Tough Mother (ahem) Mudder

Ryan roped me into doing the Tough Mudder with him this year.  But we weren't alone.....we had about 6 other couples in our group.  You can't read it, but our team shirt reads

 Couple Therapy

mud*pain*love

This is a picture right before our start time. The course is 10.5 miles of obstacles and mud.  The Patterson Tough Mudder (the one we did) is known for its hills.  Lots of them.  Miles of them.  Hills that feel more like mountains. A few of the obstacles include jumping off a platform into muddy water, climbing over big walls, carrying logs, immersing your body entirely in ice cold water, carrying your partner up a hill,  rope climbing, monkey bars over water, wading through swamps.  I'm not going to lie.  I was a nervous wreck about it for the few days leading up to it. But the day of the race I was actually kind of excited and not as nervous. Phew! 

This next picture was right after we crossed the finish line.  As you can see, we are not clean.  The last obstacle is one of their electrical shock obstacles. There were three of them.  Imagine rows of  long snake-like wires hanging that will shock you if you touch them.  But you have to get through them to cross the finish line. And then there's the thick heavy mud that makes it impossible to move faster than a snail. (You can choose to go around it, which is an option.  For the weenies.)  Ryan and I decided to go through with one of the other couples from our group by running all together.  We held hands and were going to finish like a Team! But then we didn't.  Why you ask?  Because Ryan got shocked through the first curtain if wires. It dropped him to the ground at which point he decided every man for himself.  He then proceeded to drop his wife's hand and barge through to the end.  I, on the other hand, decided to drop to the ground and army crawl through the whole thing and completely miss the shocking experience.  I did take a hit from Ryan's big shock but I think he took the bulk of it.  By the time it reached me it felt more like the strongest static shock you can imagine.  It took me much longer crawling but I would do it again the same way.

After the race, we hosed off the best we could and then changed into "clean" clothes in the tents they had set up.  We were still muddy.  But much cleaner than before. Everyone who finishes gets a tough mudder headband.  Mine is orange since this was my first race.  Ryan has done 3 now so his is turquoise.

This is our celebratory dinner where we treated ourselves to hamburgers and french fries. We were starving and it was delicious.  By the way, we don't match the rest of the group because I was washing our black shirts........

And because I washed my black shirt, it was ready to go for Sunday!  I wore it under my denim shirt and only occasionally pulled the "Superman" peek.  It was a fun surprise for everyone!!!!! He, he, he.

Overall, I had a blast.  It was challenging as far as endurance goes but I thought the obstacles were very doable.  The hills were the most challenging.  It took me and Ryan about 5 hours to get through it. I think.  I can't remember exactly. They had water stops and port a potties along the way as well as snacks every so often.  And the weather was perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold.  I was super sore the next day.  Well the next couple of days.  But it was a fun experience!