Toughmudder Race Report

Way back in December, I signed up for this race and had a vague idea what it was about. My friend Devlin had done it last year and asked me to sign up on his team.

I woke up on Sunday morning around 6AM and downed some coffee, Gatorade, and a bagel on the drive up towards the race. I pulled into the lot and was surprised by the lack of crowds. I was expecting something along the lines of the Broad Street Run, with tens of thousands of people standing in line for registration, bathrooms, etc. There were approximately 5000 people racing today, and the race organizers thought it best to start people based on predicted finishing times, with waves starting every 20 minutes. I think this was a great way to approach the start, and with their attitude towards recording finishing times, it made sense to do it this way. I wandered over to the registration area, taking note of a few of the obstacles that were visible along the way. After meeting up with Devlin, we took a quick jog to warm up and then headed over to the start area.

Our race start time of 9AM put us in the first starting group, which obviously saw most of the serious athletes lining up. I made mental note of all the guys that had parked themselves in the front of the starting group: muscular guys with extra weight just looking to get themselves into the opening picture... The race organizer gave a few instructions and after the national anthem, it was time to go. I'll admit I was a bit nervous from the start. Devlin and I agreed to stick together for the race, as it would probably be a lot easier that way. He had volunteered the day before, and had a little insight as to how the race would go: badly. As it turned out, the race was 12 miles instead of 10, and there were 26 obstacles instead of 16. Even with most of the descriptions posted on the website, it was still hard to gauge what it be like to overcome them. I expected the worst.

The gun went off and Devlin and I did our best to keep from falling down the snow-covered ski slope. After about 200 yards, it was a 180 degree turn back up the face of the mountain. Only this time it was covered in mud, not snow. The climb seemed to last forever, but my legs seemed pretty fresh. After cresting the hill, it was a slide down a 20 foot mountain of snow/ice. This is where things started to get foggy. There were so many obstacles during the race that it was hard to keep track of what actually came first. I'll do my best...

Hill Climb Under a Cargo Net: pretty much what it sounds like.

Boa Constrictor: a tight crawl through a tiny pipe, similar to the escape of Andy in Shawshank Redemption. Instead of crawling through crap, it was freezing cold water and jagged rocks. There was a break in the pipe after about 50 feet, but that was filled with waist deep water. I tore up my arms and legs pretty good during this one.

Berlin Walls: These three walls were about 12 feet high with only a tiny foot hold about a foot above the ground. There was no way I was scaling these along and Devlin and I figured out an efficient system to tackle them. Of course they were built out of 2X4's and with thousands of people attempting to climb over them, multiple people at once, I was pretty nervous when the thing started rocking back and forth with me on the top. I'll admit that I'll attempt a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I don't get freaked out. Devlin had suggested bringing some sort of gloves, but I forgot them and was soon regretting it. It was a 12 foot drop to the ground on the other side and you had to maintain your grip, even though your hands an the wall were soaking wet.

Greased Lightning: Picture a 100 yard slip n' slide down a ski slope. Hoses were set up to keep the tarp wet. Of course everyone was diving down head first and landing in the puddle at the bottom. I would have thought they would have cleared out all the rocks and boulders out from under this, but apparently no one got that memo. I had been saying to Devlin that this was what I was looking forward to the most out of the race, which turned out to be pretty ironic since I landed on a rock that bruised my hip up pretty bad. It was very sore to run on during the rest of the race. It hadn't really started to bruise and I felt like I could keep going, but by the time I got home it looked like this:



Keep in mind this is about the size of a softball. It didn't hurt all that bad. I guess it could have been a lot worse.

Another crawl on all fours up a black diamond slope brought us to the first trail run portion of the race. This was like a walk in the park compared to the hills we just had to climb. As long as we kept a steady rhythm and didn't stop too often I figured we'd be in good shape.

Red Hot Blood Bath: Probably the most creative of the obstacles. We had to chomp down on a red hot cherry pepper and then jump into a dumpster filled with ice water. I went head first.

Another Berlin Wall: Probably more difficult than the first three combined since my hands and arms were starting to seize up from the jump into the ice water.

Hill Climb Under a Cargo Net: I started regaining some sensation in my arms and legs, but I was really starting to notice the burning feeling on my tongue and lips. I tried to avoid wiping my face so the pepper juice wouldn't get in my eyes. This took mental effort.

Greased Metal Pipe Wall Climb X 2: This one was tough for me personally. I was wearing my MT101's which had so far been great on all the hill climbs and mud romps we had been slogging through. But the treads on the shoes are more like spikes and the were slipping all over the place on the rungs of this metal ladder-like obstacle. Again, no gloves made for a difficult climb and if the crowd hadn't been standing right there, I probably would have been stuck at the top. Adrenaline took over and I trusted my grip not to fail as I swung off.

