World's Toughest Mudder: WTM - WTF

"So you're doing what?"

"World's Toughest Mudder. It's the finals for the Tough Mudder Series. It's a 10 mile course with 30 obstacles. We have 24 hours to complete it as many times as we can."

"Where's it at?"

"In New Jersey. In the middle of December."

"Do you know anyone else that'll be there?"

"Well, sort of. I met a bunch of people in a Facebook group and we're all going to meet up there."

"Where are you staying?"

"A bunch of us sent checks for $300 to this guy in the group and he rented a house for us."

"How are you getting there?"

"Some other folks from the group said they'd meet me at the airport and give me a ride to the house. I'm sure it'll be totally fine."


Yup, that's how this incredible adventure started off for me. With pre-game jitters steadily building over the past two weeks, I hopped on a plane Thursday morning and headed out to New Jersey. Audrey and then Dan called me as I was on the ground in Jersey to coordinate a meet up spot. We eventually found each other, loaded up our gear and headed out to pick up Ray. The weather at 10 o'clock at night was super warm. At close to 60 degrees it was a good 10 degrees warmer here than it had been in California that morning. That was to be very short lived. This weekend would soon redefine my definition of cold.

As we drove and talked about our excitement and fears, I instantly felt better and more at ease with the event. Something that had bothered me with the World's Toughest Mudder is that they seemed to depart from their normal philosphy.



Tough Mudders in the past have been about teamwork, comraderie and enjoying the experience. Now in their finals they chose to have an event to find the one toughest individual on the planet. They offered $10,000 for both the top male and female finishers. Then they said that only 10% of participants would "finish the course." What happened to putting teamwork and comeraderie above your course time and it not mattering if you were first or last? It seemed like Tough Mudder was offering a whole lot of incentives here to do just the opposite.

As we all talked during the drive, it became very evident that despite all of this, all of us were still very much about teamwork and helping each other out. This theme continued as we arrived at the WTF (our facebook group team name - stands for World's Toughest Friends and a few other things) house. Even though it was 3 o'clock in the morning, people were still very warm and welcoming and doing all they could to help get us situated.

The next morning we got to meet everyone in daylight and get to know each other more as we headed off to registration and then as more people began to filter through the house.

At over 200 strong our team was the biggest team at the event and accounted for more than a 1/4 of the participants. This team was also interwoven with the GORUCK WTM team. We had a meet and greet dinner at the house Friday night. Even though we were all basically strangers, there was this odd sense of familiarity and bond between all of us because we had been chatting in the group over the past few months. We all settled into an easy and comfortable groove with each other as we chatted throughout the night. I had a great time getting to know the whole person behind the facebook posts. A lot of times as I was going through reading the posts and would come across something like "I just did 5,000 burpees in 1/2 an hour! Grrr!" I'd just sit there quaking in my little boots thinking "Good lord, I just want to survive this damn thing." As I got to know everyone and see that we shared a lot of the same feelings, I drew strength and confidence from my teammates. I can tell you this though, none of us had a clue what we were in for.

We got up bright and early Saturday morning. I ate as much as I could get down despite the butterflies and got my gear on.

After years of being a very competitive athlete, nowadays I like to have something during events that keeps me from taking myself too seriously, hence the flower swim cap.

At the last minute I threw on my shorty wetsuit over my wool and compression gear base layers. Tough Mudder had sent out an email saying that they would have a wetsuit staging area for the water section of the course. I didn't leave it at the wetsuit staging area the day before because when I was reading through the obstacle descriptions it seemed like we'd be going through cold water from the beginning. I had a full 2/3 spring suit at the house, but chose not to bring it because I was worried about overheating and chafing. Anyone that was out there at this event probably just laughed out loud when they read that statement. Overheating and chafing were the least of my worries. My suitcase was already packed to the gills and I figured that it would be a pain in the but trying to get it on once I was already wet. Live and learn.

