Mudder or Sister

Not sure which to blog about first...the Mudder or the Sister.  Although the shit hit the fan with the sister....I think I'm going to blog about Mudder first.

Ok, so I get up on Tough Mudder day and put on sunscreen, choose my clothes, pack an extra set of clothes, check oil, water and windshield wiper fluid, etc. Pick up two large PowerAide drinks and head out into the sunset.  I get to Rocklin and the engine starts acting funky.  Kind of choking...Uh Oh!!!  I'm close to my Girlie's "K's" crib, so I pull in and start calling..trying to figure out what to do. K comes walking up and we're chatting. She offers me her Honda Civic to drive to the Tough Mudder at Northstar Tahoe.  What???  I really want to accept, but that's a huge favor. On the other hand...this is the goal before I turn 50. How bad do I want this?  I accept and head out.

Yeah, I'm running late, and my start time is 12:20 p.m.  I get there and have to do some creative parking due to the lot being full. After that, it's total chaos.  Gotta get my number and my wrist bands...one is for a free beer and the other matches my bib number. Then I have to ride a chairlift to the Mudder Village. Check in my gear and get ready.

Needless to say, nothing ever goes as expected.  I missed my original start time, but I'm in the warm up area.  By the time we did warm up and get started...there's a second start area. We don't actually get on the mountain till about 2 p.m.  We're jogging downhill and I keep my pace extremely slow, knowing I've got 10 miles of this shit, but not knowing that it's 10 miles of 2850 vertical feet.  WTF??? We jog about 3 quarters of a mile downhill and then it is all up hill.  OMG...I'm wheezing like an SOB, snot running down my nose, heart racing....basically I have 5 miles of uphill climbing to go before I can begin to go downhill...not to mention the obstacles coming up.

Climb over walls, slide thru tubes into muddy water, jump into a mud pit that has 8 mud walls to climb over.  Thank God the Mudder spirit is about helping others because without a partner, I couldn't get over those walls. Fortunately for me, a couple came along that helped me.  When she'd boost me up, I'd stand on the top and lift her up. Total teamwork. Then I make the mistake of trying to wipe the snot from my face with a muddy hand....great.

Onward and upward. It's getting really hard and people are passing me. No worries there, but I start seeing dark spots and feeling like I'm gonna black out. NO!  I don't have time for this!  I start chanting to myself "Marcus Luttrell"  over and over.  Unfortunately, I don't realize I'm talking out loud, so this group coming up on me asked what I was chanting.  I told them, and they asked why.  So I said "If Marcus Luttrell can drag himself through mountainous territory with a broken back to escape those effing terrorists out to kill him, I can damn well get my ass up this effing mountain". They looked at me for a second, and said "Yes, you can".

I won't lie peeps, there were about 3 occasions where I thought to myself "It's time to pack it in"...but the thought of giving up and DA not wearing the outfit I had in mind drove me onward. By the time I hit mile 6, I started going downward.  My calves were cramping, my ass ached, but I had no idea how difficult downhill could be.  It was all loose ground, so I had to step carefully, which engaged my knees.  By mile 8, my knees were aching. They saved the Arctic Enema for the last 3 miles, so you jump into a vat of ice water, dive under the barrier and come up the other side. That wasn't so bad.

For me the hardest one was the electrical shock at the end. All the teams lined up and linked arms.  We had to traverse this net of electrical wires hanging down and tromp through the mud to the end, which was about 30 feet away.  So I lined up and I'm by myself.  I get to the front and am going next, when these two guys came up and asked me if I was alone.  I said yes, and they said "Not anymore".  They linked their arms with mine and asked me if I wanted to run or what.  After watching, I realized that the ones that ran, slipped in the mud and fell and were in the pit longer, so I said "let's just walk fast". They agreed and off we went.  The first shock that hit hurt and I could feel my muscles spasm. It's a snap kind of pain and then the shock hits you.  I kept my head down and kept moving because I was not going to bring these two wonderful good-looking guys down with me. We were almost to the end when the shock made my right calf spasm and I felt it cramp and I stumbled.  I didn't go down, but I let out a silent plea to God, "please let that be the last one cuz I don't think my calf will withstand another". He heard me. It was done.

I completed the Tough Mudder in around 5 hours....yeah, I know, I wasn't that fast, but I did it! They put the band around my head, and a beer in my hand! WooHoo!!!  Then it was off to the open showers.  Damned cold at 7 p.m. in higher elevations!  I did what I needed to do, collected my stuff and headed home.

After swapping the Civic for my truck, I ended up at home around 11 p.m. Jumped in the shower to rinse off all the mud in the places you can't see and then soaked in the tub. I ended up in my awesome, fantastic bed around 12:20 a.m. and I was OUT!!!

The next day I basically stayed on the down low. My muscles hurt so I was walking like a damned drunk zombie. I basically let people know I was alive, but didn't really talk to anyone because I was so out of it.  The only person I did FaceTime with was DA.  We did three shots of tequila that evening to celebrate. His advice really helped me finish. Ah well.

Today, I took the day off of work to get my truck fixed.  Thought it might be really expensive. Turned out to be a sensor that cost me $230 to fix. Thank God, cuz this weekend is roller coasters with the Niece! Off to bed for me.  Gotta work tomorrow.  G'nite peeps!