Tough Mudder Part 1

Tough Mudder Sydney was an incredibly fun challenge!!

 

We started off clean and dry.  That feeling would not last!  For those of you (my mom) who wants to see some random person's Go Pro footage of the event, I found this 

 This was filmed on Saturday.  Anna and I ran it on Sunday (she also ran it on Saturday...she's nuts!).  If you can picture it, the course was even more torn up on Sunday and we were even dirtier, the pits deeper and more slippery and the whole thing just even more FUN on Sunday!

We crawled over, under and through everything you can imagine. Less than 1km in and we were up to our necks in mud so thick that it was possible to get stuck and not actually be touching the bottom...or the sides!  We were dragging each other through the pits (it was awesome).  Soon we were sliding in to ice water.  If being chest deep in it was not enough you then had to swim down and go under a barrier.  Most of the major organs in my body held a quick meeting and agreed that the end was near and that they needn't bother continuing for much longer.  When I erupted from the surface of the water gasping and spluttering, I was staring straight in to a camera lens.  That promises to be an excellent photo for all future driver's licenses and passports.  If any of you readers ever heads up a search party and they are looking for me, THAT is the photo that I want you to start with.

New to me in this event was a massive crawling obstacle called Cry Baby where they pump in tear gas in to a low chamber and you have to crawl through it with your lungs and eyes burning.  I should mention here that different to Spartan events, in Tough Mudder you can by-pass any obstacle that you feel you need to without penalty. The premise of the event is very different to Spartan. This is the pledge that we have to say at the start line.

For those of you, other than my mom, who watched the youtube video you saw that we had to throw ourselves at quite a few things.  In an obstacle called the Leap of Faith, we had to leap from a platform to a mud slicked cargo net and then climb up it.  In an obstacle called King of the Swingers we had to leap off of a(n even higher) platform to a trapeze and swing out to ring a bell.  In both cases you ended up in water if you fell.  In the case of the second one you were going in the water no matter what.

We crawled through tubes, under barbed wire, through something called the Birth Canal.  We crawl under a bladder full of fluid.  It is really, really heavy.  Of course we climbed huge walls that required human pyramids to be formed to get over them.  Anna and I had to take turns with the other on her back for the Soldier Carry, we climbed through the woods just because they were there.

In the middle of all of that we ran a rumoured 19 or so km.  I didn't wear my run watch for this.  I didn't bring my phone.  I knew from watching Saturday's race while volunteering at the event that the mud was going to be too much for either.

The very last obstacle is called Electro Shock Therapy.  This thing was AWFUL. Remember that in Australia we have 240 volts. Not 110. On Saturday I watched huge guys go from running to being face first in the mud after one zap. I watched people have to get pulled out.  I heard the zapping sounds of electricity on skin and heard people scream.  Anna, who is one of the badassiest mud runners I know DID NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT on Sunday while I wanted to strategize. I watched a lot of people bi-pass it.  I just couldn't walk around it.  I came here to do the race and I was going to do it.

You can see us at the start of the obstacle trying to figure out which route looked the least bad.

Here's a video of some big burly dudes going through before us. You can hear them get zapped. You can see them hit the deck quickly to get away from it.  You can see how badly they didn't want to get back up and take more of it.  This is what we had been watching. 

*shudder*

So with that, I went.  I knew that I was best to try to stay on my feet as much as possible and just get in and out as fast as I could: 

I turned around at the end and Anna was still psyching herself up for it.  The announcer saw her daughter in the crowd and we started cheering her on.  In the video I am running beside her (on the outside of the structure).  You can hear everyone cheering for her.  The vibe was awesome.

And with that muddy hug, we were done!  It took us a little over 3 hours and it was SO MUCH FUN!

I saw a lot of photographers along the course, so I will be adding a post in the coming days with those photos for those of you (other than my mother) who are interested.