The family that trains together stays together...

Family tabata burpees :)  What else does one do on Boxing Day?

One month to go! Again!

Where has the time gone?  I still feel mentally like I’ve got months to prepare when in reality it’s 4 short weeks (confusticated by the shenanigans that is Christmas and New Year) before the training stops and Tough Mudder is on us once again…

The lack of posting in the last few months however doesn’t indicate lack of effort. The training program which I put together has been roughly adhered to, with maybe a 75% success rate. Not bad I think. It has been hard to put the same level of zeal and enthusiasm into it this time round – Partially because we don’t have the unknown fear factor to drive us, but also because we know that our fitness level is higher, and we made do with what we had quite well last year. So simply maintaining that is sufficient…

Our team is now up to a nice 5 – 3 girls, 2 guys. We haven’t all had a chance to train as one big bunch, but we’ve met each other at various opportunities, so that should be fine. It will definitely be a different experience from the first Tough Mudder, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Fitness-wise I think I’m also slightly better prepared. I’ve worked pretty consistently on upper body strength – however when I ventured into the school playground the other week and took a shot at the monkey bars I failed just as dismally as before! Bum. Still more work to do there, but I think much of the issue is about the inflexbility/pain in my shoulders when I try to swing. So I’m working on that by just hanging and swinging at home. I also discovered that taking the monkey bars sideways seemed a bit easier, so that might end up being my approach on the day.  As for everything else, well we’ll just see how that unfolds on the day. And Everest is really as much about who’s at the top as what I can bring, so we’ll see. I’ve learnt some handy parkour techniques which might help though…

I’ll also be running without a support team this year as my wife will be overseas at the time – Not a huge deal as I know what to expect and can work with that, but it’s always nice having someone on the sidelines looking proud of you ;) 

Giving in to the dark side (of protein supplements)

Look what arrived today. 10 ridiculous kgs of protein powder… Just looking at it almost makes me want to laugh!

We’ve resisted and fought against this day for a long time. I’ve never been one to believe too much in the hype surrounding supplements and such, believing that the best approach (and all that was necessary in fact) was to eat sufficiently and eat well with ‘normal’ foods. And that’s pretty much all I did for last year’s training, and even with the ridiculous amount of exercise that I was doing towards the end (cycling, running, weights, intervals, etc) I didn’t resort to anything ‘unnatural’. In fact, I didn’t pay much attention to my diet much at all (besides being generous with what I ate normally).

However, a few things have made me question whether there wasn’t something missing in that – First has been my tendency to get quite ill if I’m not paying attention to my diet. This has happened numerous times before and it’s made me consider that perhaps my ‘normal’ diet is lacking, especially in protein. I have also wondered perhaps ‘what if’ in terms of training for the last Tough Mudder, and that if I had paid more attention to my protein intake perhaps my strength and performance might have been better by the time I got there… Which leads me to #2: That we live a largely vegetarian diet, or at least one which minimises the amount of meat we consume. So the concept of sitting down to a chicken breast or steak at dinner is pretty uncommon for us. (This is combined with the fact that protein tends to either be expensive, time-consuming to prepare, or something our kids won’t eat (lentils, soy, etc).  Carbs we have no problem consuming, but protein less so. Thirdly is an issue of timing – Much of my training seems to be at awkward points in the day, so our trainer’s post-workout encouragement to ‘take some protein within an hour’ is hard to manage when I then have to hop on the bike and spend the next hour riding home. As much as I’d like to have a bacon sandwich before cycling (who wouldn’t!?), it just isn’t practical. Whereas a protein-supplement of some form is a lot easier to manage in those narrow windows of opportunity when it’s not a ‘meal time’ per se.

Still, even with all of those reasons I resisted it. It felt unnecessary, expensive, and unnatural.

However, then my wife returned home after a session with her trainer saying that he’d encouraged her to take some form of supplement. I’m not entirely sure why – Partly it’s the low-carb, high-protein diet he wants her to follow (her goals are somewhat different to mine), but perhaps she was also aware that she might not be consuming enough protein for the same reasons as me, and we weren’t about to start eating meat every night of the week. And then when we sat down and did the sums, we realised that the protein powders (bought at a sensible price) were actually cheaper than many other options. About 80 cents a serving with this lot, which is probably better bang for buck (in protein terms at least) than regular peanut butter sandwiches, boiled eggs or tins of tuna, not to mention more convenient.

And now with two of us in the same boat, we decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I still can’t call myself a ‘believer’ in this stuff (and I’m still appalled by the level of obsessiveness which goes on around supplements – It gives wine-snobs a run for their money!) but I’ll be curious to see how it helps in terms of recovery and improvements in muscle strength. I’ll still be limiting myself to no more than one serve a day, and making sure that the bulk of my protein comes in ‘food’ form, along with lots of carbs and other good stuff, but it will be interesting to see.

A quick tally of today’s food intake gives me only about 60g or so, when I should be on about 100… So I feel a bit more comfortable that we truly are taking protein as a ‘supplement’ (Ie. “making up for a deficiency in your diet”) rather than as pointless ‘extra’, in the assumption that more protein = more muscle. And we'll see how we feel about this stuff once the 10kgs is gone - Which may take a while!!!

Training Plan for 2012/13 - This time it's personal.

