EDIT from 1/3/13:
I never finished this post back in April 2012 because I was not able to obtain a full listing of all the obstacles on the day of the event. As such, I summarize half of the obstacles as best as I can remember them. The course map that Tough Mudder provides on their website is only an example and what you see and will NOT be what you experience on the day of the event. Furthermore, the course map provided at the event itself was also wrong as they moved, changed, and removed obstacles in order to address weather and course conditions. My friend got lost for most of the day spectating because the map was terrible. Onto the post...
It has been a day since I finished Tough Mudder with my friend...I am bruised, scratched, sore, and extremely happy! The headband is mine along with the memories of a day filled with mud, rainy weather, and great people. Before I give you the full report, let me just say that if it wasn't for my friend Jason and countless other Mudders on the course, I would not have been able to finish the course properly. There were times yesterday when my hands and feet were numb, my upper body just not functioning very well, and I had to scale the 12' Berlin Walls and Everest. It was during those times that I received help that allowed me to get over the walls and conquer Everest. The camaraderie shared by all Mudders on that course was truly inspiring and I know that the reason most of them have their headbands today is because they received a helping hand at some point. That's just how it was. So thank you Mudders! This was our victory!
Onto the event. My friends and I stayed at a local Motel 6 in Amherst and the place was an absolute pit. It reeked of an acrid antiseptic smell and there were things on the floor that looked suspiciously like animal droppings. We had a terrible night of sleep and woke up at 5:45 AM to get ready for our 9:00 AM start time. Registration for the event begins at 7:00 AM and TM advises participants to allow 2 hours for parking, shuttle pickup and drop off, and final event registration. We arrived at the parking lot at 6:30 and were bused over to the event at Amherst Quarry. Once on site, Jason and I lined up for our packet pickup which consists of your participant number which is pinned onto your shirt and your number being sharpied onto your forehead. All in all we were done with this process by 7:00 and had two hours to wait for our start time. The temperature was a brisk 47 degrees with a slight drizzle so waiting was a little tedious. At 8:00 AM the first wave of 600 participants was sent onto the course and another wave would be let loose every 20 minutes. We noticed that no one was confirming start times for the participants so Jason and I decided to hop the small Berlin wall at the starting corral and run the 8:40 wave...20 minutes before our start time.
Once in the corral, and almost on queue, the speakers began to play "Chop Suey" by System of a Down and I can't tell you how pumped we were to start the course. After a few minutes, the Tough Mudder pre-race MC gave a rousing speech to amp us up even more with plenty of chants and reminded us of why we were doing this in the first place...the Wounded Warrior project. After the National Anthem ended, "Eye of the Tiger" began to play and after a short countdown we were let loose onto the course. Prior to the start, the course map that TM provided us and the spectators showed Arctic Enema to be the first obstacle and it was located within a few hundred feet of the starting line. This was false information as the course had changed so we were instead herded along the southern edge of the quarry to our first obstacle:
Obstacle #1: High Steppin'
High Steppin' consists of columns of about 10-12 wooden hurdles connected to each other with 5 lanes. Mudders must hurdle through their lane to the end of the obstacle. Pretty simple.
After that, we ran along the western side of the quarry for a long ways, u-turned, and came back towards the start where we ran straight into the dreaded...
Obstacle #2: ARCTIC ENEMA!!
I had my reservations regarding this obstacle, mainly having to do with jumping into truly freezing ice water while the temperature at the event was in the 40's. Arctic Enema is four large dumpsters filled with neon colored ice water. In the middle is a wooden barrier topped with barbed wire to prevent you from jumping over it. Mudders are forced to jump in and submerge under the barrier to reach the end of the dumpster. From what we saw, the two dumpsters on the right did not have as much ice as the one's on the left did. But that may have been only because they had not dumped in fresh ice yet. Nonetheless, jumping into that water was cold, but submerging under the barrier was crazy. My head felt like it shrunk and I was having a hard time seeing straight. Instinctively I jumped and rolled my body out of the dumpster where I bent over trying to catch my breath. It was fucking crazy! A sign nearby said "C'mon, it wasn't that cold was it?"
Now soaked in neon green ice water, we continued on our merry jog. The terrain in between the obstacles varied from flat grassland, hilly trails in in the trees, and muddy swamp areas.
Obstacle #3: Berlin Walls 1
Since we were nice and wet at this point, the course designers thought it would be prudent to make us climb a couple 9' walls. They were not too bad since there's a little step a quarter up on the wall. If you're a guy, be careful of sitting on your "cash and prizes" when swinging your leg over the wall. Ouch.
Obstacle #4: Firewalker
A mystery obstacle and one that was quite pleasant I must say. Simply run through a path that is lined with burning bales of hay. The fire was nice and toasty and the smoke reminded me of campfires.
Obstacle #5: Bale Bonds
Simply get a running start and climb over a few large bales of hay. Nothing too complicated.
It should be noted that the distance between obstacles averaged about .5 miles, although some stretches were longer than others.
Obstacle #6: Killa Gorilla
We jogged out of the woods into a clearing and our next two obstacles were in front of us, along with the first Water and Aid Station. Killa Gorilla consisted of scaling a couple large hills of dirt and sand, wading through some water, and returning from whence we came. As we approached the obstacle, a sign mockingly declared that this was where Warrior Dash ended, but Tough Mudder was only beginning. In retrospect, it was at this point (about 3 miles in) that I feel the course stopped being "fun" and really turned the screws in terms of pushing the limits of human endurance. From this moment on, there were no simple bales of hay to climb. It was now time to meet the first obstacle that I like to call the Unholy Duo...
