Tough Mudder Memoire 2014

We could hear the grumbling of amused exhaustion just behind some trees, even as we clambered across the monkey bars. There was some obstacle ahead that had everyone in a rukus and we hurried forwards to see what doom awaited us.

We were back at the Mud Mile obstacle. It was not a sense of déjà vu, they had purposefully brought us back here to endure it again. Amusingly enough those in their first kilometer of the run were doing it at the same time of us whom were in our last kilometer. The first timers were so clean still, so fresh, filled with energy and hope. Those of us that KNEW, well, we were grimly determined.

It had been nearly 4 and a half hours since we last faced off with this challenge and in the time between it has rained HARD, and there have been nothing but bodies going through it. How did this change the obstacle for us?

Well, for one thing the trenches weren’t filled with muddy water any longer. They were filled with a viscous, sticky mud GLUE. The hills we had to climb weren’t as tall as earlier, worn down a little from sheer body mass sliding over them, but all that mud ended up in the trenches, making the bottoms even muddier, muckier and slickly sticky. It was harder than ever to get good footing and now when you grabbed someone’s hand, you were both COATED in slick mud. Getting a grip on someone now was an act of GOD.

My husband pulled me up with no real problems, super grateful that I was able to be an anchor and get him up first. My brother however, started to have problems. He got a face full of muck and got mud in his eyes. He’d been wearing goggles, and they got mud covered. Then he pulled them off to see and forgot to close his eyes when he slid into the goop, thus the mud in his eyes. And though I love him, he is an absolute suck when it comes to getting anything in his eyes. I’d had mud in my eyes repeatedly by this point and just dealt with it. He became worse than incapacitated, he became an additional obstacle. Because he kept rubbing at it WITH MUD COVERED HANDS! Sheer will power got him through that, and I don’t mean his. I went back IN to a trench I’d gotten out of and shoved him out of it, then scrambled up myself, all while my leg cramped into a strange pretzel shape. Then I continued to help haul other people up because for some reason I could plant myself in the mud and not slide anywhere. People were actually lining up to have me help them up because I seemed to be the only one not sliding back in. Seven very LONG trenches later and we were out. And then we got to fuss with Brad to get the crap out of his eyes. Water, wet naps, a dry sleeve, he was lucky enough to get help from everyone but he had hit full on freak out stage so it was still a pain to deal with. When we made it to the next obstacle he flat out said NO, NOT DOING IT.