Tough Mudder 2017 done! (2 of 3)

It's been a few days, so I figured I'd better keep up with the rehash otherwise the memories will really start fading. Surprisingly, I'm feeling pretty good minus my traps which are still a bit sore. I'd say by tomorrow I'll be 98%, and that's a grade I can live with.

Back to the recap!

After summiting Everest, the next obstacle was one that most of us called our favorite. It was pretty fun, although the water was cold! The Block Ness Monster is as fun as it looks, and apparently is the highest rated obstacle in the Tough Mudder arsenal.

After running for a bit and warming our bodies back up, we hit Mud Mile 2.0. This obstacle really put your teamwork to the test, and is one of those obstacles I have no idea how someone could do it solo.

Pyramid Scheme came up next, and is as insane as it looked. I didn't time it, but I bet we got through it in about 15 minutes, maybe even more. It was one of those obstacles that was more about strategy rather than brute strength. We were all getting gassed at this point, so the wait to tackle this was welcome.

Quagmire was a lot like Mud Mile 2.0, but steeper and taller. Again, teamwork was key.

I don't have video of the next couple of obstacles since it was another area with no spectator access. Mineshafted was first up, and I don't remember what that was. I'm sure it was excruciating though. That was followed up by Six Feet Under, which was a lot like Quagmire except the bottom of the mud pit was super soft silt that was about halfway up your knees. Kind of a variation on a theme. I guess it is called the Tough Mudder after all.

At about the 7 1/2 mile marker we encountered Birth Canal. I was feeling pretty gassed at this point, and this obstacle was a fair bit more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Basically each of those sacks of water is about 100 pounds, and it wears ya down a good bit. Three of the obstacles had two paths, one for first-timers and the other for Legionnaires (previous TM finishers). This was one of those events, and the Legionnaire obstacle was called Black Hole. It is almost identical from what I could tell, except you crawled on a slippery tarp and the tarp holding the water is blackout, so you're crawling in the hot, muddy darkness.

As you can see in the video, I was so gassed I didn't know where I was going and tried to go in the exit of the Black Hole instead of continuing on. Whoo boy, ya gotta breathe!

The last obstacle before mile 8 was the Show Me State Slide. It was the worst slide ever. You basically shimmy down a drainage culvert with sticky mud in it, into a pit of mud, and then have a four foot hop out back to ground level. I bet as the day wore on and hundreds of people went through it that it got more slippery, but that wasn't the case for us.

I'll wrap this up tomorrow, and my phone is already going off with hooligans trying to get me to sign up for next year.

Tough Mudder 2017 done! (1 of 3)

I have a lot of mixed feelings about yesterday, although they are mostly good. I'm typing this with a body that is angry at me and few sips of coffee, so any coherence will be solely achieved through luck.

We had an 8am start in Sedalia, so anyone who's know me at all knows that me and mornings don't see eye to eye typically, especially when I know there's going to be plenty of suffering coming up in the near future.

When we got there, it felt very similar to Warrior Dash, with probably the same size of crowds (700 participants or so and spectators, not a small crowd).  Speaking of spectators, I'd be remiss if I didn't call out my very dear friend Ryan Mulbery, who so graciously took all these great photos.

Here's the team (L to R): Ryan Schimmel, John Thong, Jarrett Marshall, Denny Rader, Wallace, Peter Colpitts, The Bearded Wonder). Jarrett drove in from St Louis to take Ryan's spot after he had to bail after his old man hips gave out on him.

Just a quick recap, TM is 11 miles long with 20 obstacles that vary in size and skill required to traverse. None were exceptionally easy, but some were clearly harder than others.

So at our start time at 8:00 I came busting out of the $hitter to see a group of guys leaving and my team starting to take off. Not an auspicious start. Fortunately, 8:00 was a soft start time as they would let groups of 350 off every 15 minutes, so we were at the start of the 8:15 group. The only thing worse than being late is being early. So we were hopping around waiting for 8:15, and when that finally hits we go to another staging area, and then we are treated to music at probably 130db. I'm thinking they were trying to numb our brains with sonic waves. Then the announcer/MC comes up and gives a little rah rah speech and gets us pumped up. Until the audio cuts out. Again, not an auspicious start but I'm here for adventure, albeit I figured it would be out on the course not in the warm up area.