Obstacle #7: Walk the Plank
There was a lake formed by the quarry and on the edge were 4 large wooden platforms that had been erected. The object was to climb to the top, patiently wait your turn, and fling yourself off a 25 foot drop into the 40 degree lake below...and THEN swim out to the shore. With Arctic Enema, you can simply jump in and jump out. Walk the Plank requires you to swim yourself to shore while your body is shutting down. When I finally got out, I felt completely drained. This obstacle is no joke.
We hit up the Aid Station for some water and then began a stiff-legged jog to our next obstacle.
Obstacle #8: Mud Mile
This consisted of an extremely muddey and meandering path through fens and weeds. Funny thing is on the way to this obstacle I asked Jason where the mud was. Here we got it in spades. Heaps of mud caked to your legs and feet. The last section consisted of 3 mud pits about 5 feet deep and impossible to jump over. Basically, this is the "I wish I went to Woodstock 94" obstacle.
The remaining obstacles:
As the course dragged on for miles, Jason and I really started to slow down. It seemed like the course designers made a concerted effort to place the more challenging obstacles later in the course when you were tired and beat to shit. After mud mile I pretty much forgot the order of the obstacles and I can't find any information online. The following list is from memory:
Dirty Ballerina: A series of 10 small dirt mounds with 5 foot gaps between filled with muddy water. This is the obstacle that both of us got hurt on. The mounds were so wet and muddy that I didn't have the traction to jump over the gap properly. I ended up smashing my knee into the side of it which tore a hole in the leggings and my knee itself which swelled up almost immediately. Jason tried the same thing and he slammed chest first into the mound. For the rest of the obstacle we crawled over each mound, getting soaking wet every time. Just an awful, punishing obstacle that wasn't on the original course map. Fuckers.
Boa Constrictor: This is a Mudder standard. Slide down a plastic drainage pipe into muddy water and crawl up another. When you are soaking wet and freezing cold, it is damn hard to crawl up tight pipe like that.
Devil's Beard: Crawl under a giant, heavy, muddy cargo net that is securely fastened to the ground. Sounds harder than it is. The net forces you to crawl and the ground was very muddy. Unpleasant.
Electric Eel: Going into the event I was pretty nervous about Electroshock Therapy...I've never been shocked by electricity before. What I didn't realize was that about 14 obstacles prior to that I would have to deal with Electric Eel, and it would be 100 times worse than Electroshock. Basically, you army crawl under numerous live electric wires that hang down, all while you are in a few inches of water. Every time someone would get shocked, everyone in the water would feel a jolt which was truly heinous. I managed to get through the obstacle unscathed.....until I decided to give my hand to a guy to help him up at the end. When I lifted him up I pulled him right into a wire and I felt every nerve in my body spasm. I was still feeling the effects a half hour later.
Funky Monkey: Ahh the monkey bars. Half inclined and half declined, all over cold water. I thought I had it, I thought it would be one of the "easy ones." Unfortunately I was so beat, soaking wet, and weak that when I grabbed the third rung I fell into yet another pool of water. Not the last time!
Hangin' Tough: More upper body work. Free-swinging rings over another pool of.....you guessed it! Cold water! Once again, I had no strength to hold on which resulted in another dunk for me.
Hold Your Wood: Grab a large log and lug it through the woods. Pretty straight forward but more challenging than it sounds.
Twinkle Toes: Balance beam over more cold water. If you fall off, which I did, don't grab the beam which is wired for electric shocks.
12' Berlin Walls: The fuckers had more Berlin Walls three obstacles from the end, and these were 12' high. This was one of those obstacles that if it were not for my fellow mudders, I would not have made it over. I simply had no strength.
Everest: The second to last obstacle and to be honest, the one I was the most intimidated by. Standing in front of that huge half pipe, surrounded by a throng of spectators, I truly understood what pressure was. I did not want to be the guy who couldn't make it over. On my first attempt, I made it to the top but the guy who gave me his hand couldn't hold on. On my second attempt, in pouring rain, I got to the top again, begged for my fellow mudders to hold on, and luckily I was able to summit. Soooooo happy!
Electroshock Therapy: Compared to Everest...meh...this was easy. With the finish line in sight, the only obstacle in the way was a grid of live wires to run through. I didn't get even get shocked. Once through I let out a yell of triumph. We had done it!
At the finish line you get your orange headband, a free Dos Equis, and a free t-shirt. Then we jumped on the bus back to our car. I was so cold that I stripped butt-ass naked in the parking lot because I simply did not give a fuck. I changed into some dry clothes and I felt great! Tired as all hell, but I was now a Tough Mudder!
A couple quick notes about my gear. The Vibrams held up great on the course. The only problem I had was that it was a little painful to run on rocks all day. That is the direct consequence of the course being at a rock quarry. The Under Armor was AMAZING and I strongly recommend that you use Coldgear compression wear if your event will be in weather 50 degrees or less. The Carhart gloves were great for protection but terrible for grippiness on Funky Monkey and Hangin' Tough. When they got wet, they were utterly useless.
So that's that. It was an amazing experience and I would love to do it again...........
The End?
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