So I'm pretty sure I wasn't a man for about 20 minutes on Saturday. This painful phenomenon occurred during an event called the "Tough Mudder," which is a 12.5-mile run with 19 obstacles along the way.
The race my friends and I did was at a dirt bike racetrack in Englishtown, N.J. As we approached the track, we noticed two nerve-racking things. First, there was a helicopter circling the track, which is intimidating by itself, and second, as we pulled up, an ambulance came screeching out, sirens blaring. It's unclear if the race organizers intentionally put that ambulance there to scare participants, or if it was a result of an actual injury, but either way, I was rattled.
Once we entered the park, we passed a burning haystack maze, then a dirt bike track that had been drenched with water so it was extra muddy, and finally a monster truck. The only remotely comforting thing I saw was that a number of participants who were pretty chubby. I had one of those, "if THAT guy can do this, then I definitely can," moments.
After registering, we met up with the rest of the team and assembled our costumes. There were seven of us myself, Lane Bracken '11, Sam Gehret '11, my brother Chris (Tufts '08), Joe Spinner (BC '11), Peter Smith (Colgate '10) and Scott Smith (Lawrenceville '08). We named our team "Fiesta Forever," so we all gave ourselves mustaches and put on sombreros. Although none of us had done any substantial training, we at least looked the part, so we felt ready.
The race began with participants chasing a monster truck along a smoke-machine-lined track. This was fun until about a mile into it, at which point our whole grouped realized we still had 11 miles to go and we already wanted to walk.
Next we came to a rope bridge over water. This was actually pretty easy, except you had to get wet up to your knees and the water was freezing. Plus, since basically everyone was making it across without falling, there was the added pressure of not being the one dude to fall in. Luckily I made it. Sadly, everyone else did too.
Next up was a jump off a high platform into the freezing river. The most enjoyable part was watching a couple fight about jumping. The guy was trying to convince her to go, the girl was screaming at him for making her do this and everyone was yelling at both of them to keep it moving. I felt bad for the guy but it was hilarious. They say a couple will last if they can do a tandem bike without killing each other I think the same is true for a Tough Mudder.
Anyway, I stopped being a man when I jumped in the water. Let's just say shrinkage is an understatement. By the time I reached the other end of the river, I was pretty confident that irreversible damage had been done. I felt like that dude from "The Sun Also Rises" it was awful. Yea I know, that's easily the most sophisticated reference I've ever made.
Somehow we all made it to the other side (with our hats), and did the best we could to get warm again. We ran for about another 100 yards, happy the worst was over, till we realized we had to go back across the river. Everyone in the group had the John McEnroe "You CANNOT be serious!" look across their faces. It sucked.
The next few miles were mostly through mud and dirt obstacles. We all wiped out multiple times crawling through the mud and were covered from head to toe. The highlight of this stretch was a really steep hill that you had to sprint up to make, or else you'd tumble back down. People were tumbling left and right, and some even just walked up the side. When it was my turn, I charged up, made it pretty close to the top, and stuck my hand out in desperation.
Much to my surprise, a hand clasped mine, saving me from plummeting down the steep hill. I looked up and saw it was my brother who had grabbed me. My relief quickly vanished, however, as I realized this was the exact same situation Mufasa found himself in with his brother Scar, right before he died. Fortunately our dad was never the king of the jungle, so my brother wasn't trying to off me and thus pulled me to safety.
The rest of the events were equally as fun. There was a run through those burning haystacks and monkey bars over cold water (the bars had been smothered with butter so they were super slipperly), to name a few.
The highlight of the entire day came on the second to last obstacle. There were dangling electric wires that you had to run through. Thinking it had to be a bluff, Lane charged through at fall speed, made it to the end, then faceplanted. I thought he had tripped, so I followed his technique, charged through, and got rocked at the end as well. Turns out, Lane hadn't just tripped and they weren't bluffing about the electric wires. (I didn't faceplant, but I went down.) That shock was way worse than one from an electric dog fence.
All-in-all, the event was actually surprisingly hard, but a lot of fun. Plus, now anytime anyone talks smack, I can just reference the Tough Mudder.