled into Dave’s driveway around 11 am. I walked in and he looked off. He was flustered trying to get his gear together. I stood in his kitchen with his girlfriend Krystal who would be joining us and asked if he was alright and she said he seemed a bit nervous. Could I blame him? I had his freaking DEATH WAIVER in my car. We packed up his big van and headed out. We stopped for coffee and he admitted to the two of us that he felt like puking and just wanted to get there. We then stopped at Best Buy.

The reason we were at Best Buy was so Dave could buy his camera. This is a story that goes on through the rest of the post, but I’ll say now, it doesn’t end well. The camera was a Go PRO, a head-cam which videos what you see. With insurance, this thing cost $350. It was a really cool gadget. Lightweight and it shot HD video. 

We got back on the road and it was pretty smooth seas. We listened to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on audio tape on the way up. Everything was chill and fun until about half way up.

About a month previous to this, I asked if he was interested in getting a motel across from the mountain. It was going to cost extra money but was a ten minute drive from the base of the mountain where the race would start. When Greg had decided to join our team, the motel idea was dismissed because Greg lives in Vermont. I asked how far he lived from Mt. Snow and they assured only about 45 minutes. While I didn’t want to wake up too early on race day, this seemed reasonable.

As we continued driving, I said I was going to map out the next day’s drive to see what we were looking at for directions. I plugged in Greg’s address and Mt. Snow’s…

“No, that can’t be right…Dave, it says Greg’s apartment is 4 and a half hours from the mountain…I must have entered something wrong, let me try again…um, still 4 hours.”

Dave and I in a quick panic decided to call Greg.

“GREG, hi, we pulled up directions to the MT. from your house and it says 4 hours…that’s wrong? Can you check it?”

I listened to Greg’s increasingly heavy breathing as I heard him typing into his own map quest the two addresses and after a few moments just heard, “FUCK!” He quickly started apologizing. He was convinced it was under an hour. I hung up and looked at Dave. We were both letting it sync in that we would be waking up at 4 am to make it to the race on time. Absolutely. GROSS. After a few hours, we arrived to Greg’s apartment right outside Burlington, VT. He showed us around and we walked around the city for a little while. We then feasted on a big pasta dinner, as is customary the night before any big race. I had gotten a hair cut a few weeks before the race and decided to get a mohawk in good fun for the race. I brought my clippers and sure enough, Dave and Greg wanted hawks too. So I cut their hair and we passed out around 10pm. Before we knew it, the alarms were going off and it was time to leave. 

Hawks at 4am. From left to right, Dave, me and Greg in the apartment before leaving for Mt. Snow

We ate some light breakfast, loaded our bags, piled into the cars and we were off. There really is NOBODY on the road at 4am. We flew down to southern Vermont  and after some dirt roads and questionably sketchy towns, we arrived at Mt. Snow.

If this doesn’t tug at your heart, tear up your eyes or make you straight up cry, that is very surprising.

I’ve written before that on July 15 (8 days) I will be participating in the New England Tough Mudder challenge. As the date for the event grows closer and closer, my nerves have been building up. Every day I have been reading blogs, stories, tips and tricks to the event trying to plan out my strategy to the event. TM has a YouTube channel which features videos focusing on different events as well as personal videos showing journeys and advice for future mudders. When I was scrolling through videos this evening, I came across one that was labeled great motivational video. I played it and was stunned at how inspired I was. It consisted of different quotes and one that got me was the following,

“Somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for someone to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”

It is something so true. I thought about how unfair life is. Thought about how many times I have actually actually been hit. And its true, no amount of physical pain comes close to the strikes life can dole out. There are lots of things that are so unfair and every time you stand back up from them, you accomplish something. After I watched this video I just wanted to run to the gym and have a great workout, but something else caught my eye. It was a video entitled “Never Ever, Ever, Give Up”. I watched it twice, the first time I held back tears, the second time, I let them go. This is the video and while it is something that happened when my generation was very young, its message is truly timeless.

Something I like to say is that I always choose to fall back on my faith. I do. Life can be very bearable when we are letting God carry the things that are bigger than us. I believe this message speaks for itself.

If you ever feel alone. Feel abandoned. Feel left hanging. If you feel tired, feel lost, feel disappointed. Perhaps watch this video for a little bit of motivation. We don’t need to look for someone to blame or for an excuse. We just need to get up. That is what makes us stronger. It is what makes us the best version of our self.

People aren’t perfect. Life isn’t fair. Sometimes we fall down. But like the first quote says, it is how we stand up from getting hit down that tells us who we are. But when we fall the hardest, there is someone who forgives, does not judge, picks up and helps us cross the finish line every time. I believe he will be there to help me cross mine, every time.