Tough Mudder 2012

    So back around October/November, I schemed up a plan to convince some of my closest friends to participate in the tough mudder in the Poconos, PA.  I expected maybe 1 or 2 to agree to do it with me, but I didn't expect the turn out I got.  Six of us total ended up signing up for it back in October and November.  3 girls and 3 guys: Joe & Melissa Kalish, Rachel & Joe Grundlock, and Matt Hosford and myself.  So over the next few months some of us trained a little bit to be ready for this awesome event.

    Saturday morning rolled around and we were all pumped! Pumped to get dirty, wet, and freeze our asses off!!!  If you don't know what the tough mudder is, I am going to illustrate it through the pictures we took along the way and describe how awesome it was.  Going into it we were told it would be about 10 miles long with 26 obstacles, but they threw some surprises in there during the run.  Seriously, this was a tough/fun event that anyone somewhat physically in shape should do at least once, or at least try.  And it's for a great cause!!  They raise the money for the wounded warrior project.  Seriously, anyone can do this event if they put their minds to it.  My brothers' ROTC commander had both legs blown off in Iraq and still manages to do the tough mudder with two hooks for legs.  Pretty amazing!

But here's the timeline of how this past Saturday went for me and my closest friends.

On any normal Poconos trip staying at the Karter residence, we normally expect to have a pretty good hangover on Saturday morning.  Surprisingly, that wasn't the case this past weekend.  Bed time was fairly early and by the time we woke up, we were pumped.  Ready to get muddy!

We each painted some war paint on our faces and dressed up our outfits.  I of course was Kateniss (a lil Hunger Games Love).

We finally got out of the house and were on our way to the Nascar Raceway where they had parking and buses to bus you to the race location.
This was me walking to the buses, really excited to get there!:

With hardly a wait at all, we all piled onto the bus for about a ten minute ride to Pocono Manor, the site of Tough Mudder 2012!

 And we arrived!  Team picture before heading in!  This was all 6 of us who participated.

 We all checked in with no problems at all.  Check-in was awesome because there was hardly a wait.  They had everything set up in stations going alphabetically by your last name, therefore I waited about 2 minutes for one guy ahead of me in line.  You hand in your death/injury waiver form, collect your bib and 3 wrist bands- one for your baggage, one for your wrist (in case something were to happen to you, this is how they identify you), and one for your beer at the end signifying you are of legal age to drink =).  After this, you move on into the tough mudder carnival area where you are marked on your forehead, arm and leg with your unique ID number.  They had all kinds of carnival like things going on.  You could get an official tough mudder tattoo, shave your head, donate your muddy shoes, and they had showers, and a check-in station for your bags which was no hassle whatsoever, since your bags were tagged with your ID number on your wrist.

After we got settled in, we started stretching and started to get the adrenaline pumping to get going soon.

We made sure we snapped a photo of us dry and clean before the run:

Our start time rolled around and we were corralled into a fairly small starting area.  Bodies were crammed in shoulder to shoulder waiting to begin as the MC got everyone pumped up to start.  Before getting into this area though, you had to climb a wooden wall to get in!

And at 1140am, we were off running through the wooded path of the Tough mudder!!
It was a short run through the woods, carefully watching where you were running so you didn't hurt your ankle on any large rocks or branches.  Then we got to the first obstacle, the Kiss of Mud.
 The kiss of mud was crawling on your stomachs through the mud with barbed wires just above your head.  If you lifted your head any little bit, you were sure to catch your hair in that barbed wire!  I had taken a video of this part of the run, however it was too big to upload.  Maybe at a later date, i'll get it up here.

After blowing through the first obstacle, we found ourselves yet again on a short distance run.

Then onto the next obstacle....the Arctic Enema.  This was a long dumpster filled with nothing but Ice and ICY COLD water......Huge shock jumping into it.  Bit of a panic at first, but once you come to terms with and realize you're not dying, you calm down until you get halfway through to the center, where a wooden board was strategically placed to ensure you fully submerged into the water, head and all.

The next few miles were mainly running, along with a few insignificant obstacles, however, these miles were pretty shitty being that we had just jumped in an ice cold bath for about 1-2 minutes long and were drenched running around in the cold, windy weather.  Only way to warm up was to keep trotting along!

 During this run, we passed through High Steppin and the Cliffhanger obstacles.  Basically, these were running up and down some small, steep hills.  Next we ran right into the first Berlin Walls.  I hated these.  I have hardly any upper body strength so I had to rely on my friends to boost me up to the top to get over.

Joe was the only guy that stayed with us out of the 3 we had, so he was a HUGE help in getting all three of us over these walls!!

More running ensued, until we reached the dreaded Death March, a long ass run up the steepest hill I think I've climbed.  Needless to say, I didn't make it the whole way running, although I think I was pretty damn close to running the whole thing.  But Joe and I reached the top together and awaited our other two troopers to join us at the top, which was mile marker 3!

