6
October 2012
Paige,
Texas at Cross Creek Cycle Park
Start
time: 0945
Temperature:
70's and cloudy
Team:
Eve and Seth Switzer, Sean Miller
Following
the Dallas Tough Mudder in March, it didn't take long for Seth and
Sean to register for another Tough Mudder event 7 months later near
Austin. I really didn't think the Dallas TM was that bad so I agreed
to do another event with them. I had a few goals right off the bat
that contributed to the decision to do another one: (1) Attempt
every obstacle – I had skipped 3 obstacles at the Dallas TM for
lack of arm strength; (2) beat our previous time of over 5 hours and
45 minutes; (3) get through without cramping problems that slowed us
down.
About
3 months prior to TM Austin, I started P90X again to primarily work
on my core and arm strength. I sprinkled in a few short 3-4 mile
runs a couple of times a week. A few weeks before the event, I
increased my mileage and dropped the plyometric, yoga, and leg/back
workouts in favor of longer runs and continued doing the
arm/shoulder/back/triceps workouts. My last full week of workouts
prior to TMA included arms/shoulder/back/triceps workouts, two 5 mile
runs and then an 8 mile run the Saturday before. I was definitely
more prepared for TMA this time around and I do think it paid off.
I
also did a few other things differently this time. I ordered Mad
Grip Pro Palm Knuckler gloves for us after reading about them online
(small for Seth and extra small for me). I designed fast dry tech
shirts (gray) for us on Cafe Press that said “Train, Suffer,
Repeat....Tough Mudder 2012” on the front in orange. We received a
lot of nice compliments for our shirts and it made it clear that we
were a team. I wore compression sleeves on my legs to help my calves. Seth
also bought a new pair of trail shoes. To help combat cramping, I
bought a bunch of energy gel and Gu to take in my Spibelt. We made a
reservation at the Hilton Austin Airport through the TM website for 2
nights – it was too far to try and drive back home the same day
again. In the car, we packed extra plastic bags, a couple of trash
bags, a bunch of towels, an old bed sheet, and a roll of paper
towels. Seth had also bought 2 portable sun showers which were,
essentially, large bags to hold water to hang outside where the water
would get warmed by the sun and could run through tubes with a
spigot. These proved particularly essential to avoid having to sit
in mud and grime in the car on the way back to the hotel.
We
got to Austin at around 10 pm on Friday night after a nice dinner
stop at the Capital Grille in Fort Worth. We ate ourselves silly all
in the name of carb loading. The following morning we got up at just
before 6 am. I was wearing much the same as what I had worn in
Dallas: running bra, a long-sleeved black tech shirt, our gray short
sleeve tech shirt that I had ordered, a pair of calf length running
tights, compression leggings, an old pair of running shoes, quick dri
socks, Timex Triathlon watch, and a head band that said “Will run
for beer and wine”. I took off my rings and left them in the hotel
room.
The
hotel provided a breakfast buffet to all TM participants at 6 am:
scrambled eggs, potatoes, biscuits, bacon, fruit, coffee, juice, etc.
Unfortunately, I was still pretty full from dinner the night before
but still shoveled in some eggs, potato, and biscuit knowing that I
was going to need the fuel. After a cup of coffee and a quick
bathroom stop, we headed out to the Cross Creek Cycle Park which was
about 40 miles from the hotel. After our experience in Dallas, where
we waited in line to park for almost 2 hours, we headed out to the
cycle park around 7 for our 9:45 am start, and were pleasantly
surprised to find that the traffic wasn't bad at all. After paying
our $10 to park, we were directed to a spot that wasn't nearly as far
from the start as we were in Dallas.
After
easily checking in with our “death waivers” and IDs, getting our
packets (wrist bands, race bib, and safety pins), and getting our
foreheads and other body parts marked with our race numbers, we
easily found Sean, our 3rd team member. Following one more bathroom
run, we had plenty of time before our start wave so we took our time
putting on our bibs, spraying on some sun screen, tying and double
tying our shoes, and donning our wrist bands (one for beer and one
for bag check). I also wore my Timex Triathlon watch this time to
keep track of our time. We stopped for some “before” pictures
and then dropped our bags off.