After a bit of last minute prep we lined up at the starting area. Someone started a chant of "GO! RUCK! GO! RUCK!" which of course got me fired up. Then a singer sang the national anthem which of course means game time.

The starting horn sounded and people began to run and jog their way onto the course. The first obstacle was the Insane Bolt. Competitors had an unknown amount of time to sprint 1/4 of a mile or else be forced to take an additional 1/4 mile detour. I walked it. This was going to be a long event. There was no need to get tired and out of breath right off the bat. I figured that extra 1/4 mile over the course of 24 hours probably wouldn't make that much of a difference.

As we made our way to the second obstacle the Jesus Walk I was quite literally at the back of the pack. My GRC Norcal family Hamilton and Rob were keeping me company as we strolled through the course. The Jesus Walk was a long stretch of waist deep muddy water with trenches up to 8' dug into the bottom at random intervals. People would be walking along and then drop off pretty suddenly. When we found a trench we would call it out for the folks behind us. I originally took my life vest along for the plank obstacle, but it came in handy here. I never dropped down deeper than chest level which helped to keep my core temperature up. It also provided a good bit of insulation which definitely came in handy in the later stages.

The next obstacle was the mud mile. The water was waist deep still, but somehow the mud changed from normal mud to this sticky slippery clay mud. It also smelled suspiciously like cow poop. And now we had to climb up small embankments and hop over 4' walls. Somehow these little walls seemed way more difficult than they should have been. My hands were already going numb at this point, but something else about them seemed oddly draining. Ham and Rob would offered help getting up the slippery embankments. At one point I looked back and saw a guy all by himself about 40 yards behind us at the very back of the pack. While I was chomping at the bit to get moving on the course and I did have a bit of an ego moment about being last, I figured as much as I appreciated the help getting up the embankments he'd probably appreciate it as well. Without a word about it spoken between us, several of us slowed down and waited for him. We saw he was starting to shiver a decent amount and in the beginning stages of hypothermia. The weather was in the low 40s that morning with a decent wind before we decided to go wading through the water. We struck up a conversation and stayed with him through the course until the first med tent.

After the Mud Mile I fished my neoprene scuba gloves out of my bag and tried to put them on. I meant to do this before the Jesus Walk but completely forgot. I have two sets of neoprene scuba gloves at home. I grabbed this set that I got used a while back instead of my more expensive ones, figuring that I would probably destroy them on the course anyways. I didn't realize that they were smaller than the other set. Now with my hands wet and muddy, there was no way these suckers were going on my hands. I took off my flower swim cap and GoPro at this point because my head was starting to sweat and the GoPro starting to feel a bit heavy.

Obstacle #4 was Get Railed. This was sets of parallel bars over water that we had to traverse using only our upper body. I put my upper arms and forearms on the bars to get momentum to swing and slide my way across.

Obstacle #5 was Devil's Beard combined with cliff hanger. This was a low net stretched tight across a hillside that we had to climb our way underneath to get to the top. This worked best in groups leap frogging our way to the top.

Obstacle #6 was Razor's Edge which I don't really remember anymore. I think it was another hill climb. After this Obstacle we came across the first med tent. My hands were burning at this point so I stopped in to warm them up. I was surprised and happy to see my WTF teammates Sam, Mario and Katy in the tent too. I told Rob, Garth and Ham to go ahead as I was going to hang out here and warm up my hands. Even though I thought I felt fine, I didn't realize how cold I truly was. There was a propane heater in the tent which the EMTs assured me was blowing out hot air. It felt like it was blasting cold air to me. They had cups of hot liquid jell-o in the tent which soon became my favoritest drink ever. Ever? Ever. As the cup warmed up my hands and the jell-o warmed up my insides I began to see that the heater was indeed blasting hot air into the tent. I stripped off all my wet layers down to my compression gear and at the EMT's suggestion threw them on the heater to dry them out a bit. While we in the tent we kept hearing reports on the EMT's radio of people being carted off the course right and left for hypothermia. At one point he said they had 6 people to an ambulance.

