Starting
Over
Smithville,
Texas- Toughest Mudder South and the Tougher Mudder that preceded it 16
hours earlier felt like the true start of the Tough Mudder season and
the re collecting of Holy Grail
points for 2018. In January I thought that maybe I could continue
the streak of doing all the Toughest Races again but TMHQ had increased the number from six to eight- with four of the
locations outside the USA. For those of you (besides my mom)
who read my Toughest blogs might remember I sold my car last year to
pay for the 2017 season. This year I would definitely need help with
tickets to the U.K., Australia, Scotland and Germany not to mention those in
the States (LA (now Sonoma due to the flooding roads), Texas, Michigan and
Boston). It’s not easy getting sponsorship dollars to support my habit.
Especially when you don’t really ask for them! Despite my :13 minutes of
fame on CBS Sports Road to Toughest
Mudder last year and contrary to popular belief no moula poured in and I
would once again be on my own. But then lo and behold TMHQ had announced a special bonus of
$10k to whomever amassed the most Holy
Grail Miles and bingo I started doing the math in my head of how I could
win. Last year only 3 of us went over 300 total Holy Grail Miles (just Tougher, Toughest and Worlds Toughest Mudder
Miles count ). Alison Tai got
305, I got 320 and Ryan Atkins accumulated
335. Ironically I did twice as many races as Ryan but his repeat 50 miler
Toughest performances and the 110 miles at WTM (to my measly 70) earned him the
deserved 2017 title. Winner last year got his or her name on a perpetual trophy
but this year there was cold hard cash up for grabs. I took advantage of all the early bird TM
specials and bought tickets to 7 of the 8 Toughests plus 10 Tougher Add Ons to
my Season Pass I earned from being a TM Ambassador last year. I
strategized how I could hit 400 miles, win the Grail and repay the Credit Cards
I would use to make this all happen. It was a brilliant plan until it
wasn’t.
Last week TMHQ announced by way of a sneaky email that the deal
was off. The bonus was no more citing cancellations of the Scotland
Toughest, something about fairness and basically padding the Tougher and TMX
race prize purses as the excuse. It was devastating news. It took me
a full hour to get over it!
Feeling blah
I had been sick more than usual this year. Stomach woes
limited my training all year with my longest run being not much longer than my
longest ocean swim (5 miles). Yeah pathetic and stellar at the same time
huh?! My upper body strength wasn’t much
better despite buying some Kong style rings on Amazon and suspending them from
an old truck lumber rack in my courtyard. I flew from San Diego to San
Antonio late Friday, skipped dinner and drove to a town named Balstrop 40 miles
east of Austin. I had two Ensures for dinner and two more for breakfast
and drove to the General parking lot which was: 30 from the race site and cost $25.
The bus driver got lost (God bless her) and I got to the race site at 7:15. Two words:
Premium Parking!
I toed the line at the Tougher race with every intention of
walking %90 and running %10 to get the mileage and the lay of the land.
Then Sean Corvelle spoke and all
bets were off and I did the opposite sprinting the first mile like I was going
to win the thing. Ankle deep mud put a stop to that nonsense pretty darn quick
with several of us slipping on our backsides and into the muck. It had rained the day before and it showed.
The 10 Mile two lap course turned out to be 12 miles with single track trail,
several stream and creek crossings which were more like creek traverses with
soft gravely sand and ankle to knee to neck deep murky brown surprisingly warm
water. The course was a reminder and combination of the 2017 TM Seattle, Atlanta,
Philly and Nola course all in one. At 7:45 it was almost 70 degrees out
and I opted to just wear compression shorts, the Tougher race bib and an older
pair of Merrrell All Out Crushes and
compression socks. Perfect.
The two-lap course was set up to separate the pack meaning the
tougher obstacles were on the second loop. Lap one consisted of the mud swamps
like Quagmire, Pitt Stop, Mud Mile (down
and back); Kiss-of Mud, Turducken
(with pretty Gatorade blue water) and Trench
Warfare
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| Turducken by day |
(Think 20 yards of crawling
in mud in an underground tunnel like in WWI). Lap two had the more
technical obstacles like Funky, Just the
Tip, Kong and an incomplete Rope a
Dope that you just had to run and grab the rope instead of climb.
There weren’t penalties on these with the exception of Kong, which was extra mileage. EST was an obstacle on the first lap and since I loathe getting
shocked (because I usually pass out) I skirted
the outside of the wires as best I could and crawled over the last hey bale
unscathed. A guy behind me yelped in pain so I knew they were turned
on. We had to carry wood logs on Hold your Wood on both loops and
hurdled horizontal trees on Lumberjacked
for more time killers. We got to rinse off with obstacles like the old Cage Crawl and the new Happy Ending (imagine Pyramid Scheme with a rope and a waterslide). Mudder friends
helped me up and over Mud Mile and Everest.