Over the past few weeks I've slowly been ramping up the training, and this week the morning sessions have kicked in. Geez how I hate them. Getting up at 6am has never been my strength, and to do so just so I can fit in some painful pullups and thrusters isn't exactly the sort of inspiration your mind needs at that time. But still, it's gotta happen...

Part of what I'm hoping will help will be a good training plan. I learned a lot from last year about the balance between doing all I can and overdoing it, as well as refining it in terms of what sort of exercises I do when, to help balance it out and focus on my weaknesses.

So, this is what I'm proposing for the 'intense' training period which I think I'm about to enter (with 4 months to go)

• Cycling - 3-4 days a week, 30+km each time. This is my work commute so I usually don't push too hard, but I'll be making sure to include some solid sprinting work up some choice hills.
• Circuit/Boxing - Mon/Wed evenings respectively. These are the sessions after work with the trainer, so they're good solid cardio and muscular endurance sessions. Intensity varies, but good regular sessions.
• Strength morning sessions - I've realised that a lot of my work last year was more 'muscular endurance' than 'strength', and that's what let me down - especially in the upper body. So Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning will be 30 minutes of focused strength work. Think pull-ups, shoulder press, bench press... you get the idea. Few reps, heavy work.
• Lunchtime sessions - Monday and Wednesday will be jogs (including some upper body work), Tuesday and Thursday will be more interval work. 
• Jogs - Weekends we'll fit in some decent jogs, including some off-road group jogs as time and commitments allow...

 Of course, planning is the easiest/funnest bit. Doing will be trickier...

A testing recovery

After all of the increasing activity mentioned in the last post, I had a chance to actually test whether this was paying off on the weekend – With a 6 hour charity ride around Calder Park Raceway.

The TdH team - I'm the lanky pale one...

I’d actually signed up for this ride (run by Epilepsy Victoria as a bit of a fundraiser & awareness raiser) back in my pre-plague days, and had pretty much written it off as I’d done way too little training for it. But, I was encouraged to reframe it and treat is a bit of training itself – And so I rocked up on Sunday morning, my chunky aluminium commuter looking decidedly out of place amongst the carbon fibre speed machines – and gave it a go.

Actually, it surprised me. The event was nowhere near as hardcore as I feared, and I found myself riding alongside all myriad of riders, as well as being passed by and passing others. Families, young focused kids (who were scarily fast!), teenage girls, and the usual crowd of middle aged lycra. And with that inspiration I was able to knock over about 120km in just under the 6 hours…. I was pretty pleased with that, as I broke my previous personal best (a measly 75km) and the 100km mark. And I even managed to fit in a mid-ride massage (thank heavens for the massage college which had showed up to give free massages!) and a few breaks to rest my burning quads. (The top guy did well over 200km and never got off the bike.... Nutso... but respect)

And even more surprisingly, I’m not that sore now. I expected to be in agony but those massages must have helped and (I hope) my fitness is returning enough to recover quicker. I even managed to show up for circuit training Monday evening (cursed high interval sprints and 23km deadballs….), rode in this morning and jogged today. Woohoo….

Ahh, finished at last.

But most surprisingly, I enjoyed riding in circles for 6 hours.... Never thought I'd see that!

It's good to be back.

Yes, I’m finally human again as opposed to a walking cesspool of disease, mucus and bacteria. 

As hoped, the two weeks we had lying on beaches in Fiji and doing little exercise other than ‘walking to the pool’, 'playing with the kids', ‘lifting cocktails to face’ and 'pressing button for more cocktails' actually did wonders in finally knocking off the remnants of the myriad of illnesses from the past few months. OK, it also replaced some of those illnesses with a small bout of food-related tummy problems, but that’s par for the course for a Fiji holiday and we soon dealt with that.

Returned to work feeling pretty fresh and ready to get things going again – Only to be confronted by a ‘return of the kidney stone’ while at work one day. But after an hour of under-breath cursing and staggering around the office it soon passed and I think heralded the final end to illness.

From that point on it’s been a slow process of gradually picking up the exercise again, without overdoing it… That’s looked a bit like:

• Week 1: Riding to work
• Week 2: Incorporate boxing and circuit (2 nights)
• Week 3: Incorporate jogs and interval sessions (2 lunchtimes)

And now we’re kind of at week 4 I guess…. Where we’ll slowly incorporate some short morning session, mainly focused on strength and weights work.

I’ve also had the opportunity to work with my significant other in some sessions focused on her upcoming Stampede (or as I annoyingly refer to it – “Tough Mudder Lite”). I’m looking forward to attending that as a spectator and seeing other crazies go through it for a change. Hopefully that will give me a little boost just at the right time to kick my training up a notch.

One sick mudder

You'd think things would have to improve after my last post, but let me list the hilarious shenanigans that have made up the month since my last post:

• Viral infection
• Sinus infections
• Pneumonia (mild fortunately)
• Kidney stones (That was a fun way to spend my son's birthday! In the ER in hideous pain)
• Torn intercostal muscles (from coughing too much)
• Asthma 
• Pleurisy

After several weeks of 'making do' and coming into work in a vain attempt to be normal I finally gave up two weeks ago and took a week off sick, followed by a week of working from home....

It's been a hideously slow road, two steps forward and one step back, and today is my first full day back at work (and it's now 4:51 and I'm exhausted!!) 

