You had to scale an 8-foot wall to get to the starting line.

The Tough Mudder is a little like childbirth. You anticipate the arrival date for months. You do everything you can to get ready, but nothing can truly prepare you. During the event, some crazy things occur: it hurts, you scream some nasty things, it's very messy. When it's done you feel amazing despite the pain. And a few days later? The pain's pretty much forgotten and you want to do it again.

I cannot believe I completed the Tough Mudder course. Every obstacle. All 12 miles. Zach and I crossed the finish line together after being on the course for more than four hours.

The day started with our team of five -- my oldest friend's husband, a teacher from Zach's school, Zach's youngest sister, Zach, and me -- gathering for breakfast at our cabin, about 20 miles from the event site. We loaded up on our protein drinks, hard boiled eggs, oatmeal, and tons of water. The mood on the drive was light-hearted. We were scheduled to be in the third wave at 9:40, and the parking lot was already packed.

We got into the site and got our numbers written on our foreheads. We found the (already disgusting) Port-O-Potties. I mixed up some E&E (Energy and Endurance Formula) and drank down the whole bottle in about four gulps. The men decided to go "skins." We watched the first two waves go off. Then we posed for a team picture in front of the Berlin Wall before we helped each other scale it to get to the starting line.

Before the start, a Tough Mudder HQ team member gave us a profanity-laden preview of the course (this course ain't for the kids) and pumped us up with some Hoo-Rahs and a stirring rendition of the National Anthem. I still wasn't sure what to expect.

The gun went off and we took our first steps into what would be about 12 miles of mud, followed by mud, then water, then more mud. And some more mud. I've never seen so much mud in my life.

One of the first obstacles we encountered was one I was most nervous about: the barrels you had to swim under.

That water took my breath away. It was murky, and all you could do was hold your breath, push forward and hope you kicked hard enough to get past the barrel. Then repeat it twice.


Soon after that, the event I was even more nervous about: the ice bath.

Lucky for us our dumpster full of ice water hadn't been refreshed recently, so there weren't many actual ice cubes. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt when we had to dive under that board and resurface to wade a few feet and jump out of the dumpster. The strange thing about that obstacle was when it felt like your shoes and feet were frozen about 20 yards down the trail after you got out.


Even though I knew I was well-conditioned going into the Tough Mudder, I just didn't know how I would handle the obstacles, mentally or physically. Successfully completing those two water obstacles early on gave me the confidence I was lacking going into the race.


The first eight miles were awesome. I felt great, had tons of energy (THANK YOU, E&E!), I was pleased with my choice of shoes, shirt, and tights, all of which were shedding water and mud as well as could be expected.

New Balance WT 101 Trail Running Shoes: Perfect for the Tough Mudder

Throughout the course it was a sloppy, slippery mess, but I was able to keep a great center of gravity and felt very strong and balanced. Asylum and P90X2 are all about performance, and this was a test of performance for sure.


Our team mostly stayed together -- if someone fell behind we'd at least wait at the next obstacle. Then somewhere around mile eight we got stuck in a traffic jam of people in a muddy creek bed. We stood there for probably 20 minutes in knee to waist-deep sludge waiting for the jam to clear. I stiffened up and started to notice the things that were hurting. My feet and ankles, mostly. The rocks and mud had caked in my socks, and my left shoe was rubbing on this crazy bone I have that sticks out under my ankle bone. I was worried it was becoming a blister.

Then rude people started climbing around us. (I'm sure those are the same people that drive in the shoulder when there's an accident on the road ahead.) The guy behind me sighed loudly about 14 times. Zach counted to 10 about 13 times. Finally, we made it out. But our attitudes weren't what they were going into the creek bed.

We were under the assumption going in that the course was 10 miles, but when we reached the sign for 10 miles we noticed we hadn't done some of the obstacles we knew were on the course. Still a long way to go. Another blow to the psyche.

All you can do is keep going.

We reached the half-pipe, where you have to gather all your strength and energy to run up a curved wall that's been greased with cooking oil. All you have to do (!) is propel yourself far enough up the wall to grab hands with some fellow Mudders who were lining the top of the half-pipe. If you could make it that far, they'd pull you the rest of the way.

My first attempt I fell short and slid back down. I watched Zach go and make it on his first try. My second attempt was successful. The rest of the guys on our team made it, then took their turn at the top of the wall to help others over. They were fortunate enough to help one of the Wounded Warriors -- a veteran missing a limb -- complete his journey over the wall. This man was missing an arm below the elbow, and the Mudders formed a chain for him to climb. Then our team met him at the top and pulled him the rest of the way. It was a great moment.

We knew by this time that it was past 1:30pm; we'd been on the course more than three hours. There were still the monkey bars, the 15-foot jump into the water from the ledge, the electric shocks just before the finish line. Who knows what else we had to do?

By this time I had shed my socks and the pain in my left foot was getting more intense. I couldn't wait to get to the finish line and loosen them up, but I didn't dare do that during the race for fear of losing my shoes in the mud.

Zach and I approached the water jump together and climbed to the platform. I don't like heights and I'm not a great swimmer. We jumped together. I held my nose (like that was going to help), but still snorted water. It felt good to wash all that mud off, though, and we actually lingered a bit in the pond before starting out again.

As we approached the final obstacle, there was none of the fanfare that you usually see at the end of a long race. Spectators -- mostly people who had just finished -- lined the sides, looking exhausted and dazed. A DJ spoke into a microphone just after the finish line. Zach and I stopped and sized up the electric shock wires dangling over a mud pit.

"How deep is that mud?" I asked a guy on the side. He motioned that it was about ankle deep. "Any recommendations on how to do this?" I asked. "Just run," the guy said.

So we did.

I put my eye on the finish line and didn't look anywhere else. If I got shocked, I didn't feel it. Zach got hit once or twice. I high fived the DJ on the way by, and then was ushered through to get my headband and T-shirt.

We did it.

We waited for the rest of our team a few minutes behind us. No yelling or cheering. No jumping up and down. No energy. Just banana eating and water drinking. Then we made as quick an exit as possible to get to our truck and back to the cabin where we could clean up and eat.

We were happy, but exhausted.

The magnitude of our team's accomplishment didn't really set in until I started looking at the pictures posted on Facebook from our event. Crawling through those tunnels. That barbwire fence. That water. Those walls. All that mud. We did it.

Holy cow, we did it.