The only obstacle I really struggled with was Everest-, which was slick as snot, and the ropes didn’t help
much. Myself, Lindsay Rude (
who I cat and moussed with) along with my buddy Deanna Brasz (who got 4th overall and 2nd
female) and I’m sure a few others got lost a couple of times which may have
cost them (not me) podium positions.
Some of the trail could have probably been marked better. Blockness was easy to do solo with very
heavy slow spinning blocks. Sorry this is not much of a Tougher report
but hopefully you get the gist. Despite spending an hour longer on the
course than I had intended and totally exhausting myself I had fun so to speak. It was a great course and it was good seeing all
the personalities of TM and getting down and dirty again.
I don’t wanna do I havta?
After the race I hung out for an hour and chatted with famous
people like Clinton and Sue Harvey Brown who is Merrell and represents the
brand well. I skipped my celebratory
beer and gave my new mudder buddy
Charlie Boher (who consequently
was also going after the Holy Grail
win and equally dismayed at the news) from the U.K. a ride back to his hotel in
Austin. I was ravenous hungry so I ate at Maxine’s Dinner in
Balstrop and fed on cat fish, hush puppies and mashed potatoes with a heavy
douse of gravy. Despite the excellent pie menue I said no thank you ma’am
and wallowed back to my hotel. I crashed hard for an hour and then
tussled and turned until I was grumpy as hell. Every 20 minutes I
checked the hotel clock and got more and more restless as the time got
closer to the time I had to leave. At 9:30 I swear I didn’t want to race
anymore. At 10:00 I was still in my room wondering if I could transfer my entry
to next year. I don’t know what was wrong with me but I felt lousy, out
of shape, had no motivation and didn’t want to race ever again. So I
grabbed my gear, purposely left my hotel keys in the room and got in my rental
car and drove to Smithville 17 miles away. I put the comedy station on.
It didn’t help.
Family Reunion
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| Goat Tough Crew |
Let’s do this
When you go into the start line corral that is pretty much the
point of no return. It usually happens around 11:15-11:45 depending on what
country or state you are in). It starts with loud thumping music (Think
AC/DC and or Irish music at high speed); then Sean comes out, then Coach,
then Eli with the Rules. And
then the American Flag anthem and then a moment of silence and then the Toughest Pledge. The last two
minutes time stands still and Sean
uses it to carve out every positive message he can before the NASA 10 second
countdown and the mad rush to get out of the starting gate as if someone yelled
“Fire!” I switched my headlight on and did a couple of bunny hops as
if-to warm up. One last deep breath and then moved out into the fray hoping for the
best.
And they are off
Despite being one of the top 25 out past the start line in the
next mile I would be passed by what felt like 100-200 gung ho Muddders in onesies
and twosies. Some were kind enough to recognize me and say "Hi Mark" and not
cruel enough to say "Almost there!" or worse "Are you ok?"
I was on conserve and don't blow up or slip in the ankle deep muck mode. By
mile two I was shuffling and then half walking half running. Having done
most of the course earlier I knew what was coming. I just forgot where things
were and didn't know if the obstacles would actually stay closed the full hour
or not. We have been tricked in the past and I wasn't going to keep my
hopes up for a completely free lap. Muddy single track trail with
roots galore and low hanging thorny branches opened up to a creek crossing and
then grass and then started all over again and in the first mile we were
already wading through a creek and completely wet. Fortunately the water
was still surprisingly warm. It was the getting out of the water that gradually
took its toll and caused an unpleasant chill.
It was going to be a slow first lap.
Despite it being relatively flat, compared to past courses, there was
enough rise and fall in the trail to slow things up. The mud was so thick it was easy to slip and
though the night I must have taken a dozen falls each one feeling like I was hyperextending
a knee or throwing out a hip. Things
were moving at about a 10 minute pace and then Mud Mile hit and the it went to 20 minute pace. It was clear this first lap
would be an hour plus for me.
Lap Two,
Three, Four, Five and Not Six
I had finished the first lap in 1:02 somewhat disgusted in
myself. We had done a few mud obstacles
but in my mind I should have gone sub 40.
In my mind I should also have a pet unicorn but I don’t. I did a quick pit stop to take off my wet
compression top. I was warm so I donned compression arms, slugged down an Ensure and went back
out. It was a longer stretch of trail then before when we hit Quagmire and the same with Kiss of Mud, Lumber jacked and the tame
Ladder From Hell. In fact, as the
night went on, it was evident that the terrain itself was much more difficult
than the 20 obstacles. Just the creek
traverse to Devils Beard was a scene
from a Vietnam jungle movie. Several of
the loops I found myself alone in this section and it was a surreal OMG moment
(this from a former Navy SEAL too!) Pitfall was more mud but with various depths
so I just got down and swam it just like I would Creek Crusade because it was faster to swim then trudge
through. Cage Crawl was one of my favorites as I just lay back, reached overhead and pulled on the cage wire and tried to stay as horizontal as possible and
just pull and float. I think I held my breath
through this so I didn’t get water up my nose.