Needless to say that training has completely gone out the window. I can barely breathe, my chest muscles still hurt when I cough (which is often), and I've lost 6kgs (which is not a good thing for this scrawny runt!)

Luckily I have some annual leave coming out where I can hopefully recover fully and return ready to hit the training hard for the last 4 months before the event...  But at this stage I'm very glad I didn't sign up for Sydney!!!

Pneumonia = Pno training...

It feels like I've never trained in my life.... For the past few weeks things have been a blur and I'm back to feeling like I'm at square 1 again.

It started with a couple of conferences - The first one went ok, with me being able to squeeze in some light evening runs. Then the second I had great intentions to hit the on-site gym.. Got up at 6am all fired up only to find it was locked and I had no way of accessing. Crud. Back to bed and watch crap TV until a heavy bacon and eggs breakfast an hour later. That was productive....

Then the day after I return to work feeling some skin sensitivity, which is a little alarm bell for me that things aren't right. Still - I managed to fit in the lunchtime training (focused on pull-ups. Ouch), and on Friday felt manageable as well. Saturday was worse however and by Sunday all thought of training couldn't have been further from my mind.

What followed was a week of misery, or more accurately viral pneumonia. Not a pleasant way to spend a week and I'm still now, a week later, in the process of recovering. While I'm back up and moving I know I still can't get enough air in my lungs to work out properly, and am having to accept that training will have to wait. 

Here's hoping that this will serve as a suitable physical/emotional/mental break so I can come back and hit it hard when it's all ok again.... At least the weather's crap so that doesn't make me feel so bad about it right now :)

Tough Mudder Melbourne 2013 - new dates!

Registrations for Melbourne/Phillip Island 2013 opened this week, and the most notable thing was the dates have moved from Feburary to the 19th and 20th and January.

The date change hasn't caused any real problem for our team - We've all signed up for the Sunday straight away - But it's certainly going to cause some training issues. Weather won't be much different (with a scary prospect of a 40-degree celsius race day - Yes, that's quite possible here at that time of year!), but the real problem is going to be trying to do that last critical month of training during the Christmas/NY silly season. 

In some ways it might give us more time with the holidays 'n all - But it also means we won't be together as much. Pros and cons.... But certainly something we'll need to take into account.

It also means one less month of training!!! 

Nutrition for tightwads

It's funny how we've slowly started unconsciously training...

It all started with someone feeling like keeping up a weekly jog and heading off, then lamenting how much harder it is alone... So we all joined in.

Then we felt that it'd be good to keep the strength stuff up. So another lunchtime was chosen to be our second workout day with a mix of intervals, sprints, tabata, and such.

Then we invited other staff to join in.... And before you know it we're back into a training regime! 

And then last week we actually commenced the preparations for Tough Mudder Melbourne 2013, starting with the recruitment of new victims colleagues, and encouraging them to make sure they're doing 3 sessions a week of something or other for the next few months (and then we'll ramp up the severity about 3-4 months out)

Personally it's all been coming together pretty well too. On top of that above routine of weekly jogs and weekly strength stuff I've also got 3-4 days of riding to work, one session of boxing after work, and then 3 mornings of brief crossfit stuff (which has been the hardest element to keep up, given my limited equipment and hatred of mornings). But most of the time I've been at it pretty reasonably...

But something funny often happens to me once I finally 'get into' a routine. After a couple of weeks I get sick. Nothing severe, just something that makes me feel blech and awful. And sure enough - yesterday it hit me. Straight after boxing and the ride home there was this dramatic decline until I was in bed huddled up and planning my day of sick leave for Thursday.

Fortunately this has happened enough times to know what's going on - It's when I'm not paying attention to my nutrition.

 I've got a few things working against me when it comes to appropriate and sufficient nutrition during training:

1. I'm a tightwad - So I'm loathe to spend money on exorbitant lunches or protein powders. All those recipes for power smoothies sound great, but that macrobiotic yoghurt, fresh blueberries, flaxseed oil and why protein isolate powder adds up! And I'm loathe to spend that much....
2. I'm largely vegetarian - While not strictly vegetarian, for a combination of tightwad and ethical reasons I generally try and avoid meat. So the regime of endless grilled chicken breasts as a nutritional plan ain't really going to work for me. 
3. I'm lazy - So anything that's too onerous or complicated or time-consuming isn't practical either.

One thing I've been particularly bad in ignoring is the need to consume enough calories and protein within that hour-space after exercise, and that's something I'm keen to remiss. It does make me wonder how much better my improvements could have been if I'd paid more attention of the last year or so.

So, some new goals for me:

1. Eat more, overall.
2. Ensure I eat an hour after every exercise session. That might be as complex as a smoothie after my morning routines, or just a peanut-butter sandwich and a glass of milk after lunchtime sessions.
3. Do it without too much $$$ or resorting to fancy powders and bars.

One thing I have in my favour is that as a skinny runt, I'm not worried about just picking protein above carbs and fats. So things like whole milk and whole eggs are still on the table as far as I'm concerned.  But it will be something to watch...

And to help me track my progress, ideas, and recipes even as I stumble across them, I'll tag this appropriately :)

 

So what now?

It's been exactly a month since the Tough Mudder in Melbourne/Phillip Island, and where am I and our team at now?