Once warmed up a bit and feeling good, I put my layers back on and added a merino wool beanie, my TAD Artemis merino wool sweater and a windbreaker. Katy and I headed out to face obstacle #7 Electroshock Therapy. This was like the usual one with electrified wires hanging down, but had hay bales placed underneath so that we couldn't just crawl under the wires. At Tough Mudder NorCal the voltage was turned way down to where I never felt a shock, so I was all happy go lucky. Katy had been zapped pretty good before, but faced this one like a champ. With the wind picking up it was blowing all the wires to the right. We were able to stay to the left and avoid getting shocked.

Obstacle #8 was Turd's Nest. This was a horizontal cargo net stretched between two platforms. We stayed toward the sides where it was tauter and stepped on the areas where the rope crossed itself.

Obstacle #9 was Berlin Walls #1. These were a set of three 8' high walls that we had to climb up and over. Here we found WTF teammate Adam smiling and waiting for us. He was at a nearby obstacle, saw us and came over to help.

Obstacle #10 was Island Hopping. These were floating wooden platforms linked together in a line with a rope. We hopped, regained our balance on the shifting platform and repeated until we were across to the other side. I heard that as time went on, platforms would get progressively farther and farther apart and apparently later in the night, they had a thick sheet of ice across the top which made things interesting.

Obstacle #11 was Funky Monkey. Monkey bars over more cold water. Funky Monkey is one of the most fun obstacles for me. Once I get going, I feel like a kid on the playground. One thing that they changed for this time is that if you fell off, you had to dunk your head under water under a 2x6 to get around the obstacle and continue on.

Obstacle #12 was Creek Crusade. Pretty straight forward, cross through a small creek and claw your way up the slippery embankment on the other side.

Obstacle #13 Log Bog Jog - Up and over a bunch of muddy logs strewn across the course

Obstacle #14 Spiders Web - A vertical cargo net hanging off of a cable that we had to climb up and over

Obstacle #15 Peg Legs - This obstacle made me smile. This was a series of posts in water that we had to step from one to the other to get across. At work we have 3' high cement posts as barriers around the diesel tank. I had been walking from one to the next to work on my balance and get ready for WTM.

I think it was after this one when we stopped at the second med tent. I was still feeling pretty good here. My core was surprisingly toasty. My arms and hands were the main areas that were getting cold. My Mechanix work gloves were providing a minimal amount of warmth, but not nearly enough. I stayed in each med tent until I stopped shivering and regained feeling in my hands.

Obstacle #16 was Devil's Beard #2 which I don't remember at all.

Obstacle #17 Kiss of Mud - Belly crawl uphill under barb wire. Going sideways under the wires worked best, because then I could pop up and stretch out when I needed to.

Obstacle #18 Boa Constrictor - Remembering this obstacle from Tough Mudder NorCal I stayed to the tubes on the side. This time the tubes were smooth inside. This was fine on the tube going down into the muddy water pit, going up it made things interesting. I had to splay my hands, knees and feet to the sides of the tube, try to arch my back and brace it against the top of the tube, all the while pushing my pack in front of me. I bet I looked like a cat trying to claw its way up a playground slide. Again I heard this one was all kinds of fun when it froze over later in the night.

Obstacle #19 Shake and Bake. Jump into a pit of water then belly crawl under wires through peat moss. By this point this was kind fun. It was soft and fluffy.

Obstacle #20 Log Jammin' - Over and under more logs which were only in ankle to calf deep muddy water.

Obstacle #21 Twinkle Toes - The beams were about half the width of the ones at Tough Mudder NorCal. It sounds like just about everyone that tried to run across ended up in the cold water below. A side saddle scoot worked best for me.

Obstacle #22 Trench Warfare - This was a series of trenches dug into the ground with plywood over the top that we had to crawl through, with of course mud and water at the bottom. I had a fun time going through this obstacle. It reminded me of a firefighter survival course.

