Tough Mudder

kilts and all, we finished strong.

On Saturday, September 8th, I woke up in the beautiful basement of my aunt Kathy and Uncle Steve's in Poolesville, MD.  It was 6:30 a.m.  I mooched (typical) off their generosity and ate a high fiber/high protein breckers.  The usual: cereal and pbutter.

My teammates got up too and we all ate some form of the above.  We drank coffee.  Our start time was 10:40 so by leaving by 8 a.m. we'd get to the race around 8:30 and hopefully get an early start.  After eating, we suited up in our kilts that Melissa's mom had generously crafted with her genius seemstress skills.  We look tough.  Ready for the TOUGH MUDDER of Frederick MD.

We got dressed up, went to our car.  Kathy took our photo:

As we get off the Buckeystown Pike, we see this:

That is Tough Mudder Traffic.  This traffic was crazy.  Roughty 16,000 (that day: 28,000 for the whole weekend) people trying to converge on a tiny farm to run a big race.  Whoa!  Like BIG WHOA!  Like the Town of Frederick MD told the Tough Mudder that they couldn't even run the thing on Sunday because Saturday was such a MUCK.  

So, we sit in the traffic for 2 hours.  And then we huff it.  For 3 miles to the race start.  But we got lots of kilt complements from the people still dumb enough to wait in their cars and not find a random parking spot anywhere and find the race.  

for huffing it, Denise, Margaret, and Melissa look pretty good

the TEAM.  Margaret and Daddy Schrack ended up falling behind because of Margaret's WICKED bacterial infection

We finally got there, checked in, found porta-potties, and got started by 11 a.m.  The race accomadations were adequate.  Checking in gave some problems for Denise whose last name which starts with Q completely confused the Tough Mudder volunteers.  

We looked good, having found Team Mom and Dad Schrack who saved our lives later by providing showers post-race at their hotel.  

It's 11:00a.m. and we get to THE MOB trying to start.  This obnoxious Tough Mudder volunteer yelled, "If you weren't in the 11 a.m. seed, you cannot go.  Wait!"  We didn't wait even though our start time was 10:40.  We just went.  Kinda sad we did because it started thundering around mile 7 and we had to skip the last 5 events due to lighting.  Silly.  They put electric shockers at 2 of the obstacles and they're worried about lighting and safety?  Hypocrites.  

The follow photos are blatantly stolen from the Tough Mudder website.  We did some cool obstacles.  

The "arctic enema" was the WORST.   

there were many mud obstacles

my favorite: jumping 10 meters into muddy water and having a marine-like lady yell, "JUST GO!"

The end of the race, where I actually pulled a muscle, is not documented with photographs but the parking spot where Team mom & dad parked their four-wheel jeep was a MUD FIELD.  It took four burly men and at least 45 minutes of heave-hoeing to get their jeep outta the mud.  We did.  And they graciously drove our shivering bodies to our car.  From there we went to the most glorious hotel to take the best shower of our lives.

We were tough.  We got muddy.  And all I got was a lousy t-shirt.  And a sweat band.  And this "online badge."  Be impressed.