Well, after boring our work colleagues and families silly for a week we all accepted that we had to get back to normal life, at least in some sense. We played with the idea of heading up to Sydney to do the TM there, but decided we'd think about that for a month - and now with the month up I doubt any of us will be doing it. Not that we don't want to, but the time/$ is a bit of a barrier (and some of our families seem to want us back from the world of training!)

But it's also been interested after a month to see the training sneaking back in, even without a purpose, so attached to it have we become. A few of us went out on our own on occasion but it just didn't really gel or feel the same. So very subtly a Thursday lunchtime session emerged, which was then advertised to the rest of the office and we were delightfully surprised to see 8 people (most of whom hadn't done the TM) turn up to engage in 30-40 minutes of interval work of some form. So that'll keep going.

And then today 4/5 of the old team decided we felt like going for a jog - so we went off for the old workplace 4.5km run. I hadn't run since the TM so I was quite worried about my performance but was pleased to see that most of the fitness is still there. One of the girls on the team (ironically the oldest!) has already decided her next challenge is a marathon (!!!!) but the rest of us aren't quite nuts enough to join her in that at this stage....

And for me personally? Well, with an understanding of my weaknesses I'm keeping up with the weekly boxing class (although I've dropped the circuit for now to save some time/money), I'm riding more (again, as much to save money as for fitness!), and have started a plan of doing some crossfit based workouts 3 mornings a week - They seem to be going quite well so far. Short, sharp and something that keeps you interested, as well as building the strength I need. I'm still limited by my equipment somewhat (desperately need a barbell!) but it's going well.

Now the big question for us is "What next?" Sure, there's the Tough Mudder in 2013 but I'm feeling the need to mix that up with something else, something different..... Now just to search to see what else is out there...

TM Debrief #2 - Fitness & training

So how did all of our incessant, torturous and life-disrupting training go in preparing us for the Tough Mudder? And what will we take out of that for next year's event? (Or Sydney if we feel really keen/crazy?

1. Running

We all admitted after the event, from the strongest runner to the weakest, that we'd trained ourselves pretty well for the distance and terrain. The combination of interval work (sprinting & jogging) that we'd done during the week, combined with personal weekend runs and the regular biweekly Lysterfield jogs had us incredibly well equipped for the event.

To be honest, I didn't even really notice the distance - The breaks at obstacles gave us all the rest we needed, and even with us running pretty much between every obstacle (where possible - mud sometimes made that less than safe) we never really felt like we were pushing ourselves too far on the run sections. And while this is in part perhaps due to the nature of this particular course, we did find ourselves passing an awful lot of people who were now just walking - So we have to credit our training with a fair chunk of that.

• Recommendation: If you can comfortably jog 18km over a couple of hours, you should be sorted. Slot in some intervals in there as well, and you'll be fine. 

2. Strength

This was a bigger unknown. It's pretty simple to test how far you can run and in what time, but strength was a bit unknown.

To be fair, I think we were also well prepared for that too - and our hats off to our training for having a good idea of what we'd need for the day. On more than one occasion (such as crawling through devil's beard or kiss of mud) we'd all think "So THAT'S why he made us do that!". 

We certainly noticed the benefit of having done a lot of core work in preparation. It's surprising how much it was called on during the crawling sections especially and the sore abs the day after was evidence of that. I think it was a surprise to me how little you could use your legs on a lot of sections so having a strong enough core (and the upper body to go with it) helped immensely.

• Recommendation: Core work ain't just for Pilates chicks. You'll need it on the day so suck it up and do those burpees, bridge walks and sit ups. 

Upper body was an area where I noticed, despite the focus we'd placed on it in training, I  still struggled at. Everest proved that to me without a doubt, as did Funky Monkey - and even the Berlin Walls to a point. Yes, you've got a group who'll help you get through that sometimes, but it's a boon to be able to pull yourself up on your own. So I'll be focusing on that a lot more this year.

• Recommendation: Pull-ups. Don't just settle for chin-ups - Reflect the experience of the day and learn to pull yourself up with the grip you'd use on the day (palms facing forwards). 

I also noted the importance of not just strength, but EXPLOSIVE strength. Launching oneself up a Berlin Wall or Everest could get you a good way through the obstacle before you needed to rely on your (weaker) arms.

• Recommendation: Go for speed and strength. Squat jumps, scissor lunges, etc.

3. Technique

I hadn't thought too much about technique personally - apart from on the monkey bars where I'd resigned myself to failure anyway. But there are certainly some techniques to learn. Being able to launch oneself up a wall - targetting the foot on a small hold and transferring horizontal motion into vertical - is a good skill to learn.

• Recommendation: Playground climbing walls to practice running jumps (eg. Berlin Walls) and find a local skatepark at a quiet time with some mates to practice quarter pipes.

The other thing which we did, and would definitely recommend, is running wet and swimming fully clothes. Melbourne had a huge problem on the first day with lots of people getting into trouble at walk the plank - I have no doubt these people could swim and were confident they could swim the required 50m, but I reckon many of them hadn't factored in wet clothes and shoes - which sucks the power out of you and makes your legs useless. Make sure you've done it, know how you handle it, and if need be bail from that obstacle.

We also noted how quickly the number of people walking increased once they got wet. Again, I reckon many hadn't got used to running wet and the shock on the day (combined with everything else!) took more out of them than it should. Get yourself used to that and you'll be well on your way to doing better than most!

