Today was the Ohio Tough Mudder (TM) in Mansfield, Ohio. Our course was 10.5 miles with 22 obstacles, but some TM events are up to 12 miles and have 25 or more obstacles. The weather was perfect: clear skies and around 60 degrees. My wife and I stayed with my parents in Columbus Friday night, and they watched our kids Saturday for us. We met the rest of our team in Mansfield and carpooled together. There were six of us total, 2 male and 4 female. We parked at a shuttle lot and bused over to the event. On the shuttle bus, my wife and I drank a 5 Hour Energy and I had two GU packets in my outfit to use later as needed. According to the event map, there were about two events per mile, with a water/Clif energy station about every 2 miles (5 total).
Our team name was "That's What She Said", like from The Office TV show. The front of our team shirts had the letters BAMF, which stood for "Bad Ass Mo Fo". By the end of the day, this is exactly how I felt.
Once we got off the bus, you could smell the testosterone in the air. Everyone was pumped up and ready for war. They had lots of very loud music all over the place. Once we checked in at registration we were walking in ankle deep mud. We weren't even on the course yet, and our shoes were destroyed. We had a big roll of duct tape and everyone taped their shoes on so the mud didn't suck them off. I also taped my gloves on at the wrist. After a couple team "before" photos, we moved to the start. There was a 7 or 8 foot wall to climb over to get to the start, which was a nice taste of things to come. Keep in mind, we are walking in mud ankle deep this entire time, slipping and sliding, and trying not to roll an ankle.
The MC for the TM events, Sean or Shawn?, was getting everyone pumped up before we took off. Miss Ohio sang the Anthem for everyone, and there was a Wounded Warrior team that we all gave a round of applause. At 10:00, everyone shot out of the start and down a mud path.
Here are the events and my experience:
1. Kiss of Mud #1
Military style Army crawl in mud under barbed wire overhead. The mud smelled like horse manure throughout the entire course, and getting up close and personal to it was interesting. This was easy, but it created a bottleneck of people waiting to crawl, which was a breather from the half mile jog we just did (the 5 hour energy had my HR jumping!). Nearly all events had bottlenecks where we caught our breath.
2. Arctic Enema
This was the event most of my team feared. It's basically a long dumpster with ice water and a wall in the middle to go under. The water is so cold, it's a complete shock to the system. It was so bad that two of our girls had to be pulled out my people ahead of them. There was a log jam as I was the third in line, and the two girls ahead of me needed pulled out and I pushed out the one in front of me. So, I was in the water for a while and it was VERY cold.
3. Firewalker
This was easy, just a small trench of fire and you jumped over it and landed in a pool of water and you climbed out. Easy and hardly any bottleneck here.
4. Glory Blades
This was a 7 or 8 foot wall that was tilted toward us to make it harder. My male teammate and I helped the girls over and one or two girls without a team, then I helped him over and another guy helped me over. There were two or three of these walls and we repeated our strategy for the rest of the "blades" (this event was sponsored by Bic, so like razor blades).
5. Mud Mile #1
This was fun. Several trenches about 5 feet deep with water that you climb over, see 2nd to last photo below. The walls were all mud and falling apart, so everyone was getting a boost or pulled over each wall. These were fun though.
6. Electric Eel
This is like the first crawl event but this time you're crawling in a couple inches of muddy water and there are electric wires hanging overhead that you had to hit as you went through it. I caught a surprisingly painful shock on my left shoulder and let out a scream. I found two other live wires and by the end my left arm was tingling. They warned that doing this with a pacemaker could be fatal. It was a very decent shock, no exaggerating here.
7. Trench Warefare
This could be scary for people with claustrophobia, like me. You crawl into a tunnel that takes a right turn and then a left turn, and as we all know light travels in straight lines, it's completely pitch black for probably a 20 foot crawl section between the turns. I just kept moving and got out in no time. I always considered myself claustrophobic, but this was fine. I just remained calm and kept moving.
8. Funky Monkey
This was the biggest surprise of the day. This is a monkey bar set that goes up and then down over some water. The bars were wet and covered in mud, and I fell in the water after the 4th bar. The surprise was how deep and cold the water was! It was probably 8 feet deep and very cold. I was not expecting that at all. I swam over to the edge and climbed up the ladder. Just about everyone was falling in the water, but my male teammate made it. The rest of us fell in and we were all surprised by the water.
9. Hold Your Wood
This was a big loop you had to walk with a log. My log was pretty heavy, but we just kept moving and sucked it up. Maybe 0.35 miles? Not the end of the world. I handed my log to a guy starting the loop as I was leaving it, and we kept moving.
10. Just the Tip
This was a wall going over another water pit with 2x4's nailed in spots where you had to climb up to the half-I beam like wood piece that got you over the water without any foot holds. This was all hand strength, and I was surprised I made it over. Given my weak monkey bar performance, I didn't expect to make it. My team was about half and half for getting over this one. A few of us had to swim! All events have the option of going around, but to me that's cheating. I tried them all.
