BackBeach - How was your Tough Mudder?

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Home stretch?

Miles 6-8 were a blur as I was shuddering uncontrollably from the electric shock and cold water. Every so often the sun would pop out and provide just enough heat to keep things going. Fortunately, our workout regimen positioned us well for the long distance as I never felt overwhelmed in terms of physical need, nor did any of my buddies. One of them had done several Boston Marathons and was really impressed with the level of challenge as well as the diversity of the obstacles. At this point, though, it seemed like time had stopped. There was a good number of people bowing out around mile six as it seemed like the miles were getting real long at this point.

We encountered a couple real challenging water obstacles at this time. One of them was called, "walk the plank" where you plunged about 15-20 feet into real cold water, then had to swim back to shore. My buddy Joe jumped off and disappeared under the surface for what seemed like an eternity. I did a straight jackknife and wound up way under the surface. I was thinking I would touch bottom and push off to get back to the surface quickly, but guessed wrong. The water was real deep and cold, thus I had to claw back to the surface. My buddy Joe was in the water when the guy next to him popped up and started convulsing from the cold water. The medics responded real quick and got the guy onto a board, then delivered him safely ashore where he came to his senses shortly after. There were some sick dudes doing back flips off the board which made for some fun viewing:

[Back Beach]

These weren't too bad, but there was so much dirt suspended in the water I couldn't see for a bit once I got out. You had to duck under these trees in about 3' of real muddy water to get past the obstacle. I got mud in every orifice of my body. This was easily the dirtiest obstacle of them all, but pretty fun:

[Back Beach]

Pretty challenging, but real fun series of obstacles leading up to the finish:

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Good team work obstacle as it made for an interesting setup to the finish. Add in the cold water hose down and we're almost home...

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"Everest" was one of the very best obstacles as you had to scale a 15' tall half pipe, which a lot of the better athletes did unassisted. After you got to the top you hung out for a bit and helped fellow mudders to the top if they needed assistance.

As expected, my tangle with the electric eel made for a lot of anxiety as I knew the final obstacle was the now famous, "electroshock therapy." This required another pass through dangling 10,000 volt electric wires to reach the finish line...

The four of us approached electroshock kind of bewildered until someone finally shouted "GO"... and we went...I just put my head down and charged. Amazingly, I got through without getting nailed and crossed the finish line. I looked back and Joe was not in sight yet...apparently he took two hard shots and got knocked down twice before escaping the dangling wires. As the four of us gathered at the finish line a huge sense of camaraderie, accomplishment and teamwork was apparent. I was so effing happy as was the rest of our crew. What a day away from the office this was:

[Back Beach]

I was not looking forward to this one, but it looks like a lot of people ran right through without getting banged up too bad, cept for my friend Joe:

[Back Beach]

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this event to anyone. It's got so many elements to it they're impossible to enumerate. Look at the pics, talk to someone who's done it and I'm sure you'll hear all kinds of stuff. Some people got banged up real bad, but most complete the course (about 70% of all entrants) in 3-5 hours. We finished in just under 4 hours while the younger guys in our group did it in about 3. I feel great today with only a couple very minor abrasions on my left knee.

By no means do you need to be a super athlete, although it certainly helps with many of the obstacles from what I witnessed. I found all the squats, pull-ups, and body planks I do to be the best exercises to prepare yourself. Surprisingly, all the rock hopping along Narragansett, Cutty, and LC I've done in recent years was extremely helpful in terms of my foot placement and preventing some bad dumps. The "arctic enema" seemed to be universally difficult for everyone. The "electric eel" messed me up the most while all the hill climbing and dexterity obstacles came the easiest.

All told, I give the Tough Mudder 5 out of 5 stars. It #^&#^&#^&#^&ing ruled...

Almost forgot...If I was single again I'd attend every one of these things worldwide...hot single chicks galore