 

TM Debrief #1 - Equipment

We went into this Tough Mudder quite unsure about what we'd need in terms of clothing, equipment, and so on - We'd read other peoples' experiences but it was always a bit of a guess as to how well it would work for us.  

 

So how did it all go? We were 'equipped' properly in terms of 'equipment'? (I'll take about training in the next post)

 

 

Shoes - No complaints at all. The Asics that I'd bought worked just fine - But then again, so did everybody elses in our team. In fact, a lot of our team wore their older, crappier shoes and never had any real problem. You can definitely overthink what you wear on your feet I reckon.  Having said that the Gel Trabucos were a good shoe - They drained well (not that you noticed your wet, muddy feet after a few kms of it), stayed on, and gave as much grip as you could expect (which for much of the course was not much!) The best part was that they cleaned up really well after the race and are now as good as new.

 

• Recommendation: Wear what's comfortable, but most importantly find something strong - I saw too many shoes fall apart or bits of shoes left around the course. If you're going to wear an old pair make sure they're not already knackered.

 

Clothes - My hat goes off to those who did the race in costume - I can't imagine how that full-sized teletubbies costume must have felt by the end! As for our gear, generally it was also fairly ok. Quick-dry gear is essential - Not that it ever 'dries', but it doesn't weigh you down as much. I also wore 'normal' shorts over the top of my compression shorts, mainly for the pockets to carry stuff - If I didn't need to carry stuff (ventolin, gel packs) I'd have gladly gone full compression gear, and the girls/guys in full body compression suits certainly looked the most comfortable. The only thing I'd have changed was wear a slightly tighter shirt next time to avoid it getting tangled or just getting droopy and dangling.  

 

• Recommendation: Compression gear all the way. If you wear other shorts for cargo storage try and get zippered pockets to keep your gear in place (I lost some stuff in the drop from Walk the Plank)

Hydration Pack - We seriously considered this, as it came semi-recommended by TM in their registration stuff, but decided against it in the end. We're so glad we did. There were plenty of water stations (each supplied by mains water so no risk of running out) and there were just too many obstacles where it would be in the way: Devil's Beard, Kiss of Mud, Boa Constrictor, Electric Eel.... Plus I saw too many mud-encrusted mouthpieces to consider that a viable option. 

 

• Recommendation: Forget about it, unless you're in the hottest of conditions or know water is limited.

Gloves - The Mad Grip gloves were perfect. Saw a few other people on the field with them, and with the fingers cut off they worked so well that I soon forgot they were there. The rest of our team wore more conventional gym/weights gloves and didn't complain about them either, one of the guys even knocking off Funky Monkey in his.  

 

• Recommendation: Whatever you like really... It doesn't seem to make a huge amount of difference.

Food - I think we also tweaked this one really well. After carbo-loading the days up to the race we eased back later on Saturday and then the day's nutrition consisted of:

- Breakfast (4 hours before) - 4 Weet-bix and milk
- 1 hour before - Up 'n Go or similar liquid 'breakfast' thing.
- 30 minutes before - One GU gel pack.
- During the race - 2 or 3 GU packs at regular intervals.

To be honest, I was never lacking energy or feeling hungry. Some others in our team had glucose tablets and similar things which helped, but the GU's were pretty perfect (and looking at the course litter, pretty popular). The only catch is they got filthy and you kind of need a bit of water to follow them, so best to consume just before the drink stations.

• Recommendation: Be serious about your nutrition. Carbo-load sensible, eat well (but don't go nuts) on race day, and gel packs work well. 

 

Tough Mudder Melbourne/Phillip Island - Review and reflect.

It's Monday - I'm sore, scratched, unable to concentrate and missing a pair of gloves. But I'm also a Tough Mudder - and the headband on my desk proves it!
Sit back and grab a coffee - this is a long entry! We’ll begin with the night before….

Friday:

Arrived in Cowes at about 7pm and after booking into our accommodation (which turned out to be a brilliant little cottage just perfect for our purposes) we headed into town for dinner. Naturally, being a weekend and the beginning of school holidays it was quite busy, but it was a very bizarre kind of ‘busy’ as everyone surrounding you was of a certain age group (20-40 largely) and pretty much all looking remarkably fit! Not a place to be self-conscious of one’s appearance for sure but it was quite a lark seeing all these buff people walking around, some in t-shirts from various gyms or fitness groups, all knowing that each other will be facing it tomorrow…

Had a good carbo-loaded dinner, even treated myself to a beer (beer has carbs right?!) and then we headed back home for an earlyish night. Set 3 alarms (just to be safe!) and tried to calm the anxiety and get some sleep.  

Saturday:

BZZZZT!!!!!!!!!! #1

BZZZZT!!!!!!!!!! #2

BZZZZT!!!!!!!!!! #3

Ok, I’m up! 5am hurts, I don’t care what your reasons are for it….  Stuffed down a quick breakfast and we were on our way in the darkness to the course. Dark always makes things more anxious and uncertain, and together with a small bunch of other volunteers we stumbled our way down to check-in and got our jobs for the day. We decided to pick spectator sign-in which, while not glamorous, would have us near the course, right by Arctic Enema and Devil’s Beard.

