Life: I am a Tough Mudder!

Most of you have been following me through my running journey over the past few years... from marathon's to Ultra distances to becoming a Tough Mudder.  So you earned this with me! 

Thank you for all your support.  For letting me bombard you with running summaries, photo's from the trails.. etc.. You have been my cheerleaders. 

It's about twenty four hours after the run - I'm happy to say I'm feeling great!  I'm black and blue, my knees are a hot mess (black & blue, bloody, tender).... but I did get in a run today.  Which is a big success. 

It will be a few more days before I have photo's to share but let me tell you... it's tough!

Here's a recap:
We started in waves of 100, every twenty minutes.  To get to the starting line I had to scale a ten foot wall.

With two obstacles in the first mile, my knees are bleeding from the muddy/rock crawl (under barbed wire) and I'm wet from the ice bath.  Does it help if I tell you the water is blue, and smelled horrible (I wonder if there was manure in the water)... ICK! 

Most of the mileage was on a trail and the mile mud run was one mile straight up!  Try running a mile up the side of a mountain, in 6 inches of thick, wet, slimy mud.... super tough and slippery.  People who have completed other TM runs were telling us this was the most difficult one yet.  Usually the runs take place on flat surfaces like race tracks so natural terrain adds another level of difficulty.  

I ran through fire, scaled walls, climbed ropes, carried a log, crawled, ran in mud pools, walked balance beams, I even made it through the one I feared the most... the long tunnel filled with swamp water. 

So... what was the toughest obstacle for me? A thirty foot jump into murky water that was so cold my lungs compressed.  Followed by a short swim and rope climb out of the murkiness... I never need to do that again!

Twelve miles and about twenty military obstacles later, I did it. I'm a Tough Mudder!