Tough Mudder Arizona 2012

Well I did it. I am officially a Mudder. A Tough Mudder that is. This was a challenge I had looked into and wanted to do for some time. I really wanted to kill this course so I was working out and doing longer runs. But then the last three weeks my workouts were next to nothing worrying about my move. So I was pleasantly surprised to have done so well.

I have to see the MC for the race was very good. He kept us laughing with comments like, "if you find a fellow mudder, face down talking to the worm, make sure to signal for help". As well as he had us take a knee for a while while taking the pledge. When people kept getting up he told them back down. And , "if you can not even hold a knee you might as well not try this course". Then when it came time to start he was great at firing up the crowd. Lots of "Hor-rahs". Something about being part of a large group yelling those out got me inspired. I was also inspired by hearing the Eminem song that goes... "if you had one chance would you take it". Well this was it and I was going to take it. I know I felt pumped when it came time to start the race. And of course they hit us with Rocky song. Nice.

One of the interesting things about this years course. They found a new place to host it. The Mesa proving grounds. And because of this extra space they were able to add 2.5 more miles and 4 more obstacles. The MC was like, "When you are out there hitting the course what is another 2 miles". I did not catch that until after I had run. Just about a half marathon. I was able to complete the course and its 29 obstacles in 2 hours. Not bad.

The course was nicely done. The run portion was broken up nicely to lengths that were broken up by the obstacles. The first one was military crawl under barbed wire in the mud. Not too bad. But then it was onto the ice bath. A dumpster that was full of water and they were dumping tractor loads of ice into it. Like the water in Arizona in January was not cold enough. I canonballed into this one and instantly was in full body shock from the temperature of the water. You had to go completely underwater to get under the beam so I just powered through frantically trying to get out the other side. If I was not awake by now I sure as hell was.

The Berlin walls were tough. 12 foot high walls you need to get over. I did try and fail a few times until I got the idea of how to complete the obstacle. A learning process and using of brute strength until I found the way to conserve energy that I would need on other obstacles. Next came a sets of hurtles. One was jumping over large hail bails. The trick was you had to jump early since the edges were very unstable. You could try to jump off something that would crumb away on you causing you to fall into the trenches and have to climb out.

I was not happy with the next section. One of the mystery events was a mini version of the Electric Shock Therapy. I have to tell you it hurt. You are army crawling in water getting shocked. This can not be legal. Well it was a taste of more to come.

More running separated running over debris. Piled up asphalt could lead to rolling an ankle or getting cut up if not paying attention. Running through tires and over junk cars. Jumping into small pits of deep water that you had to crawl out of and over a mountain of dirt to do it again. Like 6 times in a row. Man the legs were so heavy after this. Eventually coming up on a mountain of hay you had to get up and over. More walls to climb. Plenty of those. Then finding an obstacle of stacked logs you had to go over and under. Running into the cargo net reminded me of playing at the Sea World play area with Julian so I had some experience.

The obstacles over water were tricky. I did not want to fall in and find myself in more freezing water. Crossing the balance beam seemed easy enough. But I did not count on it getting very shaky towards the center. Any movement got magnified. Not to mention a lady monitoring this obstacle kept saying "Don't Fall". Man does that mess with your head. Well I did not fall. :P. Another tricky one was the Monkey bar. Now holding up your weight and doing this is not that easy. Especially over a longer distance and have you hands wet and dusty was not enough. They had some of the bars loose so they would twist in your hand. They wanted people hitting the water. But with a nice steady pace I made it. This was not as bad as the 15 jump. I seem to get a little nervous around heights that have no safe barriers. So it took me a few seconds to get myself to jump into the neon green water.

The ending was the hardest. It was the main Electro Shock Therapy section. You have to run through it and see how far you go before the electricity shuts your muscles down and you go face first in the mud. Well I wanted to do it right so I committed to it and went strong. WOW it leveled me. It was WAY more painful then the first electro shock section. I was not expecting that. I was sure cussing up a storm. They were ready for this so there is a sign to watch your young kids in this area since there is a high probability there will be profanity being yelled out. I was one of them.

I do have to say I was disappointed with one thing. The one thing I was super jazzed about doing and probably the one thing I saw first off when looking at this challenge that made me want to do it right then and there. The "Running through FIRE". I told everyone I knew that I was going to do this crazy challenge that involved running through fire. :D And come to race day.... nothing. Not sure why they did not have it. I think they have strict laws on burns depending on state and location. So I know if Tough Mudder could have had FIRE they would have had FIRE. Well I guess I will have to run another one to get that part of it.

But I was happy that I experienced a longer course. That I did each and every obstacle correctly. I did them all myself since I was running solo but acted as a team when I helped those around me that needed the help. I put helping others above my course time and felt good about it. I was in good spirits and passing the smile along. Excellent experience.

I plan to do more of these. Maybe in costume next time. But ones in CA. TX and FL are on the radar.

Official Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo_StnQVGS0