Thus followed a couple of hours of registering spectators, selling tickets and so on, which actually wasn’t a bad job and it was great to feel helpful. Then an organiser came over and said they needed a few guys to help empty ice into Arctic Enema… Fantastic!! I swear that’s the best job on the course. Hard work of course as you’re constantly grabbing big bags of ice from a semi-trailer, smashing them on the ground a couple of times (good squat and back exercises there!) and then cutting them open and pouring them into the dumpsters. But the joy of standing there, with a big full bag of ice, beckoning the next victim up to your dumpster before ‘freshing up’ their bath for them is worth every bit of effort.

Then with our shift finished we wandered around the course getting a good feeling for what I’d be in for tomorrow, which did a great job of easing my nerves and I was much more comfortable for the day head. We also had the great experience of waiting in line to grab a beer and having a participant, newly christened with his orange headband say "Hey, thanks for all of this!"... So nice to have someone thank you for the work that you've done and it's a great example of the Tough Mudder spirit.

Sunday:

Helped by the change in daylight savings, which gave us an extra hour’s sleep, we were up again at 5am and back down to the course. My wife was volunteering again so we went through the whole process and she chose face-marking today, which gave her the perks of handling lots of buff male chests and biceps, flirting a lot, and getting an early finish to see her skinny husband finish the course.

After seeing her off I went back outside the gate (unlike Saturday they were keeping participants out of the registration area until they were ready. Wise move TM, glad to see Saturday’s lessons were noted and learned from) and stood around. Was glad again to have seen it all yesterday as I’d have been so nervous at this point otherwise.

Gates open. Registration done. Rest of the team slowly arrived and we busied ourselves sorting gear, rubbing in various ointments and taking last minute nutrition – More as a means of burning up nervous energy than out of necessity – And by the look of the other teams doing all sorts of warm-ups and antics it was a common theme.

9:20am – It’s go time.

Being called down to the start line we said our farewells to our awesome supporters, having that awful sense of ‘point of no return’ as we headed onto the track. Immediately I couldn’t help but laugh at TM’s sense of humour as to even get to the start line you had to get over a Berlin Wall. Luckily it was a shorty and we were all up and over unassisted. It’s quite funny to stand at the startline and see all these people pour over the wall in a human stream! Once there we remarked at just how 600 people, amped up on adrenaline and testosterone, created a phenomenal amount of heat. It’s HOT by the start line!!

Some great hyping-up from the MC and the temperature and noise increased before we were let loose on the course… It’s hard to keep your pace under control but I know from past experience in situations like this that’s easy to go too hard and burn yourself out in no time. So we all eased our way out of the start and headed up down the track, stunned that this was actually finally happening.

Tired yet?

After settling into a nice running pace (although SS was pushing himself along awfully quickly and lifted our group’s pace significantly) we hit ‘Tired yet?’ – the first obstacle and a nice easy one to get us going: 50m or so of tires spread out that you need to hop through and over. No real problems there, just being careful not to twist an ankle. No mud either, but the gravel it was set on (which is obviously the run-off spaces for the supercars/superbikes) is damn deep and pretty hard to run on.

Berlin Walls – 8ft

Headed around the corner and were confronted with 2 things – Firstly, our team’s ‘official’ photographer ready to catch us at a moment of weakness, stalking us from the sidelines, and another set of Berlin Walls. Again, they were shortish and we were fresh, so it was a pretty easy up ‘n over, with myself SS and SD helping the girls up ‘n over.

Berlin Walls – 9ft

Having that completed we kept jogging around the racetrack, with only a short stop so SD could have a quick pee (too much pre-race hydration obviously!!) before hitting the next Berlin Walls. That extra 1ft of height made them seem much more difficult, with people definitely needing help on these ones. Two of our team got up with the assistance of others and then set about helping our team over as well as a few others who were running alone. Perched up on that narrow wall is a pretty scary moment and it takes a bit of knack to lock yourself in so you don’t get pulled back over.

Then only a few steps away we encountered…

Devil’s Beard

I’d watched this one on the videos and knew it would help to hold it up for the other for a bit. In they went and then I followed…. Doing this one ‘alone’ is certainly tough, as we all noted when a team in front got out leaving the net to collapse on us which increases the weight and digs you into the harsh gravel underneath you. It was a real exercise of core and all those bloody bridge walks that our trainer has had us doing were suddenly much appreciated!!  Emerged to see my wife smiling on from her post at registration which was a nice bit of encouragement after that effort.

Arctic Enema

Only a hundred metres or so to this one – Having watched this one in action a lot yesterday I was well prepared but you still have no idea how it’s going to feel! Up onto the edge, don’t let yourself hesitate and freak out, and in you go… To be honest, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – although ducking your head under the board really did help it sink in and get the brain freeze going. What did surprise me was just how ‘solid’ it was, having to almost clamber over the chunks of ice to get out again, and utter a few expletives in good company. I don’t know whether the ice was affecting her brain, but LS seemed to love this one and was raving about it for the next few kms!

Electric Eel

A good section of running here to warm up again… It was here that we first noted that our team was doing remarkably well on the running, and we gave ourselves a bit of a pat on the back for that.

Rounded the corner and there was the ‘mystery’ obstacle, revealed at the start line as Electric Eel. Dandy. Our first taste of 10,000 volts will be crawling on the ground. Awesome.

