Tough Mudder recap (part 1)

The Tough Mudder was amazing.

And now, 4 days later, I'm finally at a place where I can organize my thoughts enough to write about it. Plus, my muscles have loosened up enough that I can type. (Nope, not kidding about that one.)  Confession - when I first finished, all I thought was THAT WAS AWESOME.  Then when I had time to rest, I thought about how sore I was.  Finally, I had a lot of random thoughts over the past few days and the only way it made sense was to break it down in segments.  Feel free to read it all or just jump to whatever interests you!

Day Before TM
I decided to go easy on the workout for a few reasons. It seems like most serious athletes give themselves a break before an event. I had been crazy busy earlier in the week so I needed to do some school work. And I didn't want to risk hurting myself in a ridiculously ironic way - stepping off the curb wrong during a 1-mile jog before the Tough Mudder, or something equally embarassing.  I took a Pure Barre class in the morning and then relaxed with my Med-Surg book all afternoon. That evening, B and I took it easy and did the typical thing before a big race - carb loading! We both had huge bowls of pasta from Lasagna House before climbing into bed relatively early.

Day of TM
B refused to eat beforehand but I knew I'd need some fuel to survive the Tough Mudder. I tried to hit all the major food groups - fruit, carbs, protein, Spark, chia seeds. And I think it served me pretty well. Thanks for all the pre-race fuel tips a few weeks back!

We also had a bag packed and ready to go so that when our friend Aaron arrived, we could leave.  Our start time was 12:20 but experienced Tough Mudders recommended we get there around an hour early.  Apparently, Tough Mudder races are notorious for having parking that is pretty far from the race site. Thankfully, our parking situation was fine but the extra time was nice to allow us to get our race packets, check our bags, use the bathroom, and write on our race numbers. We also had shirts made for our team and my brother-in-law was bringing those so we all had time to change once he arrived.

I HIGHLY recommend packing a bag for after the race because you will be a muddy, sweaty, delirious mess afterwards!  Here's what was in our bag:

Tough Mudder survival kit: change of clothes, flips flops, sunscreen, face wipes, baby wipes

Our friend brought along a Sam's-club sized package of baby wipes and we went through the entire thing! There are showers after the event (just to rinse off mud while still clothed) but they rush you out of there and trust me, there will still be so much mud inside your clothes and shoes afterward. I had mud in places I never imagined. If you plan on putting on a change of clothes for the ride home you will want to have some wipes with you! 

gorgeous day for a Tough Mudder!

Aaron and B, before the race

fueling up with a vanilla waffle from Honey Stinger - SO GOOD

saw these Tough Mudders while we were waiting to start and thought they were near the end of the course... I would soon find out that I was very wrong

just needed my shirt and I was ready to go! note: I did not wear the sunglasses on the course - they definitely would have broken.

just one of many costumed Tough Mudders

two of my awesome teammates, pre-race

the Rockets, ready to get our Tough Mudder on!

Okay, this post is getting pretty long and I haven't even gotten into the race yet! I need to get back to the books for a bit but come back tomorrow for recap part 2 where I'll go into details about the race and show you the dirty after pictures (oh, yeah!).

xoxo,

Cait