In my backpack, I had a change of
shoes (Teva sandals), a pair of shorts, a bra, scrub top, and
underwear. I was already wearing an “old” pair of underwear
knowing that it wouldn't make it out alive after this event and the
last one we did where I had, unfortunately, worn a brand new pair of
underwear. Silly, I know, but I really hadn't thought of that the
last time.
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I
had reviewed the course map from the TM site but knew, this time
around, to take the map and list of obstacles with a grain of salt.
The Dallas TM map had not been exactly accurate – the obstacles
were no where near the order they were on the map and there were some
obstacles that were not on the list and others that were on the map
but weren't at the event. I had a handful of obstacles that were
particularly worrisome to me. I don't like to swim – not that I
can't swim, just that it's not my favorite thing to do. I was also
worried about my contacts and had an extra pair tucked into the back
pocket of my running tights as I had in Dallas. The under water
obstacles (walk the plank, arctic enema, and underwater
tunnels/barrels) were particularly concerning to me along with, of
course, the obstacles that involved electricity. I had skipped 3
obstacles in Dallas: walk the plank (no arm strength to make the
climb up to the platform much less swim my way out), electric eel (no
arm strength to crawl), and Funky Monkey (again, no more arm strength
left). In retrospect, I could have incorporated more swimming and
diving into my work outs but, in the end, it really wasn't as bad as
I thought it might be....I suspected as much – it really was just a
mental thing. 
After
a bit of running, we reached our first obstacle, the Kiss
of Mud.
I shouldn't have turned my Spibelt around to the back because it got
snagged several times on the barbed wire. When we reached the
obstacle, everyone was crowding along the left side and waiting to go
under – the right 1/3 of the obstacle had empty lanes so we decided
to go to the right. The first half of the obstacle was dry and I'm
sure this is where I picked up a few of my bruises from the rocks and
dirt. The 2nd half of the obstacle was muddy and much easier to
crawl/glide through. Tip
#1 –
choose wisely – go down the lane that really is muddy and not dry.
Not
far from the Kiss of Mud was the 2nd obstacle and I think I was just
a bit relieved that it was the Arctic
Enema already
- one of the obstacles I had been worried about. We saw the truck
that was dumping ice into the water but I never saw actual ice cubes
in the water – not like the pictures you see on the TM site. This
time, we had to crawl under barbed wire before getting into the
water. Don't get me wrong, it really was cold but I'm glad it wasn't
a true ice bath. I'm world-famous for being perpetually cold but I
must have warmed up quite a bit during the run because I didn't
really think it was as cold as some others did. Seth said the cold
took his breath away and he couldn't catch his breath when he came up
on the other side of the board. Maybe I was too preoccupied with not
losing my contacts that I didn't pay any attention to my breathing or
the cold. I had also lost my headband somewhere and regretted not
remembering to take it off before doing this obstacle. In Dallas,
the first under water obstacle was the tunnel/barrel swim and I had
lost my headband going under the first barrel but was able to swim
over and retrieve it before finishing the rest of the barrels. Hair
flopping around my face drove me nuts for the rest of the event and I
looked forward to the wet/muddy areas just so I could slick my hair
back and get it out of my face. Mud worked much better for this
purpose than water did, by the way.
It seems like we did a LOT more running during this event than we did in Dallas. Before we knew it, we saw the 2 mile sign – it had been 28 minutes. Not bad – we were on a pretty good pace to beat our last time. We stopped briefly at the water stop and then continued on.