Obstacle #23 Hanging Tough - These were basically American Gladiator rings. I got the first two rings, but even after swinging back and forth I was just shy of the third ring and fell into the water below.

Obstacle #24 The Factory - This was a rope climb up to a platform and then slide down a chute into the cold water below. Some obstacles were designated as penalty obstacles where if you couldn't complete them, you had to wait 5 minutes before continuing. This was one of them, but by the time I had gotten to it, so many people had dropped off the course that they had done away with the penalties. As I grabbed the rope I found that I couldn't pull myself up despite the knots in it. Normally I can do a 30' rope climb without using my feet no problem, but at this point my hands were so cold and numb that I had very little grip strength left. I walked around to the other side and jumped into the water pit. I could've gone around it, but I was here to do an obstacle course, not a trail run. I was going to give every obstacle a genuine effort.

Obstacle #25 Rubber Necking - This was one of the few dry obstacles on the course. The had tires zip tied together in pairs that we had to pick up and carry around a section of the course.

Obstacle #26 Tired Yet - Step through tires piled on top of each other

Obstacle #27 Berlin Walls #2 - This was a set of three 12' high walls. There weren't a whole lot of other competitors around at this point in the day so I was all by my lonesome. I stepped on the board nailed into the wall, grabbed the top, threw a leg up towards the A-frame brace on the side until my muddy, slippery shoes finally found some traction, threw a chicken wing over the top of the wall, worked my foot up to the top of the brace, straddled the wall, threw the other leg over and lowered myself down. I couldn't believe the effort this took. My heart was racing and I was breathing hard each time. The volunteers at this section were awesome and cheered me over each wall.

Obstacle #28 Bale Bonds - Climb up and over hay bales. These were higher and wetter than the ones at Tough Mudder NorCal, but still doable.

Obstacle #29 High Steppin' - This was a series of hurdles about 3' high. My hip flexors were both pretty tight by this obstacle most likely from hiking all this distance in a wetsuit. Getting over this obstacle was less than graceful.

Obstacle #30 Meat Locker - This was just a shipping container with tires hanging from ropes, a smoke machine and a strobe light.

Obstacle #31 Electric Eel - This was Electroshock Therapy combined with Kiss of Mud. I stayed to the left because that looked to be the lower side of the obstacle. As I crawled through it was no big deal until near the end when my muscles began to have mild spasms. Once I realized it was the shocks, they had increased in strength to the point where I couldn't crawl anymore, but could only roll my way out of the obstacle. I now understand the big deal about Electroshock Therapy

Obstacle #32 Everest - This was the same as Tough Mudder NorCal, but flatter so that people couldn't just run, take one step and jump to the top. I sprinted (it was probably more like a jog) jumped, got about 6" from the top and slid back down. It was a good college try.

Obstacle #33 Massive Turd - This was pretty much the same as Turd's nest except that it was 30' up in the air. This was fun, because normally I'm more comfortable at heights. I say normally, because there was a section in this course later where that wasn't the case.

If I remember right, the wetsuit staging area was right here. There are probably a few hundred folks that never made it to their wetsuits. It was starting to get dark as I passed through this area so the staff were zip tying chem lights to our race bibs.

Obstacle #34 Dong Dangler - Ropes stretched across cold water that we had to shimmy and slide our way across. Through the course I had heard of people saying how badly their calves were cramping, but mine felt fine. Not until I reached up to grab the rope and try to swing my legs up and over did my calves put up a fuss. I let go and swam across to the other side. The temps were down to the low 30s and it was starting to feel very cold.

Obstacle #35 Underwater Tunnels - A series of floating barrels that we had to duck underneath completely submerging ourselves. This was when my core stopped feeling toasty warm and joined my limbs in feeling downright frigid. As the ice cold water was cutting right through my little beanie, I remembered I meant to switch over to my neoprene cap and flower swim cap before this obstacle. Note to self.