No cannon shot, we just start running. And running, and then the first obstacle. Run up the stairs at the fairgrounds 4 times. Not pleased with my training already, and now you're going to cook my legs before mile 1? This is going to be a beaut, Clark. Once we're done with the stairs, we run halfway around the track (I think that was 80 miles) to the next obstacle, which was the partner carry. Shimmel and I partner off, he starts by carrying me with the fireman's carry, and then halfway we switch and I carry him with a piggyback method. That wasn't too bad, but again, it was all legs. More running (see a pattern here?), and then it was Pitfall. Basically a giant muddy pit filled with muddy water and hidden holes dug out of the floor of the "pond". Not too bad, and it felt good to cool the legs off a bit. Next was Slick Rick (think adult-sized muddy slip and slides) and Skidmarked. I had to look the latter up, as my brain was anoxic and I have no memory of it. This was a slanted-towards-you wall that you had to scale, and it was one of the first obstacles that really showed how important teamwork is to this event. We don't have pics for awhile as there were no spectators' areas back here.

Next up was a mystery obstacle, but I have no idea what it was. I must have done it though. It probably involved mud. (Edit: It didn't. It was hurdling cow fences about 40 times. It wasn't bad until you rammed your knee/shin into the top of one, and then that slowed you down since you weren't as eager to go hopping them.)

Probably our easiest obstacle was up next, Devil's Beard which was climbing under heavy cargo nets, although our team figured out a really kick ass way to do it that took us only about 10 seconds. Next up was Berlin Walls, just more walls to giddy up over and then Bail Bonds:

This got us to mile 4 of 11. Next up was a more visually impressive obstacle, Everest 2.0. A video is worth a 1000 pics, so they say.

This will be my last post for awhile.

I'm kidding. But I'm going to have to try to not die tomorrow during the Tough Mudder. I'm already having deep regrets about not training more. I know it'll be a hoot, but it's definitely going to be a one foot after the other affair, especially as the event drags on. At least I'll be with friends and the weather should be nice.

A tale of two Toms

There are few places on earth I hate as much as Costco. Something about the giant carts, too much to look at, and food samples create a less than optimal shopping experience for me with people leaving their capitalist barges in the middle of the aisle creating a traffic jam to go eat some cheese puffs. It takes everything I have to not scream "does anyone in here have any courtesy at all?!?!?".

I realize the irony of that. But it probably still needs to be said. Even the parking lot is a disaster with driver's with their heads safely tucked up their arses. It's unreal.

There was a saving grace though during this latest excursion to Costco, and it wasn't the fact my family of four ate some average food for lunch for a paltry $15. As I'm sitting there enjoying my greasy turkey sandwich, who do I see walk by but one of the greatest golfers of all time, Tom Watson. He had a lot of toothpaste and was on his way out. I don't think he had any Kirkland golf balls either, but I'm not even sure if they still sell those. I figure if Tom Watson has to go to Costco, even after winning the Open nearly every year since 1887 and even winning those silly tournaments at Augusta and the "US" Open, then maybe I can suffer through it occasionally.

The other Tom I'm referring to is Mr. Petty. May you rest in peace, and may your music play on for many decades to come.

Weekend-end update

I took this video behind our house a couple of weeks ago. AB loves to go after those cat fish. If nothing else, it gives him a reason to practice tying his knots.

I thought it'd be a good idea to add some multimedia content to spice up the ole blog. Hope you enjoy it.

K had his 9th birthday since my last post, and we hosted about 10 kids over at the house yesterday for a party and magic show. They were pretty wild during the show, although our magician, Tom Burgoon, took it in stride and had a lot of fun.