The
next obstacle was the Dirty
Ballerina –
mud walls with muddy water pits in between. The idea was to jump
from wall to wall but most people slid into the water and walked
through the muddy water across to the next wall. I thought these
walls were harder to get over than Dallas. With no footholds, I used
my arms a lot to lift myself out of the water and repeated this about
5 times. This was not good using so much arm strength right off the
bat because the next obstacle was the Cliff
Hanger.
I realized right away that I wouldn't be able to get up the middle
of this giant mud hill even with help so I took the side route and
climbed up the more dry /less slippery area. I waited up top for
Seth and Sean for quite a while and when I finally peered over the
edge, they were still waiting in the group at the bottom of the hill.
I observed a lot of Mudders trying to organize and decide who would
stretch down the hill first with someone at the top holding their
legs/ankles. I saw many “human chains” being made like this but,
invariably, only a handful of Mudders would climb up before the
person at the bottom of the chain would drop into the mud. You could
hear a group “awwwww” whenever a chain was broken and the bottom
1 or 2 people slid back down again. Seth and Sean finally took an
alternate route, climbing about 1/3 of the way up the hill and then
climbing up the side with a lot of people helping to hoist them up.
We spent a good 30 minutes at this obstacle and when we left, the TM
staff were just starting to set up stakes to drop down ropes for
people to use. The crowd lining up to get up the hill was getting
sizable. Tip
#2 -
there's no shame in taking an alternate route.
The
next obstacle was very close – another of my dreaded obstacles,
Walk
the Plank -
a 15 foot drop into water. This time, it was easier to get up the
wall – they nailed 2 by 4s to use as hand and foot holds so I was
able to climb up without too much trouble. I waited for the last
jumper to clear the landing area then plugged my nose and jumped
without stopping to think about it. I remember thinking that it took
a little longer to hit the water than I had anticipated. I also
didn't sink to the bottom as I had worried about before. I surfaced
and started to swim towards the exit but couldn't get my eyes cleared
up enough to see very well and still keep my contact lenses stuck to
my eyeballs. I got covered by a wave and got a good nose-full of
muddy water before making it to the other side and using the rope to
pull myself out. Sean reached down and helped me out too. It took a
while to get that gritty feel out of my contacts.
If
there's an obstacle that I really don't like – not afraid of, just
don't like – it's the Berlin
walls.
These are the toughest obstacles to me at a height of only 5 foot 3
inches. This first set was a bit shorter than the usual walls –
around 8 feet high. We got Seth over first and then Sean helped me
get over. This wall had no foot holds so Sean hoisted me up by my
right foot while I hung on to the top of his head and reached for the
wall with my left hand then he lifted me up by both feet until I was
able to straighten my arms out on top of the wall. I swung my right
leg over and then brought myself over and hung over the other side as
Seth helped ease me down. It doesn't matter how I do this obstacle,
I always seem to bang my knees up. I have no idea how Sean got over
the wall – at over 6 feet tall, I think he could just run up and
reach the top and haul himself over without much help.
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| Trench Warfare |
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| King of the Mountain |
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| Spider's Web |
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| Kiss of Mud 2 |
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| Boa Constrictor - actual picture of Sean |
It
was time to get through the Electric
Eel.
In Dallas, the Electric Eel was one of the last few obstacles and my
arms had gone totally numb and tingly by then so I had elected to
skip it - sitting and resting in the grass while the guys did it.
They finished it and complained a LOT about how much the shocks hurt
describing it as being burned or smacked with a stick each time they
got shocked. I was prepared for this visualizing multiple needle
sticks for each shock but when I made it to the end of the obstacle,
I rolled out of it onto the ground and stood up thinking...."that
really wasn't too bad". I got shocked plenty but not once did I
think the shocks were "sharp" or "burning" or
"needle like". I could feel a muscle twitch with each
shock which is what I felt doing the Electroshock Therapy at the end
of Dallas TM. In Dallas, I thought I had just "lucked out"
and not gotten the full voltage wires hitting me. One of our
teammates in Dallas got shocked first thing in that obstacle and fell
face first into the mud. I thought he must have gotten caught by one
of the 10,000 volt wires and I just got zapped by the "smaller"
voltage ones. In retrospect and having explored it some more with
Seth and Sean, they got the same shocks as I did but had a different
reaction to them. We speculated maybe this had to do with more
muscle mass and less conductivity? I have no idea but there was
clearly a difference in what we thought about it. Seth felt that he
had proven himself on this obstacle twice now and if there was a next
time, he would seriously think about skipping it whereas for me, it
wouldn't be any big deal to do again. Very strange.
