The World's Toughest Mudder

“Probably the Toughest Event on the Planet.”
9/21 (Div) - 3 Laps - 26:21:39

I am so, so sorry this post is incredibly late.  In fact, the "back log" of posts and the total silence on here has mostly been due to the fact that I knew I had to write this post first before I could do anything else.  The funny thing is, I wrote 99% of this on the way home, but never bothered to sit down and edit it.  So here, at long last, is my account of experiencing THE WORLD'S TOUGHEST MUDDER.

I will begin by saying that if nothing else, I can certainly affirm that yes, it was very, very tough.  But not only was it every bit as difficult as promised, it was every bit as fun as I had hoped.

Background: WHAT IS WTM? (Official Video)

As you know if you have read my other race posts, Tough Mudder is a series of obstacle course races that have taken the world by a storm of popularity over the past few years.  In 2011 for the first time the creators of Tough Mudder hosted the first ever World’s Toughest Mudder that was a 24 hour obstacle course race you had to qualify for by completing one of the Tough Mudder courses in the top 5% of finisher times. Those who qualified were able to then register for WTM, which took place in Englishtown, New Jersey.  Last year they held the event in December, and it was god awful cold.  Many people were not able to complete even one single lap because they simply did not expect the extreme temperatures to make the course as difficult as it was.  Prize money went to the top male (7 laps) and top female (6 laps) finisher.

When I first heard about this event, all I could think about was how much I wanted to do it.

2012 COURSE

In 2011 the WTM course was 8 miles long, in 2012 it was 10 miles long, with over 35 obstacles.The obstacles themselves for the most part were very similar to the ones in any Tough Mudder, though many of them you had to do twice, and almost all of them had penalties for failure to complete them.  In this case, the penalty was usually jumping into an Arctic Enema, or the infamous giant ice bath.

I am very proud to say I was able to complete every single obstacle on all 3 laps.  (With the generous help of fellow Mudders.) I was determined to NOT take an ice bath, despite the fact I was wearing a wetsuit.  It is kind of amazing how far being stubborn can take you.

THE PREP

Gear was a huge obstacle on its own in preparing for this race.  I have never before run in a wetsuit or in true cold weather in general.  I didn’t have much in the way of camping gear, or any sort of cold weather clothes.  I had to get a couple of wetsuits, smart wool socks, head warmers, gloves, headlamps, a tent, and all kinds of other stuff.  Some of it turned out to be a life saver, some of it I didn’t end up using, some of it would have been helpful if the weather had not been as perfect and beautiful as it was.  I found a community of other participants online, which was incredibly helpful.  A few of them had done the race before, while others were testing out all kinds of gear, reporting problems, injuring themselves, and planning, planning, planning.  It was a great relief to share fears and concerns with them, ask questions and get encouraged.

MY EXPERIENCE

My outrigger teammate Bruno and I set off for New Jersey wondering what on earth we were getting ourselves into, and very excited to face such a unique challenge.  "Tent City" greeted us on the New Jersey race track late the night before, where we made camp and arranged all our gear.  The energy was buzzing, music was blasting, and there were people from all around the world.  I was surprised to learn that out of the 1,200 or so racers, only 50 were women.

We spotted last year's male winner setting up his tent near our, shouting orders to a few volunteers.  I could see Bruno eyeing him like prey - the game was on.  Last year's female winner was not at this race, however last year's 2nd place female finisher was out to make headlines.

I did not have lofty goals of winning, though I also wanted to do my best.  I went into the event with the goal of 5 laps.  (Since last year the female winning finisher had completed 6 laps on the 8 mile course, I found this a totally reasonable goal.)  My plan was to do 2 laps right away, rest and eat for an hour, then head back out for a third lap in the dark.  My plan was then to rest and get up early enough to complete two additional laps before the 24 hours were up.  If I was exhausted, I knew that since I had a running mate, we'd probably make it through, even if the going had to be slow.

Things did not go as planned.