We're almost out of September, which means getting into a less frenzied pace in life, which I think we are all looking forward too. Basketball practice has started for AB, but I'm still hoping he's going to do some more stuff/sports besides basketball. I'm glad he has adopted the "ball is life" mantra, but sometimes a singular focus can be detrimental. I guess I've had that focus at times, which allows me to be well versed in a variety of topics, but sometimes it can be a bit much to live with someone like myself. I'm sure Penny would tell you all about that.

Penny ran another half marathon, although the training was hard and didn't yield the results she would have liked, she still pushed through it and did something I think is very admirable. She certainly is the tougher one out of the two of us.

I had to drop the car off today to get it fixed since I decided to check the sturdiness of our garage by sideswiping it with my rear quarterpanel. I'm sure most of you heard either a) the crunch of expensive German metal or b) the aneurysm blowing off the top of my skull. I've since calmed down, but it sucks that we're going back to having one car for the next 9 days. You think with practice it'd be easier, but it's just a pain in the ass. Kind of like paying out even more money to fix a car that I haven't even paid sales tax on.

First world problems, I know.

Anyway, I thought I'd bring up a little bit of the ongoings in the household. Not very exciting for my non-family reader, but it is what it is. With the lack of focus of this blog, it's a wonder I haven't scared off all the readers. Thanks, mom.

And there goes two weeks

I really meant to post a new blog before September hit and obviously I failed at that. At least I'm only 17 hours off.

I got a '14 Audi S6 in Estoril Blue Crystal Effect. That's quite a paint color. It's also quite delicate so I'm getting into detailing to fix the defects and maybe have some fun there too. I got away from hand washing the cars for a long time, and the paint sure looked like it. It's unbelievable how much damage those auto car washes do to your paint and wheels.

Anyway, it's fast, has moderately modern technology, and is generally really nice. I think sometimes it would have been nice to hold out for another M car, but this fits the bill pretty nicely.

Let's see...what else...

Kieran is doing well in karate, and enjoying sparring quite a bit. "Self-Defense" days often elicit a cheer when I remind him, which neither of our boys are big cheer-ers. Otherwise, he's doing pretty good at school. Traditional learning environments have always been a big challenge for him, and he has made great strides in being a good student, but it's still a tough go.

AB on the other hand, does very well at school, although he'd skip class if he could to shoot hoops. To say he's passionate about basketball is an understatement.  If he's not practicing, he's watching NBA or flipping through instagram looking at basketball related stuff.

I'm no instagrammer. Those kids are so wacky!

I'm headed out tomorrow morning for Cars and Coffee, which should be good to get some "me" time in. Otherwise I'll be working on some projects this week, mainly prepping the mudroom for painting.

That's enough for now. I'm sure I left all kinds of stuff out, but that leaves room for more posts.

A few things.

Maybe I'll get into the hang of this blogging thing yet. Saying that aloud has surely doomed the whole effort.

I moved the blog to AWS off of Google's Blogger platform (or was it blogspot?). I bailed and took the easy path and used their Lightsail product, vs actually spinning up EC2 instances and doing real work. But hey, it only took me 20 minutes that way. Work smarter, not harder, right?

I realize hardly anyone will understand that paragraph.

Still waiting on my new car. It's taking forever. I probably should have started shopping at least 4 weeks ago. I think it's on the auto transport now, and hopefully will be here within a week. Waiting...waiting...

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the boys. They both are feeling rather nebulous about going back. I would too. They are getting up there though, 7th and 3rd grade. Pretty crazy how times keeps whistling along.

I'm listening to Lana Del Rey's new album on Apple Music. I'm enjoying the album quite a bit. She's got a nice sound about her. I just switched to Apple Music because Spotify doesn't have any parental controls. I had Spotify hooked up to Alexa and the boys were telling her to play music and she was playing some really f*#$&#( harsh S#!+.

For real.

Not sure what else is going on. That's it for now. I probably should get to bed so I can thoroughly enjoy my 6.5 hours of meetings tomorrow. :-/]