Tip #3 -
yes, women are from Venus and men are from Mars.
I
had a chance at redemption with the
Just the Tip obstacle
where you shimmy along a board with your toes and your fingers. In
Dallas, the board for your hands was placed way too high and I had
trouble reaching it so into the water I went. This time, the boards
for your fingers/hands were placed at varying heights and I found it
much easier to hang on to and made it through the obstacle without
taking a red water bath.
Tip #4 -
I had stopped to take my gloves off before doing this obstacle which
helped, I believe. I was pretty happy after this one. As in Dallas,
Sean was tall enough so he could just hook his fingers over the top
of the wall again and just shimmy along that way.
We
had no idea what to expect with the next obstacle....one of the
"mystery" obstacles. We came upon the
Dark Lightning and
could hear the "thunder" but couldn't see into the big
"box" that you crawled into. We went single file on our
hands and knees past the first set of carpet flaps and when Sean
reached inside past the 2nd carpet flap, he suddenly hit the deck on
his belly. Seth and I were behind him and both surprised at this so
when Seth went through the carpet flap, I pulled it to the side to
see what was inside. Mudders were crawling in a dark room with
electrical wires dangling down. It was pretty dark and punctuated
every once in a while with "lightning". It took me getting
through about 1/3 of it, and getting shocked a few times, to adjust
to the lighting and start seeing the wires hanging down. I was able
to go between the wires but there was a bit of a bottleneck getting
OUT of the room for some unfathomable reason. At first, I got
shocked several times in the same body part whilst waiting for the
line to start moving again. I started yelling "gotta keep
moving!!" at the people in front but it seemed to take forever
to crawl out of there.
We reached another bottle neck somewhere - I can't remember exactly if it was before or after the Dark Lightning but it seemed like we were waiting to get into what was commonly referred to as the "Mud Mile" - a few Mudders commented on this - but it didn't turn out to be so. In Dallas, we had a horribly long wait while trudging through mud up to our knees that made nice sucking noises when you put your foot down in it. It was literally a muddy ravine that, as best as we can guesstimate, took us at least 2 hours to get through, one sucking step at a time. It was brutal and a lot of people lost their shoes along the way. Some Mudders were climbing up the banks looking for an alternate route to go around. We even had heard about someone who had collapsed in this mud behind us, had to be rescued, transported, and then had died. This was the rumor anyways.
After
standing around waiting for about 20 minutes we finally made our way
down a hill into a creek bed only to cross through a little bit of
mud (it took me maybe 6 steps) and go up the other side. I still
don't understand why there was such a long bottleneck here but it
wasn't anything like the one in Dallas. It was sometime after this
that we reached the REAL Mud
Mile where
you actually climb over mud mounds into a pool of mud while trying
not to lose your shoes. After sliding into the first pool of mud and
getting my shoe nearly sucked off when I planted my foot down, I
climbed the first mud mound and after that remembered what I had done
in Dallas.
Tip #5 -
GLIDE. I slid into the rest of the mud pools and pushed off the
side with my legs, glided through the mud without touching the
bottom, and reached the other side and climbed out. I got a lot of
mud in my face but it was much better, imo, than losing a shoe and
having to drag your leg out of the mud which totally zaps your
energy. I repeated this 3 or 4 times and got through the obstacle
noticing a lot of Mudders standing around trying to fix their lost
shoes.