The good news is, I do know I trained hard enough to complete my goal.  By the end I think I would have had enough energy in the tank to meet my 5 lap hopes, however, my strategy (and some bad luck) let me down.  For one thing, I did not do nearly enough cold weather training.  (The fall weather in SB was super warm, so I could really only try running in my wetsuit late at night at the beach.  Even then, I was cooking inside that thing!)  It was amazing how much the temperature in New Jersey changed the moment the sun went down.  Not only had I unconsciously decided I was relying on Bruno to help me through the dark, cold hours of the evening, I had also not made sure my alarm on my phone was fully juiced.

The worst part was, I suffered an odd injury 4 miles in on my first lap.  It was a silly thing to happen, but I stepped in a puddle of mud that was deeper than expected and a big slosh of it went up into my eye, all the way behind my eyelid.  The pain of the rocks and gunk roaming around my eyeball nearly brought me to my knees, but I decided to keep walking until I found an aid station.  I had the medical staff clean out my eye, but they kept reassuring me they could not see anything in there.  I didn’t believe them, because my eye felt like someone was squeezing lemon juice into it every time I moved it.  I had a second and a third aid station along the route clean and rinse it out, each one of them reassuring me there was nothing in my eye.  I was finally convinced that though my eye was clean, I had done some kind of damage to it.  (You can see the way it is a little swollen shut in the picture...)

The eye kept streaming tears, stung or ached when I moved it, and it through off my running rhythm pretty badly.  I could jog okay, but my head was tilted towards the eye and I kept trying to wink it closed.  When I was done with my first lap, I decided to just get a handful of trail mix and go out again.  The second lap was a little challenging since I was doing it with one eye partially closed.  I kept thinking of ways to make myself an eye patch, maybe with a bandana or even a pile of leaves, but nothing I could think of would hold up to the constant water obstacles on the course.  I finally just kept telling myself, “The eye is the fastest healing part of the body.  You will be okay.”  By the end of the second lap my eye was feeling a little better, but not good by any means.  The sun was rapidly setting, and temperatures were dropping.  I decided to take an hour break at the pit to rest my eye and see if it would clean itself out, and also to have some dinner.  Since I was stopping for a while, I took off my wetsuit, put it in a plastic bag and shoved it beneath my sleeping bag.  I also knew Bruno was probably on his third lap, and when he got back he would get me to go back out on the course.

That’s not how things went.

A few hours later than expected, I had slept through my alarm when Bruno finally got back to the tent, looking like someone who had just woken up in a gutter.  The first thing he said as he came in was, “I’m done.”  My eye was still so sore, I wondered if I was done too.  The cold was incredible by then, the sun had fully set, and I was actually trembling in my sleeping bag.  Both of us shared a few course stories, we had some food, and we crashed.  It was probably only 8 PM or so.  I heard someone outside our tent gasp “Can you believe it? The lead female has already completed her 6^th lap!”  Seriously? Well, I guess my shot at winning some money are long gone now.  That blew me away.

Feeling a little miserable and defeated, I slept, and slept, and slept.  My phone died so my AM alarm did not go off as expected, instead I woke up around 7 feeling groggy.  My eye was sealed shut with gunk, but once I cleaned it out I was delighted to find that it was not sore anymore, though my face was looking a little puffy and swollen.  By sunrise, over half the participants had quit.  There were containers where folks were supposed to leave their timing chips when they were done, and by sunrise they were all full.

Bruno could hardly stand up, but we managed to rouse ourselves for some breakfast and go see how everyone else was doing. As we walked around a ton of folks had fully packed up all their gear, their tents, and went home.  This was indeed not an event for the faint of heart.  I heard a few fellows who had come out from England say they were done after one lap.  One lap! They came out from England and only did one lap?? That seemed amazing to me.  I still, however, was feeling pretty lame since I had only done two and then slept through the night.

