Whistler once again hosted the Tough Mudder Weekend & it was pretty epic!  I ran both days, Tougher on Saturday & the Half on Sunday.

I’m more of an experiences man, if you’re looking for a short & concise detailed race recap, you’re reading the wrong blog post as I tend to write more about the whole experience. This is why I will now be appending these types of posts with {Journal Entry}

I traveled to Whistler with my wife; Charity, and a friend of ours; Troy. The cost of lodging in Whistler has almost doubled in the last three years.  I don’t know if it’s because the owners now know that TM happens all in the same weekend & therefore jack the prices up, but all I do know is that a two-bedroom hotel room only cost me around $250 for the weekend three years ago, that same room last year was around $400.  We ended up staying at the Whistler Athletes Centre this time & paid about $500 for our own townhouse which saved us some money thanks to the Pit Momma herself, Traci Watson.  A similar room was now around $600.  If you want to save money next year, reach out to her, I hope she is able to get such an awesome group deal again!  It was great staying here as there were quite a few other Mudders around to chat with.  We ended up helping out a fellow Vancity OCR teammate, Nathan, & gave him our extra pull out couch to crash on.  On Friday night Traci & I ended up hosting a pretty good sized Pot Luck dinner.  Heck, even TM’s finishing man Clinton Jackson popped by to greet his fellow mudders & partake in the festivities.  After dinner, we all chatted a bunch & a few of us ended up going to one of the shared living room spaces & playing a Trivia Game.  It was quite an entertaining night.

Saturday: Tougher

I’ve done a few TMs in the past in Whistler and the weather has typically been rather cold & rainy but the forecast this year said it would be sunny and warm.  A happy change!  I packed everything from Shorts to Frog Skins.  I seriously prefer to have to lug all my gear with me and not need it over not bringing it & needing it.  I looked over the updated forecast in the morning & decided on wearing my warming leggings & long sleeve shirt but to bring shorts to change into for afterward. It was rather early and brisk out & I am a wuss when it comes to being cold and I knew I’d be facing Arctic Enema.  I got dressed & headed out with Nathan.  Charity and Troy would be doing the Full together later that evening so I knew I would meet up with them afterward in Mudder Village.  I arrived on-site about 45 mins before the 7:30 am start time & ended up waiting for another 15mins or so before they opened the floodgates to allow us to register.  There were approx., 70 Men & 17 Women & TMHQ decided to break us up into a Men’s & Women’s group with the women leaving around 8 am.

There were 22 obstacles on the map and I was feeling pretty good even knowing that Arctic Enema was in the first quarter of them or so.  I would rather have had it closer to the end after the sun had been up for a while, but I knew I had to suck it up!  Our heat was let go pretty close to on-time after Sean gave a great speech.  The course was different again this year.  I am enjoying the fact that TM keeps changing it up each year.  Last year they had us basically going in the opposite direction as the year before.  I was still a bit concerned that I would be “On my own” for a bunch of the obstacles.  I’m used to having plenty of others around me for help is needed.  This was also my very first race.  Yes, I have done tough Mudders & other OCRs in the past.  But they were always at a Jog/Walk pace.  The Tougher wave would be the first time that I could see what I had.

I was filled with fear & anticipation as I knew I could get it done, I just didn’t want to be dead last.  Heck, even if I was, I would know where I stood.  I was rather proud of myself for getting over “Berlin Walls” again, without a boost from someone, & we were told there would be something special waiting for us at the “Hero Carry” but there was nothing there for us at all when we reached it. I’d say I was able to keep up with the middle of the group until around halfway.  I kept a pretty good running pace up until around “Ladder to Hell”.  I started to slow down to a Jog around this point which I was fine with.  I was just pleasantly happy that there were others around me still at this point.