11. Dirty Ballerina
This name is misleading. It was just 7 trenches that were close enough to leap from one to the other. Momentum helped me leap over these. Shorter females had trouble here, but it wasn't too bad.
12. Hangin Tough
This was like the monkey bars, but with hanging hand rings like on American Gladiator. You guessed it, I went in the water after the second ring. But, I knew what to expect with the water and was out after a short swim and ladder climb. No one on our team made it over. I think I saw a couple people make it as I waited for my team, but most people were in the water. This was about the 6 to 6.5 mile point, and people were showing their fatigue.
13. Berlin Walls
These were two giant walls. Giant, as in 10 to 12 feet high. High enough that I was fully extended holding someone's foot so they could climb over the top, hang down the back side, and then drop into soft hay. My male teammate and I helped the girls over, and a couple other girls, I helped some guys, and after helping maybe 10 people, some guys helped me over. Repeat for wall #2. The TM is all about camaraderie, not "racing", so everyone was helping everyone on stuff like this and high-fiving after. It was tiring but fun.
14. Island Hopping
This was a big water hole with floating platforms roped together that you jumped over, Frogger game style. They were moving like crazy and tossing people in the water. I heard a couple girls got their foreheads split open pretty bad on this. My entire team did pretty good here and no one fell in the water.
15. Wounded Warrior Carry
With a team of 6, 3 people carried and then switched halfway. Our other male member is 180 pounds, and I carried him "piggy back" style. Then, he got to carry my 225 pound self. It wasn't a terrible length, maybe 30 yards? We needed a breather after this one though. I can't be easy to carry.
16. Ladder to Hell
This was a Full Metal Jacket boot camp style climb up about 20' of a ladder, up and over. Taller people like me had no problem on this one.
17. Kiss of Mud #2
Same as the first Kiss of Mud. We all got through this pretty quickly.
18. Walk the Plank
You climb up a 20-25 foot ladder to a platform and then jump in more very cold water. I did the pencil and expected to hit bottom, nope. It was pretty deep, I heard 14 feet but never found the bottom. A guy two people behind me, as I'm waiting for my teammates to jump, had a panic attack or leg cramp or something and started to drown. They were on him quick, with a scuba safety guy and volunteers and medics everywhere. This was not helpful for my teammates about to go, but they did it and we charged on to what I thought would be my worst nightmare.
19. Boa Constrictor
I feared this event the most. Two 18" pipes that went down to a water area with barbed wire overhead, and then another pipe going up. These pipes were pretty tight, though I didn't panic somehow. I even had to wait in the tube as the person in front of me took a moment to psych themselves up before leaving the water area. I made it to the water and composed myself before the second tube. I had to hold my breath and get into the tube fast to get through the water to air. I'm almost surprised they have this event. What if someone starts drowning? How would they get to them? But once I got into the tube and had air, it was slick to climb out but I was proud that I remained calm.
20. Mud Mile #2
Same as the first Mud Mile. Fun to do but hard as the walls were falling apart.
21. Everest
This is a big quarterpipe you have to run up, see 3rd photo below. Picture a halfpipe from the X-Games, then cut it in half and you get a running start and try to get up to the waiting arms of people who have already made it as they pull you up. I ate it the first run and slid down to the bottom (in front of tons of spectators and several other Tough Mudders), but got pulled up on try number two. I stayed at the top and helped up a couple teammates and a few random people. There was great camaraderie on top of this thing!
22. Electroshock Therapy
This terrified me after being zapped in the Electric Eel event earlier in the day. So, I just took my time and slid through the wires without touching any.
The end! They give you a free beer, orange headband, and finisher's t-shirt. We stayed for some burgers and a second beer, changed, and then hopped on the shuttle bus to get back to the car. We finished our Tough Mudder in almost 5 hours exactly, maybe something like 4:57:00.
The hardest part was jogging 10.5 miles in ankle deep mud, which got your hip-flexors going as the mud tried to suck your shoes off with each step. We did a Warrior Dash last year, and it was basically dry, trail running between muddy events. This TM was mud from start to finish. I would say the full Marathon is harder, but the TM was tougher than a half marathon. If you think about it, I was "active" for 5 hours. A normal half marathon is a 2.5 hour run, no mud, no upper body use, with a water station every mile.
Some of my team I didn't know that well, but after this race we'll be forever bonded. I suggest anyone looking for something different and fun to try a Warrior Dash. If that was enjoyable and "easy", to then try the Tough Mudder. Going into a TM event "cold" would be pretty tough. Was sore for a couple days, like I had done a killer full body workout at the gym (which I kind of did). But otherwise, my wife and I were good to go and ready for our next race!
Photos from the race:
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