I launched myself in and it wasn’t long before I got the first hit, a mild spark to one side. Not so bad… But then came the next – a full jolt. And another. And another. I was cursing like a sailor and struggling to get through as quickly as possible whilst avoiding as many as possible… Emerging from the other side I discovered that the others hadn’t suffered as badly so whether I just picked the wrong route or was feeling a bit more ‘conductive’ today, I don’t know.

Walk the Plank

There’d been lots of warnings and murmurings about this one. On Saturday they’d apparently had large numbers of people struggling and needing to be rescued and we were warned at the start and at the obstacle to not attempt it if we weren’t a ‘competent and strong swimmer’… Even that had me worrying but I decided to give it a go… Our team got called up to the top and I must admit I don’t think I even looked down. SS gave MB a bit of a shove to get her off and then when clear we just followed like lemmings. I do remember halfway down the fall thinking “@#&$! this is a long way!”.

Hit the water, but not the bottom, and starting swimming. I knew from our training runs and lake dives that my legs would be useless so just kept using my arms to take me the 50m or so to the other side. I was starting to worry a bit by the end and am glad it wasn’t much longer – I’m not surprised they had so many rescues here yesterday….

It’s at this point that I think I lost one of my asthma puffers in the force of the entry. Thank God I brought two!

And now with that behind us, the mud starts in earnest.

Kiss of Mud

Before we even get to the Kiss of Mud (the 50m crawl under barbed wire through mud) we commence with a trudge through knee deep, thick, shoe-sucking mud which fully baptises us into the experience of the rest of the race. Then a slick crawl up a steep slope and into Kiss of Mud proper. Geez that crawl is hard – Almost no traction from your shoes and having to rely almost entirely on your arms to pull yourself through. Many people resorted to going up sideways and we emerged pretty battered. Most of my injuries from the day were caused here and it drew blood on at least one of our team.

Still filthy, you then could have a banana stuffed in your mouth by one of the lovely volunteers, grab a cup of (hopefully) clean water and slop over to….

Greased Lightening

Everyone loves a slip ‘n slide… Even if there’s a huge muddy puddle at the bottom. Let the rest of the team go, waited for a bit of clearance and then LS and I launched ourselves down… Somehow I started feet first but ended up head first at the bottom and straight into the filth. No point worrying about the mud again as right next door was…

Cliffhanger

This was an amazing sight to behold. There’s something very primal about a huge group of people, covered in mud, helping each other up an impossibly steep and slippery slope. T-shirts had been turned into tow ropes and before I knew it a complete stranger offered me a line and I hauled them up, before returning the favour. Inch by inch we made our way up helping as many as we could along the way. Just standing back and watching humanity in action (at its best rather than at its worst) was incredible.

Berlin Walls – 9ft

Yep, another set of the tall ones – This time with the added challenge of being all muddy and slick. This was the wall where I learnt the safety lesson about watching out for the feet of the person you’re helping out, as you can’t help but flail about as you get up and over and I copped one to the face. These were by far the hardest, and my hat goes off to those few who can do these unassisted.

Boa Constrictor

Some really long running sections over the next few obstacles, including quite a bit of hillwork. This is where you really noticed a lot of teams slowing down and from then on it seems most people were for the most part walking the course. We were very proud of our team and our training that we were able to keep running in between all these obstacles.

Boa Constrictor was a nice little break to all that running. You wouldn’t like to be claustrophobic but the tunnels didn’t pose a huge problem, except for the fact that your feet are useless. Made the mistake of trying to get up on my knees at one point only to get myself wedged in, so returned to the forearm crawl for the rest of the way, until a friendly stranger with headcam lent me a hand and hauled me out.

Bale Bonds

A lot more running before this one. Bale Bonds is a piece of cake…. Just a few steps up and over. Barely a hiccup in the running!

King of the Mountain

We rounded a corner to find our official photographer lying in the grass with his lens out like a sniper, and quickly stuck the chest out for the shot before continuing around to the hay bale mountain. Again, not particularly difficult, with only the shorter of stature having any real trouble. Stopped at the top for a team photo and moved on. Nice to actually have soft straw to land for a change from all this mud.

Spider’s Web

We’d seen a lot of people struggling on these cargo nets yesterday so I was a bit worried, but with a few people holding the nets down tight it was no real problem. My wife caught up to me at this point so it was nice to a fan on the sidelines for the next few obstacles.

Firewalker

Saturday had been windy and blowing the smoke away pretty swiftly but today was a lot calmer and approaching Firewalker the smoke was thick in the air. Ventured in to a reasonable amount of heat and a bit of smoke before it thickened and all became blinding. Luckily at that point you could hear a voice beckoning you on and a few metres more and you were out, coughing and clearing your eyes.

Amazingly, my asthma didn’t flare up at this point, nor was it a problem anywhere else on the course, which I’m really pleased about.

Hold Your Wood

They really should have called this one “Bear Your Cross” as that’s what it felt like. 6ft long pine poles that we lumbered along for a while – They weren’t heavy, but jogging with them was still hard simply due to how awkward they were. But soon we hit the water and it was actually a really nice break from the whole event – The logs floated and we just sort of cruised along like happy beavers before emerging at the other end and returning the log to the pile. We saw a few macho guys grab more than 1, one guy grabbing 6!, but were content with our required number.

Dong Dangler

A few slippy stretches of mud and we were down to the cables across the pond – With the water supporting you underneath it was actually remarkably easy and speedy to whip yourself across using your hands, only getting caught up when the water got surprisingly shallow at one point. Good fun little obstacle this one.

