After a small downhill and then lateral mountain trot that included a sign warning us to sign on trail or we'd be devoured by velociraptors, we reached Hold your Wood. A huge pile of lumber of varying sizes lay in front of us. Team logs, individual size, and in between were all there. I almost convinced Jamie she could only handle carrying a piece of bark, but she stepped up and got one of the individual size logs. We then proceeded to walk up, do a 180, and walk back down what I think was the mountain's bunny hill. It wasn't easy, but at the same time, it provided my lungs a much needed rest.
Obstalce 7 - Funky Monkey
After we hit the first watering hole (and Jamie picked up these gross gelatin bars that we ate later,) we came to the first cool obstacle. Monkey bars over a pit of muddy, cold, torso deep water. While the monkey bars were not greased, they were metal dowels fitted into holes that were too big for them, so they freely rotated. The difficulty of this obstacle is hard to imagine because it just sounds like monkey bars, but the rotating factor made it far more difficult than it sounds. As you reached forward for the next bar, the one you are holding rotates your palm upward, putting much more stress on your grip. Add in the fact that the monkey bars were sloped up until the middle where they sloped back down, and there is just enough change to make things interesting. Jamie made it to somewhere between 1 and 5 monkey bars and then fell in. I made it all the way to the top of the upslope, then started to skip bars after the 3rd bar on the downslope because it was easy. We jogged a little trek of woods to our next obstacle, but it was a really cold jog. I don't remember if it was because we were in the shade, or because I was soaking wet from the drop off the monkey bars into the water. Turns out it wasn't as easy as I thought.
Obstacle 8 - Twinkle Toes
The next obstacle was pretty cool. Two 2x4's were nailed together to act as a balance beam about 4 feet over a pit of, you guessed it, muddy cold water. The beams were probably 50 feet long or so, and the next participant could begin the beam as close to the person in front of them as they wanted. The thing is, wood can be pretty flexible in the middle when its held in place at either end of a 50 foot distance, so the balance beam actually tremored like a sound wave the entire time you walked across. Jamie and I both made it across unscathed, however. As we were about halfway, the Tough Mudder employee yelled into his megaphone "Nobody with a cat on their shirt has fallen in the water yet today! Don't be the first!"
Obstacle 9 - Chernobyl Jacuzzi
Just a short distance ahead of us was easily the most painful obstacle of the day. Three dumpsters were in front of us - green, blue, and orange liquid-filled dumpsters. These are the really long, deep dumpsters that sit in driveways and fill up with dry wall and construction waste during a house remodeling, not the kind that sit behind PF Chang's and collect ungodly amounts of old fried rice and and countless grams of saturated fat. Each dumpster was full of water and a mountain of empty plastic ice bags was noticeable on the left. There was a ton of ice in each one. Halfway down the length of the dumpster was a wooden particle board that you were forced to go underneath to advance. A big yell, and I jumped fully underwater, swam under the board, and met what was on the other side - two and a half feet of ice cubes on the top half of 5 foot deep water. I would say I coulnd't have gotten out of the water fast enough, but I was instantly so cold that I was having trouble opening my hands and moving my elbows and knees regularly. Jamie needed some serious help climbing out of this one because she felt exactly the same way. Oh, and my privates disappeared for the next two hours.
Obstalce 10 - Spider's Web
Directly after the ball-shrinker obstacle, we got to the loose cargo not climb over. This was probably 15 feet or so high, and was the first instance of serious teamwork between all mudders. The participants on the other side grab hold of a piece of the net, then lay back against the ground in order to keep the net stable and stop it from swinging while the people behind climbed over. They did this for the entire width of the net - about 5 climbers could climb comfortably next to one another at a time. After they get over, the climber becomes the holder and the holder moves along the race. Nothing too fancy here, just your standard cargo net climb-over.
Obstacle 11 - The Log Bog Jog
This boiled down to a jog through the trees on a muddy trail. Granted, a typical trail in the woods doesn't have felled trees intentionally strewn along the path, but still, this was a welcome break. We started to jog a bit here and felt comfortable picking our pace back up. This is where it dawned on me that even though castration by low temperatures was painful, the sudden constriction of all my blood vessels and the ensuing pain gave me a rush of adrenaline that, once my extremities' temperature went back up, served as a great wake-up call and got my mind back on track - I was going to power through the race.
Obstacle 12 - Greased Lightening
This is where my memory starts to get a little hazy - I know we did all these obstacles in succession, but I don't remember the exact order. In this case, I deferred to the map on the tough mudder website, which differed from the actual course slightly. Anywho, greased lightening was cool. I let Jamie go first, because naturally I wanted to slide right behind her and completely collide. So about halfway down the slide I caught up with her. Then I kicked her forward, giving her a turbo boost into the water pit below us. Then karma launched some dude straight into my back in the pool, so we all came out of it even.