I arrived next at “Boa Constrictor” which I can’t say I had seen before.  Perhaps the volunteer wasn’t paying that much attention but I saw the person ahead of me go into the tubes feet first so I followed suit. It wasn’t until the next day when I did the same obstacle during the Half that I would see the small sign off to the side that said Head First!  Going in feet first kinda made sense as it angled down into water that had barbed wire over it & then you climbed back out through a tube on the other side.  I figured, skootch down, use your feet & legs to help you get out of the tube then crawl to the next one.  Well, that didn’t work so well in practice & I experienced the reason why you should go head first.  Sure, your face & head would be in the water first, which I really didn’t fancy, but there was enough room for air.  I am not a fan of confined spaces & I tell ya now, I started to freak out a bit.  As I worked my way down the tube the water started getting deeper & deeper & I started to float.  To the point where I could barely go any further down.  After a bit of squirming & wiggling, I hooked my foot on the top of the edge of the tube & slowly pulled myself out.  I was breathing heavily & hated every second, it felt like minutes, of it.  But, I got through it!

I knew “Block Ness Monster” & “Everest 2.0” would be coming up soon & I knew I’d need some help with that.  Apparently, I had fate on my side as earlier, back at “Arctic Enema”, which took me a while to get chest deep into but I got it done!, one of my other Vancity Team Mates, Amin, passed me while I was getting up the nerve to complete it.  I could now see him & a few other Vancity peeps up in the distance.  This was a huge load off.  I decided to pick it up a notch & catch up to them.  We stuck together the rest of the way, helping each other through any obstacles that we may need help with.  Sure, I may have been able to push myself harder & to go ahead of them, but I was very happy with how my performance was up to this time & the old me kicked in, the one that likes to talk to & enjoys the company of others, and I knew I could always try the same Tougher heat again next year.  In the end, I ended up failing the two obstacles I knew I would.  “Kong-Infinity” & “Funky Monkey” I GOTTA work on my grip, arm & shoulder strength! The penalty loops were quite short, like 250ft max out and back on a flat or slightly elevated hillside. We all ended up finishing “Happy Ending” & crossed the finish line together.  The Tougher wave was an awesome experience.  I plan on partaking in it again next year in Whistler & I have also signed up for it in Seattle in a few months.

The Tougher/Full course ended up being about 16.79Km (10.43Mi) and took me about 3hours and 20minutes.   Not too shabby!  I ended up taking about an hour off of our typical Jog/Walk time so I felt pretty good about that.

Sunday: Half

This was the very first time that I had attempted to do any physical activity like this more than once within a week or two of a gap.  I was feeling pretty good though.  I wasn’t sore, just a bit stiff.  I’m assuming Clinton Jackson could tell that because as soon as he saw me he came over & gave me the absolute best shoulder, back & neck massage I have EVER had, bar none!  He has such wonderful large monkey hands as he puts it.

The Half ended up having 13 Obstacles, it was approx. 10.63Km (6.58Mi) and it took us 2Hours and 30mins to complete.  We pretty much walked the whole thing & stopped to smell the roses & chat with other participants along the way.  We veered off course a bit at the very end to go through “Electroshock Therapy” which I ended up just sauntering through.  It’s really not that big a deal anymore.  Sure I was afraid of it the first time or two, then two years ago I decided to show everyone how much of a *cough* badass *cough* that I was & just walked on through it nice & slowly.  There’s not much to go into about the half that I didn’t pretty much cover from Saturday’s write-up above.  I ended up getting TM #4 in the books, did the Half as a shakeout “run” & got my 2x Repeat Offender headband because of it all (I’ll be getting my 3x RO in Seattle when I finish the 5K).  It was quite a fantastic weekend & I can’t wait to do it all again!  I still to this day though don’t fully understand why I keep putting myself through all of this other than, I am making up for lost time in PE class from high school, and I just enjoy the whole #OCRCommunity WAY too much!

BTW, did I mention how gorgeous Whistler is?  If you haven’t been to this event, you really need to come check it out!

Cheers!

All photos credited to Tough Mudder

PS. Please forgive the lateness of this article, I was having issues uploading pictures a while back.  Now that the issue has been resolved, you can expect a couple of these entries to come your way.  =)