After some hot tea, food, and a little sorting, Bruno asked me if I wanted to do one more.  I was most certainly ready to do one more… in fact I felt downright energetic now that my eye was feeling better, but I didn’t want to leave him all cold and miserable, and frankly the thought of doing one more lap on my own felt a little daunting in the morning chill.  Not many racers were out on the course, so I was not sure if I’d be able to complete all the obstacles.  I felt kind of like I had failed, since I didn't even hit the half way mark of what I set out to do.  I think he could sense my disappointment, so after some more food and water, and as the sun continued to rise, we had some renewed hope.

It was then that I saw Bruno doing a little soul searching, and he looked up at me with grim determination.  “Lets do it.  Both of us.  One more lap. That’s what we came here for.”

I was so excited, though also a little concerned ... he really didn't look like he was going to make it through another lap.

“I’m not a sissy!” He announced with some gusto at my look, which convinced me that one way or another, we'd make it through one more loop.

Putting on my cold wetsuit was probably hilarious to watch.  I was breathing like someone giving birth every time the cold rubber moved, but once it was on it toasted up quickly.  The next part was finding shoes.  The two pairs of shoes and socks I had used for my first two laps I had stupidly left outside all night, and they were rock hard frozen.  I could not have put them on if I wanted to, so I dug around for my third pair of shoes and socks before realizing that my wetsuit gloves were also frozen.  Those I could not leave without, so I took them to the handy WTM microwaves.

A British guy was cooking up some fish sticks (or something like that) in the microwave before me.  I was a little worried my gloves were going to end up smelling like fish, but I was too cold to really care.  So into the microwave they went.  They came out nice and steamy, and putting them on my hands was like a dream.  They of course chilled up quickly afterwards, but at least I got them on my hands.

We both set out for our 3^rd lap.  It was actually really fun to have someone else with me, especially since there were so few others on the course.  We saw a few men that had bandanas (lap counters) indicating they were on their 7^th or 8^th lap… it was almost hard to watch them.  They could hardly move, some of them struggled with even the simplest of obstacles.  Every pull seemed like extreme effort.  Bruno was on the end of his rope as well.  If they ever slipped to the ground, it took him a long time to stand back up.  I felt like a dork for being so energetic, and started to really regret that I had slept so much through the night.  Poor planning, but I was also grateful my eye was finally better.  It’s the little things….

We made it through the course with no major problems.  My least favorite obstacle, a huge wall you had to climb over with a rope, had actually been removed from the course completely sometime during the night.  I literally squealed when I saw that, since it had been the most terrifying of all the obstacles to me since I was convinced I was going to slip off of it and land on my head.

I also felt like a cheater when I came almost at a strong full sprint into the finish, grinning like a dork.  People were cheering for me like a champion, and I wanted to tell them all I had only done 3 laps and didn’t really deserve their praise.  They all seemed impressed anyway.  There were cameras everywhere, volunteers everywhere, tons of free samples of energy bars and hot showers.  A huge pile of dirty shoes had accumulated in the corner, which were going to be washed and donated to charity.

So in the end, I am sad I didn’t meet my goal of 5 laps because I knew I could have done more.  However, the 3 laps I did accomplish were exciting, fun, eye opening, and sometimes things just don’t go as planned.  I was asked by one of the event media camera crews if I would do it again, and I replied “Yes, in a heartbeat.”  I want to come back and meet or (hopefully) break my original goal.  I feel much more prepared for what I would face on the course, I know what I did wrong, and I know ways I could improve.

The winning woman did 9 laps.  That’s over 90 miles of running … simply incredible!  (She has a blog that is a fun read, I think.  She is my hero.)  The bar is SUPER high for next year, and I'm thrilled by the challenge.  What an amazing event to be a part of! Even if they have it back on the east coast again, I am planning to do this again next year.  It was novel in a way that is hard to describe, and the people there one of a kind.  

I am totally hooked!

SPECIAL THANKS
To my Dad for everything.  (You know.)
To Brandon, Traci, Marla, Megan and Daniel for being gracious hosts.
To all family and friends for your support, encouragement and advice. :)

LOVE YOU ALL!