Trench Warfare

After Boa Constrictor these tunnels weren’t a huge problem. Longer, certainly – But they were JUST big enough to get on your knees and crawl.  My greatest fear was darkness and disorientation but there was enough light creeping in to make it more than manageable. Couldn't help but start humming the theme tune to "The Great Escape" as LS and I crawled our way through :)  Emerged out into the mud puddles again and sloshed our way over and out.

Mud Mile

We’d seen some big queues here yesterday but it was much better today. But still, heading down the long single-file trench filled with mud and water it was a slow slog, with many people bailing and running along the side. We stayed the course and slowly made our way through, quite enjoying the change of pace.

Twinkle Toes

How clever of TM to ensure that there was a big patch of sticky, thick mud right before you got up onto the balance beam. Again, best not to overthink this one – just go! All was going well for me until a guy next to me fell off and had to make his way through the water to the ladder, which meant going under me – and the last thing I wanted to do was fall on him! Managed to regroup and kept going with only a slight wobble before getting onto the other side. Phew! Proud of myself there…

For the next few obstacles the common theme before and after was, not surprisingly, mud. It just seemed to go on forever in long shallow patches and deep puddles and pool where you couldn’t even guess where you were putting your feet…  And it wasn’t just plain old normal mud, but mud with a delightful hint of manure I’m sure… Mmm… Guess that’s what you get when you build a course on old paddocks! This is where we’d often see the gung-ho time-driven people come adrift as speed and traction just don’t go together in this terrain.

Tyre Mountain

Exactly what it sounds like – And not too much of a problem as long as you watched your footing and went for the nice big tractor tyres as much as possible… But what loomed next was what I’d been fearing the most:

Funky Monkey

In my training the monkey bars have been my nemesis, so I wasn’t particularly confident about these. And the fact that the first bar I grabbed span didn’t help either. But in the end I know that only making it two rungs before falling off was my own fault – I need far more work on grip strength and upper body ability to get this one done. But well done to SD in our team who made it all the way. Amazing effort.

Turd’s Nest

This one looks precarious with the cargo net suspended between the two platforms, and those on the Mud Mile trudging beneath you, but it’s a pretty straightforward process – One step after another, one hand before the other… The biggest challenge was actually just getting off the platform, now encrusted with 2 days of mud and slime.

Everest

Dreaded, yet exhilarating Everest. But first you have to get to ‘base camp’… that involved for us a good half hour wait (Much better than the 2 hours people had waited yesterday!) in which time the muscles were stiffening up. Our team headed up in turn. SS first, then SD, then MB (who despite being the oldest and shortest was up in a couple of short goes) and LS… Then me…. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again…. 

I don’t know what went wrong but I just simply COULDN’T get up that bastard. (That's me cursing at the bottom after another failed attempt) People had my hands, I had the rope, I put all my effort in and so did they but I just wouldn’t move. It was as frustrating as hell as every time I hit the bottom again I’d curse, wondering why everyone else was up and I wasn’t…. It’s a combination of factors I know, and probably if there’d been another bigger guy up the top I’d have got up – But for now it’s beaten me. I gave up, having put in all my effort and failed, and wandered around to the other side. I know it’s only one obstacle, and in trying 6 times I probably put in more effort than many others who got hauled up, but it’s going to remain a thorn in my side – And for that if no other reason I’ll be there in 2013 and spending between now and then working hard on my grip and upper body strength.

Electroshock Therapy

When you don’t know how this is going to feel it’s easy to barge in. But having experienced it at Electric Eel already I wasn’t looking forward to it again – But with the finish line just on the other side you just had to do it and get it over with…. I probably got hit about 6 times, each one a nasty jolt to the system and a curse from the mouth, before dodging a fallen SD and spotting the last set of wires and making a bolt for the open air….. Phew!!!!

(While this is one of the most unpleasant obstacles to endure it's also the most hilarious to watch, as we discovered later on as we had a beer and watched our fellow Mudders finish. The best were the big, tough, testosterone filled guys who'd charge in with nothing but bravado but 3 seconds later would be squealing and flinching and stumbling for the escape.... No disrespect of course - I appreciate how that reaction is totally involuntary!)

And we’re done!!

Across the line as a team, the way we started, but with what feels like a lifetime of experience between us.

We were met by our ever-supportive fans and settled in to enjoy our beers and nurse our bodies at a nice spot on the grass. The buzz around the TM compound is just awesome and sharing in that satisfaction with everybody is a huge reward. Inhibitions were cast aside as you showered with complete strangers and felt quite comfortable dripping mud, half naked across the compound to grab your bags and another beer. It’s a great feeling, and as I looked at all these strong men and women around me it was quite a shock to realise that we were one of them too.

Even today, the feeling is still with all of us. We know it will fade and soon our lives will be ‘back to normal’ but for now we’re making the most of it. My bib (which amazingly survived the course) is hanging, filthy and crumpled at my desk and will be a constant reminder to me of what we can achieve and how the obstacles of life are just that – merely obstacles to get over, under or through. It's also a reminder of the importance of having people around you through all of that - and the team and supporters we had were essential for us doing as well as we did.

And will we be there next year? You bet… I can’t wait to get this same experience again, and this time Everest will be mine ;)