Oh. My. God. THAT was fun.
~17km of mud, blood, water, sweat, and teamwork.
Our team, Nerf Herders, was AWESOME! Thanks Glenn, Dan, Mark, Chris, and Jamie for helping me through some killer obstacles 😀
(I tried to make this as short as possible, but a 17km course with 20 obstacles makes for a length post! I bolded all the Obstacle Names so you can skim over if you choose)
Just like they warn you, we got covered in mud within the first couple Kilometres at Kiss of Mud. But don’t fret, we got a nice rinse through Arctic Enema – a 1 degree Celsius tub of ice & water up to your chest that knocks the fucking wind right out of you. Holy shit. The dudes with the bull horns yelling at you to keep moving are necessary – because you pretty much lose your shit in that one; but I still loved it! Carry on to Bush Wacked, which was a steep descent through heavily wooded and mudded terrain. Run some more, and arrive at Warrior Carry – piggy back your buddy ~50m; Jamie piggybacked me, and then I piggybacked Jamie – see ya lata quads. Run some more, and we find Glory Blades… 12′ walls on 60* angle – angled towards you. Run, run, run and get stuck @ the 30min bottleneck of some unlabeled Ice Hill type obstacle. We stood. And we waited. People tried to go around, but you just couldn’t! Finally made it through that boring one and got to Log Jammin’ – a series of logs of various widths and heights forcing you to climb over or go under via strategically places Barbed Wire. Next was Trench Warfare – which was several mud hurdles and mud pools – super muddy and super fun. Then we got to Firewalker – which was a bunch of cinder blocks filled with burning wood – flames got as high as a foot – you had to jump over the flames into a pool of water; that one was really fun, too! Run, run, run; trek through Mud Mile; run, run, run and arrive at Ladder to Hell – a 20′ ladder with rungs about 4′ apart. Run a whole bunch more to Electric Eel – a shallow pool of water you crawl through with live wires dangling above you; somehow I managed to only get shocked once, while Jamie got shocked a gazillion times and was a little ‘out of it’ afterwards. Run run run again, then pick up a large log at Hold Your Wood and carry it for a few hundred metres. Then, my favorite obstacle – Walk the Plank. This is a 15′ platform you jump off of into a deep pool of water. It sounds easy enough, until it is your turn: I got up there, waited for my go-ahead from the volunteer dude, freaked the fuck out, suppressed the freak out, and jumped – all in a matter of about 2 seconds. Then it was over. What a rush; sweet. Run again; watch a lot of people get heat blankets (it was friggin’ cold!) – I didn’t need one since I overheat at the drop of a hat. Then we found Boa Constrictor – a 20′ culvert tube descending into water and then another 20′ culvert tube ascending out of the water; there is nothing to really hold onto – I got stuck in this one!! I’m sure I could have eventually wriggled out of it, but it would have taken another few minutes – hubby grabbed my arm and yanked me out. Next was Funky Monkey – greased, ascending monkey bars; Mark on our team (who did TM last year) called it the “1-2-Swim”; and that it was. I didn’t even get to swing to 1 bar before I slipped right into the water below. Then… Then there is Everest: a greased 1/4 pipe. Dan and Jamie managed Everest – which was great – it meant I had 2 team mates waiting to help me up; I ran up that mo-fo and grabbed onto their hands. The 3 of us gave it all we had to pull me up; I got 1 foot up onto the ledge; but by that time my shoulders, back, and core were done. I let go with the intention of trying it again but when I stood up at the bottom, I realized I was shaking – I gave that thing all I had! I would have needed a good 5-min recovery to be able to attempt again, so I said Fuck it and walked around it 😦 This obstacle was the one that scared me the most about TM, and the one that made me want to sign up for TM – definitely a let down. It was after that failure that ‘sealed the deal’ in my mind to do another TM. Next was Berlin Walls. 12′ walls. Stronger, more coordinated folks ran at those things, pounced off the small 1″ step and hoisted themselves over. Us weaker, less-coordinated people had our buddies hoist us up and then we hoisted ourselves over. I totally bailed on the other side, it was awesome. And then we did another one. This time I climbed over the top a lot slower so I wouldn’t bail again. And finally, we arrived at Electroshock Therapy – the last obstacle at the Finish Line – a 20′ long obstacle of dangling live wires for you to run through. Yet again, I only got shocked once.
We crossed the finish line, and we were done. Just like that. Tough Mudder is not timed. They remind you again and again – it is not a race, it is a challenge. And you even pledge before you start “I will put my team ahead of my course time.” It took us 4:45; we had 1 team member with a really rough start to the run, and another team member busted his knee somewhere ~4-6km from the finish. For context: faster teams with no injuries finished in as little as 2:30.
Jamie wore the GoPro camera on his wrist, and got some cool pics! The GoPro fared relatively well in the super muddy/wet course.
jenbacca 
For those interested… Here is the official course map: http://toughmudder.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Tough-Mudder-Whistler-2013-Course-Map.pdf
thank you for these wonderful pictures. i appreciate your synopsis, curse words included. though, your knees scare me. terri …dan’s wife see you next yr?