Another mile later I was at Just
the Tip and despite studying the U-tube videos on how to do this obstacle (I
think the guy is a pro rock climber) I got to the second black peg and slipped off. As for the dumb trailer
hitches I can't grab those for shit. I started my watch to
time the penalty lap and found I could do it just under two minutes so that
would be my plan. Fail and then
run. At Funky Tough they had changed the standard monkey bars to vertical 12-inch
long silver bars at 30-degree angles.
There was a block of wood in between that supposedly had a lip
underneath to reverse hold but I never made it that far. Into the water I went each time. Timing that penalty loop I was just under: 2
again. Blockness I remembered from that morning was easy to do solo.
It was not easy to do if two jumped at the
same time however which I found out. Berlin Walls were easy peasy and Mud Mile had started to degrade in such
a way that there were foot and handholds to go over solo also.
Rope a Dope opened much later, I want to say around 3AM. The trick is to use your hands and your feet
although that heavy weight on the bottom of the rope makes it difficult to do a
standard rope climb. One guy tried to
get away with just leaping across citing that he had done that earlier at the Tougher
race. Fortunately the lifeguard called
him back for a do over. I would
complete this obstacle three times without fail. Shortly after Kong Infinity was up but we had the choice of doing regular Kong, which I did. I use my whole arms in the rings, which hurt,
but I never failed this way. At around 5am
they made us all do the new Infinity version, which I failed twice. Everest
was a skip for me. I headed right to the
sand bag carry, which I could do again under 2. I’m sure some just went up and over no problem or figured out how to use the thicker than last year rope but I
didn’t. At 5am they changed the route to
the Everest 2.0 only version, which
was a lot harder. You had to at least
attempt it before heading to the sandbag carry.
I was humbled to see Kiris
Mendoza also fail and take to the sand bag.
I think he probably did his carry under 1 minute ! Arctic remained pretty tame all night. They never seemed to add more ice to it and
gone were the tunnels or slides from past years. It was simply get in, duck under some wire and get out. As the night went on you could manage it
without getting the top of your head wet.
Still though I was glad I put on my 2mm O’Neil wetsuit top around
4am. I didn’t want to get too cold and
slow down. Despite it being on the map
there was no EST (thank God!). Happy Ending had long frayed ropes that made the traverse up easy. The first couple laps had cascading water
like Augustus Gloop (which I miss
sooooo much!). The slide down the back
side seemed to nail my tail bone each time and on my fourth lap my head lamp
which I had placed around my neck wacked me on the forehead drawing blood. Kailey
and Coach were both kind enough to
point out that I was bleeding again and several Mudders were kind enough to let
me know that I had torn a hole in my 2XL compression tights on the left butt
cheek. Ah for modesty. Actually I was trying to compete with Chris Betcher’s wardrobe a few TMS
back!
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| Slow spinning Blockness |
Eureka
At 7:34 I finished my 5th lap in 1:29. I did the mental (loser math) and despite it
being light out and warming up opted out of going back out for a final
lap. I had pushed hard last year at Toughtest Northeast and made it witih:
40 seconds to spare and was nowhere near that kind of shape now. In hindsight I should have gone for it. This would be the first of 7 Toughests where
I did not qualify as a Contender (they
changed the Contender qualifying status from 25 to 30 this year for men). Shoulda.
Coulda. Woulda. Whatever.
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| Finishing off with a Kill Cliff |
Highlights
Starting and finishing a race I swear I didn’t think I would even
start that night.
Chatting for 6.6 seconds with both Lindsay (about our dogs) and
Ryan (about the Holy Grail bonus) at two different moments in time and only
because I couldn’t keep up as they whizzed by.
Running with Tex Ritter for a few miles like we were on a Sunday
fun run.
Seeing Sue, Deanna and Shark Bait and Kenny Ng achieve Contender status for Worlds.
Putting Superman Tyson
in a chokehold after the first lap.
Hearing Coach say nice mostly
true things about me.
Feeling better as the night went on.
Excellent racecourse.
Fair penalties per failed obstacle.
Low Points
Parking fees
Plenty of 50 Mile Patches on site that no one earned but no 25 Mile Patches (they will be
sent in the mail!)
Discontinuation of the Toughest event location finisher
patches: i.e.. South, West, etc. WTF?
Changing from Everest regular to the higher version and Kong to Kong Infinity version.
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