Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Tough Mudder

Welcome to the Tough Mudder.... 12 miles of mud, water, ropes, smoke, rocks, more mud, barbed wire, more ropes, walls, three levels of hay bales, more water and mud (about 19 crazy obstacles total)... And I did it all for fun!!

A few months ago, my friend Linda talked a bunch of us BCS Fitness girls to join her in this crazy thing. At first, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I thought I was in pretty good shape. As the time got closer, I started to do my research.... good cow! Well, part of me was pretty excited. The other part was completely terrified. Our one and only goal was to finish... oh, and have fun. That's what's great about the Tough Mudder ~ it's not a race, it's not timed or judged. You just have to finish.

So, on Saturday October 8th at 9:40am.... we signed our Death Waivers and off we went. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but also one of the funnest!!


Here are my teammates... Chalyce, Linda, April and Abbie. Love these girls!

Our first obstacle.... don't waste any time getting down and dirty!


This one was pretty scary. First you had to climb this massive wall to get to the top. And then at the top there was a 20 foot jump down into nasty water. You really didn't have time to hesitate. Just jump.


These are called the Berlin Walls. There were about 9 total... this was one of the shorter ones. We had to recruit some big strong guys to help us over the taller ones. This took a lot of team work and arm strength.


You can't tell in the picture, but this is ice water. They had trucks dumping in ice to keep it freezing cold. It was one of the first few obstacles... definitely took my breath away. I couldn't wait to get out of that water!


Teamwork at it's best.


It may look like I'm having loads of fun at the beginning of this one. By the end, I was ready to cry. Those are rocks of all shapes and sizes that we're crawling over. My knees and elbows were in so much pain. But, you couldn't rest... you see all those people waiting behind us? Definitely don't want to look like a sissy.



I can't describe to you how nasty this water was. It was so gross and stunk so bad. We had to step over cow manure in order to get in. There were even dead fish floating around us. And the taste it left in your mouth after you had to go under in it.... yuck. But, towards the last half (oh, 6 miles or so) we had to carry logs and sludge through thick mud (we don't have pictures of it because it was so far in the back Daniel didn't make it there)... we were so happy to see that nasty stinky water.




Meet Mt Everest.... we were so worried about making it up this sucker. Daniel said that it normally took people a dozen tries to get up. I'm proud to say that we all got up on our first try. Luckily there were plenty of guys there to help us up.


I twisted my ankle on these hay bales. I heard it pop. I could still put pressure on it, but couldn't run. I had to walk the last three miles and I had to skip a few of the last obstacles. I was pretty frustrated, but glad I could still finish.


This is the Electroshock.... All of those wires are charged. We had to run through them while running through a foot of mud and water. Just glad none of us fell. It was the last obstacle... the finish was only feet behind it. By this point, we were all just ready to finish this thing.


So very happy to be done! Thanks Linda, Abbie, April and Chalyce.... I had a blast! Let's do it again in March!