My Tough Mudder Experience

Sunday was the day.  The big one.  The race I had been training hard for the last couple of months.  The race that scared me.

And I wound up not being able to do it.

We were expecting a major tempurature drop on Sunday.  We're talking the temps at Big Bear were 65 on Saturday, 45 on Sunday, and 65 on Monday.  No, I'm not making this us.

That was enough to make the guy I was supposed to do it with decide not to do it.  But I was stuborn, so I headed up the mountain anyway.  After 2 and a half hours of driving, I stepped out of my car into the 37 degree weather (it was 10AM at that point), got back into my car, and drove back down the mountain.

That drive home was the longest drive of my life.  I was frustrated and tired and just wanted to be done with it all.

I signed up for this race 6 months ago.  And I never in my wildest dreams expected the temps to be so bad.  I had been planning to sign up for Saturday and then changed to Sunday at the last minute.  If I'd been signed up for Saturday, I could have done it.

I had been training hard for this race, too.  This was my big race of the year.  Heck, I've been saying once I was done with it, I didn't intend to run those kind of distances again.  My body doesn't seem to like them, or at least doesn't seem to like them yet.

No, I don't regret not attempting it on Sunday.  I would have been by myself and fighting hypothermia and pnemonia since I would have been in and out of the water the entire time.  I do these for fun, not to prove anything.  And doing it on Sunday would have just been stupid on my part and potentially deadly.

But believe me, this was the toughest decision I've made in a while.

I had already been saying this was a once in a lifetime event for me.  Not only the distance but the expense.  This is twice the price of my normal mud run.  I can't do this every year.  And the training takes a big time commitment from me.

And yet I keep thinking about signing up for next year.  This was freak weather, and I would be shocked to see it happen again next year.

On the other hand, they keep putting in more and more obstacles that I'm not that enthused by.  Like the one where they shock you with electricity.  Or maybe the one where they have you jump into pepper juice.  Yeah, that sounds like fun.  I keep debating whether I really want to do it or stick with 10K as my long mud runs.

I guess only time will tell if I sign up next year or not.

Meanwhile, in my quest to do 6 mud runs this year, I have signed up for a 3 miler this coming Saturday.  Looks like fun, and I think it will be good for me in so many ways.