Walk the Plank: A climb up a near vertical tower with only a rope and a few poorly placed foot holds to help you. I remember thinking that it didn't seem so high from the ground, but looking down at the freezing cold water...it seemed like a mile. I brushed form to the side and just jumped in feet first. I can remember walking towards my car after finishing and hearing the crowds cheer for a girl who was having second thoughts about jumping. After about 30 seconds of cheering, she finally jumped and was rewarded with a roar of applause from the crowd.



Swim Under Submerged Obstacles: Just like it sounds. Mylar blankets offered after these series of water obstacles. I remember hearing the race organizer say that the lake temperature was 35 degrees F. My arms and legs were definitely losing sensation after I was finished this.

Ball Shrinker: Originally meant to walk across this tight-rope style obstacle, but all the volunteers were saying it was easier to dive in and pull yourself across. What the heck. We were already soaked through anyway.

Another Trail Run: This one was about 3 miles and trekked up and down the entire back side of the mountain. The feeling started coming back to my arms and legs, but some of the hills were tough. The terrain was extremely technical too. Lot of rocks, roots, and obstacles to trip over and I think Devlin and I both went down once or twice.

Funky Monkey: Devlin told me this obstacle had been closed the previous day because too many people were slipping off and falling into the shallow water below, some breaking ankles and legs. Sounded pretty gnarly to me. However, they had re-opened it for today. Again I had no gloves and felt my grip failing after three runs. I opted to just drop and crawl across the water below. I say crawl because there was a net and several layers of hay on the surface, making it impossible to swim or wade through. The water was pretty shallow and there was no notice of the huge rocks that were on the bottom. I could see how people could get pretty banged up here.

Swamp stomp and swim under submerged obstacles: Just a trudge through waist deep mud and eventually a swim under submerged logs...in the mud. I can say the water was cold because I started getting the "thousand knives stabbing me" feeling me in my legs.



Kiss of Mud: I don't see the rationale here. First, you had to crawl under barbed wire that was a mere 18 inches off the ground. But the real kicker was that the ground wasn't soft mud or earth. It was rocks, bricks, and other jagged objects. I couldn't crawl through without tearing up my knees and forearms, so I started to roll, but even this was excruciating. If the goal of certain obstacles was just to inflict as much pain as possible, it was a tie between this obstacle and the Boa Constrictor.

Firewalker: Run through a pre-determined path with burning hay bales on both sides. It was pretty hot and the smoke was thick. I guess if you weren't paying attention, you could easily misjudge your step.

Hills: Up and down. Up and down. We tried to run as much as we could, but they were too steep and snow covered. Had to walk up most of them.

Spider's Web: A climb up and over a cargo net. Pretty simple until you have four guys trying at once and it starts swinging like crazy. No problem.

Evil Knievel: A pyramid type obstacle. Little or no traction on the front side, only a tiny foot hold. The face was made of smooth aluminum, so you really needed someone pulling you or pushing you to make it to the top.

Hold Your Wood: A log carry up one of the steeper hills. Devlin and I grabbed the group log. It was damn heavy and I think we were regretting it from the start. A lot of people passed us here, but we got kudos from every one of them, including the Marine volunteer who told us we were the first of the day to grab the "group" log. I almost laughed when I saw the size of the logs some of the other guys grabbed.

Dragon Balls: Climb over several bails of steeply stacked hay. A running start and a prayer seemed to be enough to scale these on your own. No pun intended.

Electroshock Therapy: The culmination of the race. Hundreds of hanging positively and negatively charged wires administering 10,000V of electricity. I had no idea what to expect because I don't really know what 10,000V feels like. I think that was what made it easier for me. However, I did see one guy knocked off his feet just as I was beginning to go through, and another guy thought he would tough it out and walk through, only to topple over at the end. Can't be good for you. I sprinted through and got one good jolt towards the end. It felt like a loud pop in my ears and it knocked me to the right, but I didn't go down. Good enough.



Although I was thinking I would never do this race again while in the moment, I realized I probably say that about every race I've done at the time. A few days later and my bruises and cuts have started to heal and I'm actually feeling pretty good about the whole day. I got a few laughs afterwards while hosing off with a bunch of the other finishers. We all joked about the difficulty of what we had just done, and here we were squealing like kids while trying to rinse off with cold water.

Devlin had to peel out after the race to catch a flight to Chicago and I gladly took his drink ticket and watched a portion of the race from my car, conveniently within sight of the Red Hot Bloodbath and the Walk the Plank obstacles. I completely zoned out because I was so tired but had a few laughs watching some of the costumes and characters that scraped by.

Overall a good time and I would do it again.