I'm
not sure what it is about swimming under things that is creepy to me.
Maybe it's the thought of losing my contacts, not being able to see
in the muddy water, or maybe it's just the feeling of being out of
breath that I dislike. The final water obstacle was next:
Underwater Tunnels -
where you swim across a pond and have to bob under 3 sets of barrels
and swim out the other side. This time around, it didn't seem as bad
and I swam under the first barrel but had a lot of trouble wiping the
muddy water out of my eyes to see where the next barrel was. I did
the next 2 barrels mostly by feel and swam across the rest of the
pond with my eyes mostly closed until I could reach the bottom with
my feet. I could hear Seth yelling at me trying to guide me in the
right direction because I could barely tell if I was there yet or
not. I was pretty glad to get this last water obstacle out of the
way and really started to see the light at the end of the proverbial
tunnel.
Hold
Your Wood
is an interesting obstacle. I picked up a pretty good sized log but
it didn't seem too heavy. Of course, the longer you walk with that
thing on your shoulder, the heavier it seems to get. We walked
around for a half mile it seemed like and I had to switch the log
from shoulder to shoulder a few times to give my arm and shoulder a
break. Some people always opt to get a long log and have several
people carry it together. That looked really hard to do as we were
going up and down hills as well and, obviously, some people were
shorter than others. We dropped our logs off and continued on mostly
walking from this point on. We had done a fair amount of slow
jogging so far but after mile 10, we walked more than jogged - there
was no question that we were feeling it and both Sean and I had some
minor cramping problems. I should mention here that I had brought 2
packs of gel and 2 packs of Gu with me. I had taken one before our
wave started and then took one at the 2nd and 4th water stops. I
could defnitely feel when they "kicked in" - it felt like a
second wind. The minor cramping we had were remedied with just
stopping and stretching - no where near as bad as the calf cramps I
had in Dallas. I'm pretty sure it would have been much uglier had I
not packed those gels in especially since I didn't really eat a good
breakfast. Tip
#6 -
BRING GU or GEL (and don't eat a ginormous dinner the night before). Prior to Dallas TM - we stopped at a burger joint and just had burgers and fries the night before. I think we ate at an IHOP the next morning. I'll never do a Tough Mudder again without energy gel.
So
things are going pretty well - I've attempted and made it past all of
the obstacles so far. Cue the sinister music now because the Funky
Monkey was
next. Seth got to the 3rd bar before dropping in the water but I
could barely even reach the first one. I touched the bar and gave
up, sliding into the water and swimming across. Monkey bars going
up at an angle and then coming down at an angle spaced impossibly
too far apart, greased and freely rolling in your hands - this is one
obstacle that I don't see myself ever completing - most don't.
Now
along comes version 2 of my least favorite obstacle - Berlin
Walls #2.
This time, the walls are 9 feet tall and there is a strip of wood
about 3 feet off the ground to step up on. Seth got over first with
a few pushes. This time I put my left foot up on the thin step up
while Sean boosted me from below, hooked my fingers over the top of
the wall, brought my right leg up to the support beam and then Sean
pushed me up by my left foot until I was able to straighten out my
arms at the top of the wall. I swung my right foot over the wall and
sat up catching my breath for a few seconds and contemplating the
drop down the other side. Even with me hanging by my hands from the
top of the wall, it was still a pretty good drop to the ground. I
don't know how many times I asked Seth if he HAD me before I dropped
down. This is where I'm sure I scraped up my left knee and banged
the snot out of both knees. Thank goodness there were only 2 Berlin
walls to climb over.
