Tough Mudder Arizona Feb 23rd 2013

At the beginning of the race I met a guy that was running and had been parked next to me in the parking lot We were in our cars warming up. He told me he was going to run earlier than his scheduled start time and if I wanted to join them. Well there was only 5 minutes till the start so I had to say no but I would see him out there. The reason was two fold. One I have a pre-race ritual that I always do. It involves warming up, stretching out, lightening the load and getting in the zone. The other is that the MC for the Tough Mudder races is the BEST MC I have ever had at any race. And I have be doing races since the mid 90's so that does say alot. He is so inspirational and funny and just gets me fired up and ready to go. And his speech takes most of the time between waves and I did not want to miss it.

Oh man getting zapped by electricity on the Electric Eel obstacle is brutal. They had the low crawl with the wires hanging down. I mean if you grab the side of the pool getting ready to go in you can already feel light shocks. So I take a moment and go for it. Feels like the shocks are getting more intense as you go along. Now I had thrown out my back in Dec. I mean pretty bad. Right at the base of the spine. It was good enough to run today but the shocks seemed to be concentrate right on that spot. The muscle spasms were getting more and more intense there just and towards the degree that took me out. I had to get out quick. So I did what I could to hurry up. I had to lay on the ground a few seconds before I got up. WOW that hurt. But thinking about it now my back feels great. I wonder if it helped. That would be amazing. I need to get shocked more often.

As far as eating I got up at 5am and had a big peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich on wheat bread. I wanted time to digest. I also had lots of water. About an hour before the race, at 8:40am, I had two bananas and Gatorade. During the race I had about half a cup of water every time I past check points. I also had a half a banana and some gummy gel bites they had. All of that helped me for sure as far as nutrition.

Part of the experience of the race is to help others. I sure did what I could without slowing me down. Everyone I passed I would say something nice. Looking good, nice pace, keep it going, way to go, etc. I also made sure to talk to all those that were walking. I told them to keep moving if even just doing a light jog. Or to keep running just a little bit longer to the obstacle and then stop. And it got everyone moving again. Felt good about that. No matter how tired I was I would smile and be chatty.  The other big thing was that after I finished the race I grabbed my camera to take some photos. I was over at the Everest obstacle. The Go Daddy team was rolling through. Everyone made it up and over except one guys. He was sure trying. After watching him fail 6 time I moved over so I could talk to him. Talk him up. I was not going to let this guy quit. Why, because he had this obstacle, a very very short jog and then the final Electro shock therapy obstacle. He had come so far to fail now. Everyone standing around could feel his pain every time he missed. And would be cheering him on. I gave him some pointers. I fired him up. He could not let himself down or his team. On, what must have been his 9 attempt, and with the cheers of everyone around him as well as having his team up top trying to catch him, he made it. He stood up with hands in the air and absolutely everyone cheering I am sure was an amazing achievement and experience for him. He had heart. I tracked him down at the end of the race and congratulated him. He earned his orange head ban today, that is for damn sure. I gave him a fist bump and thanked me fore believing in him and helping him finish. I felt amazing about that.

Not as many costumes I saw this year. I did like the where is waldo group. One of the cool ones was what looked to be like a Crocodile Hunter look. And he had this huge stuffed crocodile around his neck. He ran it the whole way with it. Pretty fun.

Love the location. I sure hope they do not change it. The Mesa Arizona proving grounds. Plenty of space for everything. Parking very close by. Sweet. Lots of area and mixed terrain. They do not have to clean it up just leave it with what ever happened over the year since we were last there and have us run over it.Only thing that would be nicer would be to have more natural water hazards. Guess i will have to do the SoCal one for that. Or maybe Florida.

The best part of it all was that I managed to complete the race with no cramping. The first two must have been too much or not the right nutrition that had me locking up with about 3 miles to go. This time no. So I did something right. Must have been running about 5 days a week for 45 minutes for the 3 weeks before the race. Thanks to my little man/coach/running buddy for being there for me. For rolling in the stroller and keeping dadda company while he trained. I got to exercise and still bond with my son. I can not tell you how amazing that was.

So I started at 8:40am. I got out in front and no other person from my group passed me. In fact no one passed me. I passed many many people. Even caught up to the 8:20 and 8:00 waves. I found a couple I talked to in the morning. They were a bit upset I caught them when they had a 20 minute head start. I finished at 10:35am. So that is 1 hour and 55 minutes. Now, if I remember correctly, I finished about 2 hours and 20 mins last year. Wow.

Official Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z17cd_Lgl2o

See you next year. 


My Second Tough Mudder:
http://mudsweatpride.blogspot.com/2013/03/tough-mudder-socal-1-feb-2012.html