Race Report From Tough Mudder at Mt Pocono

Written by Escalade
(Photos added by T)

The Tough Mudder was held on April 29 at Pocono Manor in PA. Our team
consisted of about 15 people mainly from the Syracuse area but a few
were from PA. Our team was the “Syracuse Mudders” and we had some
snazzy orange shirts with all of our names on the back, so I’m told!

Terry, my friend Megan-Mack and I met the rest of the group the night
before and we had a big team dinner.

 This was a lot of fun and helped us get to know and bust on our fellow team mates before the real thing, the next day.

Overview 

The course was designed to be a bit over 12 miles that consisted of
running, climbing, and about 20-25 obstacles along the way. Some
examples of the obstacles included: jumping 20ft into water off a
plank, running 50ft in a zig zag through fire and then jumping over
fire at the end, 

crawling in mud under 18 inches of barbed wire, or
electrical wires, jumping in and going head under water into a
dumpster full of water, ice and antifreeze so that the ice did not
freeze, crawling through a muddy tunnel for about 40 ft, climbing
spider nets, climbing and jumping over 8 ft and 10 ft walls, doing
monkey bars or rings, walking a 40 ft balance beam, 

carrying a large piece of wood for at least a quarter of a mile, trying to make it over
a quarter pipe and much much more.

 Going into this event, I thought that the running portion would be on
grass or cart paths, since it was partially on a golf course. Wow was
I wrong. The running portion was through the woods, muddy streams,
dried out stream beds where there were rocks, logs, sticks, ditches,
trees, you name it, in the way. Thankfully I had two extremely good
guides who were watching my every next move.
It didn’t annoy me that I couldn’t always run or run as fast as I
wanted to, but I am very surprised that I made it through the finish
line without twisting an ankle.

Pros 

This event was a lot of fun, even though I froze half the time. My
favorite part of this whole experience was getting to know new people
(my team), and working as a team the whole way to complete the
challenges and obstacles we faced. We all had to work together and
everyone had a great attitude and would always cheer on the other team
members. Everyone was so open to and willing to help me whether it was
yelling from the end of the tunnel to let me know where the end was,
lending a hand to get up after crawling under barbed wire, getting a
boost to climb the 10 ft walls, and many other helpful things.
I couldn’t have asked for a better team, unless any of you TRYers want
to join next year! We are planning on doing the July 2013 Mudder in
Buffalo, put it on your calendar!! 

Cons

I don’t really have anything negative to say about the mudder, but for
my own personal thoughts, I now know what I need to work on for the
next time I attack this beast. I really trained hard on my running and
I need to focus more attention on sit ups, push ups, monkey bars etc.

Final Thoughts

I had a blast! Even though it is a completely insane thing to do, it
was so much fun and I am very glad that I did it. Thanks to Terry and
my snowboard guide, Megan-Mack for all their help, support, and
eyeballs that work!

[Editor's note: The platform jump is from 15 feet - but that means your head is over 20 feet above the water, so close enough.  Antifreeze can't keep ice from freezing, because, you know, ice is already frozen.  It does keep the water from turning into ice, though, meaning the ice/water combination can be at or below 32 degrees.  It seemed much worse to me than the polar plunge we did in January.  When the writer says "we are planning...", she means "she is planning".  I am still crying for my momma and praying that the mud monster doesn't come and find me.  I'm also hoping to thaw out sometime before this July.]