Just after mile 3, we finally reached the water station, for some much needed water reinforcement!

 

We were pretty excited about water!  Then we were off again!  More running!

Obstacle number 7 was Trench Warfare.  Basically an underground tunnel that you had to crawl through, which just so happen to be extremely muddy.

 

This was the first obstacle where we got very muddy and I was proud to show it off!

The next mile or so was an up and down hill run.  Mile 4 wasn't so bad, just a little hill-ie.

Before mile 5, we reached the obstacle I had been waiting all day for!  The Firewalker!!  Since we had wrote Kateniss on the back of my shirt, I wanted to be Kateniss girl on fire =) as a tribute to one of my favorite books.  I'm the one with my arms up in the pink top in the center!

After the firewalker, we had reached mile marker #5!  We had thought we were halfway done!...as you can see by our excited faces!.....

And then there were 3.....We unfortunately had lost Melissa shortly after mile 5 (although she did finish it out.)  After mile 5, we ran into obstacle number 9, the Devil's Beard.  This was a rope net thrown across the path, and you had to crawl on your hands and knees underneath to get across it.

 

We then reached mile 6 and two obstacles, the Log Jammin' and Hold your logs.  We had to carry logs 1/4 mile of the run.

After carrying our logs, we reached the water station for some much needed water and bananas for some energy.

Right after the water station, we came across obstacle #12 Spiders Web.  An upright roped wall you had to climb.

And here comes the hard part, the very top....thought I was going to fall.  Took my granny assed old time!

 These two were so stinkin cute holding the net tight for everyone else.

We reached Miles 7 & 8!!  Somewhere in between was the Log Bog Jog.

Onto obstacle #14!  Walk the plank.  Not gonna lie, it was pretty intimidating standing this high up, getting ready to jump in.

Over the next two miles or so, we reached a few more obstacles and mile markers.  Everest was a large half pipe that you had to run up and hope someone at the top was there to catch your hand to help pull you up.  We then hit Shocks on rocks.  A big pool of water about like an inch or two deep with live wires hanging down, in which you had to crawl through.  I thought it would be a lot worse than it was, but it still def. shocks the shit out of you when you first get zapped.  We made it through with no problems though, unlike some others.  Apparently it took some guy 45 minutes because he kept whining after each shock.

The second Berlin walls was a complete bitch.  I dreaded it as soon as I saw it a few hundred feet away.....It was twice the size of the first one so I really did almost no work on this one.  I relied on the Twilight star look alike to pull me up while his friends pushed my feet up and over both walls.  Miles 9 and 10 were somewhere in the mix of these obstacles as well.

Onto the Funky Monkey.  The inclined monkey bars over a pit of cold, blueish green dyed water.  They weren't your ordinary monkey bars that I had conquered when I was 10 years old.  They inclined at first and then declined, rather than traditionally straight across.  The bars weren't stiff either, they moved as well.  But I had made it across, without falling in the water, despite the dickbag that was behind me kicking me and yelling at me to hurry up.  His dumb fault for starting as soon as I did, thinking I'd fall in right away.  Huge thanks though to Joe and Rachel for cheering me through this obstacle!

Just about there.....

And I made it!

Four more obstacles to go and about 2 miles left.  We trudged through the mud mile and got covered in mud from about our waist down.

Mile 11! What?! There's more?

At least I got to run behind this the last few miles:

On to the boa constrictor.  Tubes that declined into a pit of water, which you couldn't stand up in because barbed wire was above your head.  Then you had to crawl up more tubes on an incline after getting all wet and slippery!

Then we came across the mystery obstacle, rings over top of another pool of water.  I knew I wouldn't make it, but I attempted anyways so that I didn't skip any obstacles.

Somewhat trying to strategize if this is actually possible for me to do...

Nope....not happening.  Got on the first one and then dropped in...

Get me outta here!

We reached mile 12, and STILL weren't done! UGH! 

But we didn't let a little bit more get us down.  We trudged through the next two obstacles for the finish line.  Blew through twinkle toes, a very small, flimsy piece of wood spanning across a pool of water.  Made it across without getting wet!  Then onto the electroshock therapy to finish it off!  A walk of live wires hanging down that you had to run through to pass through the finish line.  Successfully made it through without getting shocked!

We reached the end, got our orange headbands, heat blankets, some food, a t-shirt, and of course...a BEER!  Best tasting beer ever after completing that run =)

Our whole group made it across the finish line and got their orange headbands!!

In the end, we were all sore of course, but no major injuries.  Just a few bumps, bruises, and scratches.  I had a nice bruise on my left knee from whacking it on Berlin wall #2.

But all in all, we all had a great time, enjoyed ourselves and can say we toughed out the toughest run any of us have ever done.  And I'm already looking to sign up for the next tough mudder in my area in the Fall!