Obstacle #36 Jersey Shore - Wade/swim through cold water

Obstacle #37 Rope-A-Dope - Climb a rope ladder to get up to obstacle #38

Obstacle #38 Walk the Plank - Jump off of a 15' platform into the water below. This was the obstacle that scared me the most. I'm that 8 year old kid that chickened out at the top of the high water slide and have been slowly working on facing that fear ever since. Fifteen 15' isn't that high. It's as high as the top of the bouldering wall at my climbing gym. I fall off that all the time. Looking down at the water it sure seemed a whole lot higher than 15 feet. I don't know how long I stood there staring at the drop. I sat down on the ledge thinking over and over again "Am I really going to do this? Am I really going to do this?" Well apparently my arms were cold and tired of waiting around because the pushed me off the ledge as I was still thinking "Am I really going to do this?" and then as I was hovering in mid air right before the fall "Okay, I guess I'm doing this." I slowly swam my way across the pond to the next obstacle

Obstacle #39 Hold Your Wood - For this we had to swim about 30 yards with a log around some buoys and then back to the shore. The thing that was so brutal about this was that all of these water obstacles were back to back with no time to warm up back in between. We just kept getting colder and colder with each one. After this one is where I had my hissy fit where I was done with all this, but it was a small hissy fit that passed fairly quickly. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that I would eventually arrive at a med tent and have a chance to warm up.

Once there I stayed in the med tent for probably a good hour trying to warm back up. I never got to the point where I stopped shivering, but I got warm enough where I felt I could continue on to the pit stop area and go to my tent. Turns out the pit stop and lap finish line were only about 100 yards away.

Once inside my tent, it was cold. I stripped off all my wet clothes, which was even colder and hopped into my sleeping bag with a bunch of hot pockets. The wind was whipping through my tent even with the rain cover on it. I bundled up and began eating like crazy. In true Trucker fashion, I ate until I was sleepy, slept until I was hungry and rolled over every hour or so every time the staff came by to do a med check (The Truck crews roll wake up enough to find out that the call is for the Engine and not them and then roll over and go back to sleep). When I'd wake up I'd check facebook to get updates on how everyone else was doing and hear words of encouragement. I can't begin to tell you what a huge morale boost that was. Our tents were set up by our bib numbers. Mine was way far away from anyone else that I knew, so if not for the updates I wouldn't have had contact with anyone else out there that I knew.

The temperature dropped through the night into the low 20s, with the windchill, it was down to 16 degrees when I woke up at 6 am. Still, I felt good and determined to go out and do another lap, still be standing at the 24 hour mark and cross the finish line in my little flower cap, just cause I could. I sat up to get my gear to find that it had frozen solid during the night while it was inside my tent with me.

This is one of my wool socks, my wetsuit and TAD Artemis hoodie. Still feeling in good spirits and not to be deterred I figured I could throw all the stuff in the shower and thaw it out because warm and wet beats cold and frozen any day. I went outside to get my flower cap out of my radio ruck to find the zipper on the pack frozen solid trapping the flower cap inside.

I took this as a sign. The main reason I was going back on the course was to get a pic crossing the finish line in the cap. It was colder this morning than it had been the night before when I finished that first lap. My fingers were already starting to go numb just being outside before I got anywhere near the water obstacles. It was looking like if I wanted to go home with all my digits, I needed to call this event good with 1 lap done.

Ultimately, regardless of whatever Tough Mudder says about "finishers" at this event, anyone that got through a lap of this course is a finisher and anyone that even attempted this craziness is a true warrior in my book.

I came out to this event to have fun, exercise a few demons (yes, that's intentional. My demons get restless when they don't get out to play), face some fears, challenge and push myself mentally and physically, and meet a great group of folks. The caliber of people participating in this event far exceeded any expectations I ever had. They were the best part of this whole experience. I thank not only each and everyone of you that was there, but all of those along the way that supported us to get there. I look forward to doing this with you again and whatever other craziness we find along the way.

(More pics from the event can be found at the NS6 facebook page www.facebook.com/NS6Athletic)