The things I won't do for a new challenge. Since I overcame my hatred of running and began entering races a few years back, I've been on a constant push for new distances to challenge myself. First came the 5k benefit runs. Then the Thanksgiving 5-mile turkey trot. Then the half marathon. Once I had hit that point, races became a bit boring. So I searched around for different formats that would challenge more than my ability to run in a straight line. Not sure exactly what it is that drives this desire to test myself in new ways. I don't think there's one answer. Part of it is the insidious shadow of age licking at my heels, enticing me to accept that the old gray mare ain't what she used to be. Part of it is the terror of a Sisyphean existence, pushing the same boulder up the hill day after day, never reaching the top before the boulder rolls back down the hill and I have to start over again in the morning. Some people find comfort in routine, which is fine, so long as that is what motivates you. It does have it's attractions, but I always seem to chaff at it over time. I've come to realize that my motivations are in learning new things, seeing new places, pushing my own boundaries. I think these racing challenges are a way to provide that newness and beat back the tentacles of age clawing at my virility.
The first new format I tackled was a race called the Ragnar Relay. I ran it with a team of 11 friends. It's a 200-mile race that runs around the clock until you finish. The camaraderie was great, the race was a lot of fun, and there were a few elements that made it much more challenging than a regular race. My first leg was 8.5 miles up a mountain in West Virginia. 1700-meter elevation gain. I wanted to die. My second leg was 4.5 miles along a back country road at 3:00am. Both required me to master new psychological elements to get through it. Finishing was immensely satisfying.
Then a couple years ago, a new format started gaining popularity: the obstacle course race. I think the Warrior Dash was first to emerge, but that is only a 5k. Total snoozer distance for me. Not worth ruining a pair of running shoes in the mud for a 5k. But the Tough Mudder is another story. 12 miles with 22 obstacles. Now we're talking. I've wanted to run one since I first heard about it, but the timing has never been right. My first year of school, I focused on my marathon. Me and my friend Magellan were planning to do the Mudder in Phoenix this February, but he had something come up at work and couldn't make it. So we postponed it indefinitely.
Fast forward to July. I get an email from Magellan wanting to run the Utah Mudder in October. I consulted my busy schedule and luckily had a window that worked out perfectly. So I started getting psyched up about the approaching day. The day before the race, as we were having a prerace dinner with Magellan's brood, I consulted the weather report for our start time, 8:40am. It was to be 46 degrees. Then I looked at the course map. Within the first mile came two obstacles: Kiss the Mud and Arctic Enema. Kiss the Mud is a traditional military obstacle, a field of mud with a wooden framework strung with barbed wire so that you have to belly crawl through the mud.
Arctic Enema was a huge tub filled with ice water. Traversing the middle of the tub was a wooden barrier that went below the surface of the water so that participants had to fully submerge themselves in the ice water in order to complete the obstacle.
So right off the bat you were frozen solid, especially your hands. This becomes a huge factor later in the race. See, about half of the obstacles involve either water or mud or both. The other half of the obstacles involve some combination of climbing and gripping. Not a simple task when you can't feel your hands. The key is to keep running at all times, keep your body moving and generating heat. I saw so many people stopping or walking in a daze after the water obstacles. It wasn't long before they would start to shudder. Not sure why their teammates weren't pushing them along, helping them warm up. This is a race that you absolutely should not run on your own. There are times when you physically cannot overcome an obstacle by yourself, say nothing of the strength you draw from the friends you're running with.
Magellan and I bolstered each other's spirits and our conversations along the way helped to keep our minds off the cold and ache in our extremities. We muscled through in a respectable three hours. Nothing really threw me off my game until the final obstacle: Electroshock Therapy. It's about 40 feet of electrical wires hanging down in curtains across a field of thick mud and hay bales. I wasn't really worried about this obstacle as I stood at the entry watching others running through it. It was channeling 10,000 volts, but I'm no electrician. That means nothing to me. It seemed like most people ahead of me were immediately laying down in the mud trying to crawl through to avoid touching the wires. Spectators were yelling, "Go Low!" I thought the better way would be to get a running start and blaze through it as fast as possible. Soon enough, I learned that perhaps those going to their bellies so early were not there voluntarily.
Somehow, my friend Milliwalk-a found a video on YouTube that a spectator took of me running into this obstacle's teeth and subsequently being laid low. At about the 1:01 mark, you can see me come running from the right side of the screen. I get one foot over the first hay bale before a jolt hits me and drops me face-first into the mud. I can remember thinking at that point, "I guess I'll go low." But low doesn't help me once I get to the second hay bale. When those shocks hit, it's like resetting your computer's CPU. It takes some time to re-boot. The rapidity with which I was being shocked made it impossible get all the way reset. The result is that with each successive jolt, I become more and more confused about where I am, why I'm laying on a muddy hay bale, why I can't see out of my left eye, why these people are yelling all around me, what my name is, why I'm peeing my pants in public. Anyway, enjoy the following video. I highly recommend watching it in full screen mode for the full effect.
I don't remember much after about the third jolt, and I barely remember crossing the finish line. I remember standing up after exiting the mud pit and two girls congratulating me, the one putting a headband on me, the other wrapping me in tin foil like a Chipotle burrito. Surprisingly, I had the wherewithal to inquire after the location of the medical tent. On that jolt where I head butted the hay bale, I packed enough mud under my eye lid to build an adobe hut, and I needed to have it intensely irrigated. The medical tent was a pretty sorry place. People got jacked up in this race. Mostly it was people shivering violently while nursing a cup of hot chocolate, a dazed look on their face as though they'd just stormed Normandy. I fought - unsuccessfully - to control my own shivering, before leaving the tent with most of my vision restored to find my friends.
The rest of the day seemed to move in slow motion. Electrocution does weird things to your mind and body. It's like it separates you a little bit from yourself. It can be hard to focus on anything afterward. Which is why I'm calling BS on Jack Bauer's adventures in the second half of season eight of 24. No way he could have the energy to fit in sexxy time with Agent Renee AND kill so many people within just a couple hours of being hooked up to a car battery. Though I'd be willing to put the sexxy time to a test. You know, for research.
So would I do it all over again? Absolutely. With the right friends, the right team, it's worth every ache and pain I incurred. It's the most vivid kind of living I can imagine. I intend to enjoy my health for as long as I possibly can.