Does kicking a girl in the back make me happy? Maybe, but it was for charity.
Obstacle 13 - Boa Constrictor
A short distance away from greased lightening was the Boa Constrictor. This was a 30 to 40 foot tube about 2.5 feet in diameter that was sloped downhill into cold muddy water pit with barbed wire above. The water pit was maybe 1 or 2 feet deep and about 10 feet in distance. On the other side was another one of the 2.5 foot-diameter tubes that went upwards. This would pose a claustraphobia nightmare for some, doubled by the fact that being all wet made it difficult to grab a hold of anything and pull yourself through the tunnel. An old fashioned shoulder-blade shimmy got me through the tubes most efficiently.
Obstacle 14 - Underwater Tunnels
This was a somewhat misleading title. It was more like Obstacle 13 - Cold, Muddy, Gross-ass Water with Logs and Barbed Wire So Close to the Surface that You Have to Submerge Your Head Four Times to Get Across but Can't Go Over the Logs Becuase Remember I Said Barbed Wire? But hey, if they want to call them tunnels, they can have their nomenclature and eat it too. By this point in the race, neither of us cared if we were wet or muddy or anything else. Our legs were exausted from the hills, and we were thrilled to be doing fun challenges that didn't require climbing a damn mountain.
Naive mudders heading towards a death march. I'm the white speck in the middle.
Obstacle 15 - Death March
Talk about shattered dreams. Just as we thought we had pulled out of the uphill hikes, this rears its head and gives us a swift kick in the teeth. When we look up, we can see a trail of mudders coming down the left side of the trail, so we know we're heading up a similar sized slope as the 2nd one we climbed. Trying to keep spirits high, I started playing would you rather with Jamie, and also "worst imaginary job at tough mudder." We couldn't decide if we would rather have a pencil sharpener nose or a ketchup dispensing belly button, and concluded that the worst imaginary job at Tough Mudder was the Push Lawnmower Ski Slope Brush Landscaper. So we get to the top of this hill, and the mudders coming down are shouting encouraging things - "you're halfway there, it's almost over." So we are feeling good the race is going well and we're halfway there. Then we come around the trees at the top of the hill, and it's not the top of the hill at all - we were literally only half way up the mountain. Needless to say, morale plumetted, and my quads and calves continued to be en fuego.
Making it to the top of that march was a liberating feeling.
Obstacle 16 - Kiss of Mud
After probably a 40 minute climb up this godforsaken ski slope, we reached our first bottleneck of the day. A billiondy people waited in line for the kiss of mud - a 50 foot crawl through thick mud under barbed wire 2 feet off the ground. This was not an ideal finish to the top of the mountain, but on the other side I could see an aid station. I was so ready for water and a banana I can't even describe it. Once we got through the obstacle (the worst part of which was the havoc the rocks and hard cold mud wreaked on my elbows and knees) and the aid station, we had a solid mile to two miles of jogging. There was a great view along the ridge we ran across that overlooked the mountains and the foliage. What a great view spoiled by my general disdain for exercise at the time. And those selfish people out on their ledges in dry warm clothes and cold, full beers...
Obstacle 17 - Log Jammin'
After a little romp through the golf course - well mostly the cart path - we made it to a series of up and over logs. At this point, the continuous use of my legs was really starting to get to me. The tightness in my quads was really beginning to go the way of cramps more than fatigue, and as a swimmer with my fair share of calf and foot cramp experience, I knew how terrible muscle cramps can be when all you need to do is use that exact muscle. This obstacle was easy, but my mind was starting to wonder if I'd have to stop and take a rest.
Obstacle 18 - Haybale Climb-Over
Not too far ahead of the Log Jammin' was a huge hay bale pile-up. It was probably 15 feet high, and was slightly pyramid shaped. For whatever reason, there was a massive bottleneck at this obstacle as well. This was good and bad. Pro: I got a chance to rest my legs. Con: My legs had time to rest and they cooled off. When we both got over with no big problem, we started back to jogging. This golf course, like any, was full of small distance, high slope changes in elevation. These elevation changes were what were causing me so much quad pain. I hit my first quad cramp right here, and was forced to stop and stretch it out for a bit. With some walking, I made it through the next half mile to the next aid station. The dagger before the aid station was small, but I was crumbling fast. The hill was the same slope and distance as about two single-story staircases, but this was enough to make me start cramping again. At this aid station, I knelt down, sat back on my feet, and really worked on stretching my quads. During this, I house a banana and a bottle of water in about 30 seconds. Then it was back to tough muddin' it, because the show must go on...
Riveting conclusion coming soon.
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