Everest
was another obstacle I had skipped in Dallas. It was also towards
the end of the course and I didn't even attempt it there because I
still couldn't feel my arms. In Austin, though, I was feeling really
pretty good with my arms. I told myself I had to try at LEAST 3
times to get up the half pipe to the top. Sean got up the wall
without a hitch all by himself. It took Seth a couple of tries and
he was up too. I took a deep breath and ran as hard as I could but
was pretty far away from catching their outstretched arms sliding
back down the half pipe. No luck again on my 2nd attempt. I kept
hearing "keep running, don't stop" from others and
collected myself a 3rd time. My fingers just brushed past theirs and
down I went again this time landing on the left side of my face and
banging my teeth. I made a quick decision to try a 4th time. I
didn't wait too long this time and repeated "keep running"
to myself as I ran up the half pipe, grabbed onto Sean's hands and
then tried to scramble up the rest of the way but lost my footing.
Seth grabbed my right wrist and Sean repositioned himself and
re-grabbed my left hand and both of them yanked me up to the top. I
was so happy that I hugged Seth and we cheered for ourselves.
Another obstacle conquered. We were almost done.
The
Electroshock Therapy is
traditionally the last obstacle in every Tough Mudder event. This
one had what seemed like even more wires dangling down and it wasn't
just a straight run though the mud - there were several mud "speed
bumps" along the way and they weren't straight either. Sean
took off immediately and I watched him get through followed by Seth
who almost made it but got tripped up on the very last muddy speed
bump and fell on his left hand (with an impressive bruise showing up
the next day). Just as Seth fell, I went for it and could hear
myself saying "oh', "oh', "oh" every time I got
shocked but, somehow, I got through it without tripping or falling.
What a relief. We collected ourselves together and crossed the
finish line, posed for a group picture and made sure the photographer
had my bib number - I had re-pinned my bib back on multiple times
during the event and was determined to get through without losing it.
We
were bestowed with our (2nd) orange Tough Mudder headbands, picked up
our shirts, and picked up our beers. We stood around for a bit
feeling pretty accomplished, munching on Cliff bars (me) and drinking
beers (Seth and Sean). Our time was 4 hours and 18 minutes. We
headed to the showers to rinse off and I was so glad to see that the
set up was vastly different than Dallas. There was a sizable wooden
frame erected with tons of hoses hanging down from the top 2 at a
time each with it's own sprayer. Even the water was warm. We spent
a little longer than the recommended 2 minutes rinsing ourselves and
each other off. Someone even had a bar of Lever soap and it felt
good to use it on my face to wash the grime off. Afterwards, we
picked up our bags, I changed shoes and donated my old running shoes,
putting on my Teva sandals instead. It felt so good to get those
shoes off and this time I remembered to pull out the expensive
Walking Company inserts that I wear in my running shoes - putting
them in a ziplock bag in my backpack along with my gloves which I
also intended on keeping. We stopped at the TM booth to buy some
souvenirs - TM stickers for our cars and a TM baseball cap for Seth.
Sean had already left - he wanted to drive back to Enid that same
day.
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| After party |
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| Shoe donation |
We walked slowly back to our car and I spread out an old bed sheet in the back seat, shut the door, and peeled the wet clothes off. With a large towel wrapped around me, I rinsed off one more time with the Sun Showers that Seth had bought - it was great to be able to get that last layer of mud off after stripping off the wet clothes. I climbed back into the car and got dressed so glad to be rid of the wet things. We drove back to the hotel stopping at Sonic along the way to get something to eat.
All in all, I again enjoyed doing this Tough Mudder event. There aren't that many couples our age (married for 20 years in a few months) doing this sort of thing together. We earned those bragging rights and I'm so happy that I met my goals - I hit every obstacle, we beat our previous time by well over an hour, and the cramps were kept to a minimum. There were a few obstacles that we noted missing from Austin - twinkle toes (balance beam) and Devil's Beard (walking under a cargo net tunnel). My Tough Mudder sticker will live on the back of my car as we look towards Tough Mudder Albuquerque in 2013 - Seth already has us pre-registered.
Addendum - our pictures were just posted yesterday......here they are:
Addendum - our pictures were just posted yesterday......here they are:
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| Mud Mile |
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| Trying to stay upright |
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| Electroshock Therapy |
