25-52-2013 – One Tough Mudder!

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June 23, 2013 – We spent the weekend up in Whistler to watch the Tough Mudder, a crazy test of personal endurance. It’s not a race, and one doesn’t need to be an elite athlete to undertake it. It’s a personal challenge in mental strength and stamina, and it was something to view. We weren’t in it, we were just spectators. We went to cheer on a team from Prince George that included a fellow I went to high school with. And we were looking forward to witnessing the spectacle.

While Kirk and I didn’t participate in the mudfest, it was a very interesting this to be a spectator for. My personal challenge for the weekend was taking photos of people. It’s not something I generally do, and I’m fairly uncomfortable pointing a camera at people. I always feel that I am being intrusive and can’t do justice to who they are. When we were waiting for the bus up to the Olympic Park where the event was being held, Kirk pointed out that we were in Whistler, and the reason I was there was to take photos of people!! I joked that I’d probably come out with photos of flowers instead.

So there is an irony in the fact that my photo for the week isn’t actually of a human, but of a pair of discarded shoes at the end of the course. But I like this image because it just seemed to have a great feel of “Oh thank goodness it’s over!!” to it.

Tough mudder is billed as being “…hardcore 10-12 mile obstacle courses designed by British Special Forces to test your all around strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie.”

We came up to Whistler Friday evening and had a fabulous one bedroom suite at the Westin. Very swish. We were trying to figure out where the event was being held and how to get there when we found that they were using buses to shuttle everyone up and back, to deal with the crush they knew they were going to face. It was estimated that near 20,000 participants were to be navigating the course over the day and a half it was on for. And then there were all the volunteers, medical staff, and of course those of us up to watch and photograph the craziness.

We caught a bus filled with participants and spectators, but mostly participants. There were nervous jokes and much laughter, and as we arrived at the site and saw mud drenched runners slogging by on one leg of the race, there were cries of “No turning back now!”. Some of those on the trail waved and gave the thumbs up to the riders on the bus. We were disgorged from the yellow schoolbus into a sea of people in a large lot much covered with tents containing everything from change rooms, to tables for registering, to a massive tent containing row upon row of tables covered with duffle bags and backpacks.

The day was cool and cloudy, the layer of white not far above us. I think the weather was probably a good thing. Sunny and participants would likely overheat. Pissing rain and hypothermia would have been a miserable reality. This would be cold, but probably tolerable for the majority.

Looking up the hill towards the Olympic ski jumps we could see waves of participants climbing out of sight, disappearing into the forest towards who knows what. We signed our “Death Waiver” and were told to read it CAREFULLY. Yes, we knew we were acknowledging that absolutely anything that happened to us while there was our own responsibility. Our blue spectator wristbands were wrapped put on, and we were handed a spectators map and stepped into Mudder-land, pumped up with adrenaline, loud music, and lots of cheers.

Much of the course lay outside of the reach of spectators, but there were several obstacles that could be viewed and these were noted on the map. Of the 20 obstacles the participants faced, we would be able to visit eight.

The first obstacle we visited was at the halfway point, number 11, the Electric eel, described on the Tough Mudder website as follows. “Mudders frequently forget about this obstacle since they’re so focused on Electroshock Therapy – but they shouldn’t. Slide on your stomach through freezing water or, even worse, a layer of ice and beware of the shocks overhead. Should you try to crawl on your knees, you’ll be smacked with live wires and your body will contort compulsively. Make sure you protect your head, otherwise you might experience what Tough Mudder calls a brain reboot.“

We watched several women come out of this obstacle in tears. One woman came through the electric eel and her husband/boyfriend wrapped her in his arms and comforted her, giving her the moral support to pull herself back together and keep on going. The cases of camaraderie and morale were awesome. The expressions on people’s faces ranged from terror and agony, to hysterical laughter. Some people were moving slowly, obviously the course had taken a round out of them. Others jogged by like they were on an enjoyable afternoon run in the park. Clearly there were different levels of people tackling the course!

We then walked over to the finish line and watched a number of teams pull together for the final hurl through the mud and electric wires. 20. Electroshock therapy – the finish line: “Sprint through a field of live wires — some carrying as much as 10,000 volts of electric shock. Watch out for hay bales and deep mud, or you will face-plant into some electrifying mud. Some Mudders try to stealthily wind their way through the wires without getting shocked, while others barrel forward to get through as quickly as possible. Either way, you are guaranteed to get zapped with as much as 10,000 volts of electricity and it does NOT tickle. This is always the last obstacle Mudders must overcome before they cross the finish line.”

We took the spectator’s route and stopped at The Berlin Walls – obstacle 19: “This obstacle relies on teamwork. Scale three 12? wooden walls with the help of your teammates, strategically placed for when you are at your weakest during the event. While some Mudders have worked up the strength to ascend the walls alone, most need a boost from a fellow Mudder — they’ve got your back, literally.” It was like the end of UBC’s Storm the Wall, but twice as hard since there were two walls and you couldn’t climb up the back to help the first person up. Between the walls was a sign that read “Help the Mudder behind you.” A woman at the bottom of the first wall asked a man at the top…”…how far down is it on the other side?” He looked at her and smiled and pointed to the ground in front of her and said “…about this far…” It was pretty funny, and amazing the sense of humour so many still had at this point.

Next up on the spectator’s route was Walk the Plank (15). “Walk the plank: “Test your fear of heights and cold all in one with our 15+ foot high jump into freezing water. Mudders like to display their fancy diving skills (or belly-flops) at this obstacle. Don’t spend too much time pondering your leap – squadies at the top of the platform will chew you out, or worse, push you into the freezing depths below.” We watched people drop like lemmings from the top of the platform, but not everyone made it. One young woman just couldnt’ do it, no matter how hard she tried. She spent ten minutes agonizing over the decision and took a number of false runs at it, stopping short every time. Her face contorted, she plugged her nose, bent down, stood up, and finally gave it a pass, climbing back down the backside and opting to take a pass on it. All I could do was admire her for getting so far as she had.

The Arctic Enema was the second obstacle encountered by the participants and the fifth that we visited. “This obstacle is all about mental grit. Many athletes use ice baths for recovery, but you’ll have a difficult time relaxing your muscles in this freezing skip. First you must jump bravely into Big Mudder’s floating iceberg abyss. Once submerged, find the mental and physical strength to swim through the ice, under a wooden plank and pull yourself out on the other end before hypothermia sets in.” Mudders dragged themselves up a wooden ramp and were faced with a container filled with ice water and a layer of ice cubes. The had to hop in and dive under a barbed wire fence to resurface and exit. The shrieks and screams from men and women alike were something to listen to. Men came out and were searching for their junk, some reaching down their shorts to try and find feeling. One guy bellowed “…my testicles are so inverted they are up behind my ears!!” and we heard “Shinkage!!!” enough times that we lost count. One guy chanted an army chant but the words were a bit different “We don’t got no testicles….!!”

Following that icy adventure, we stopped at the Boa Constrictor (16). “If you don’t like small spaces, this obstacle will be a challenge for you. Crawl through a series of pipes that force you downhill into some freezing mud, then a slippery uphill climb to the other side. Your legs will be useless in the narrow confines of the Boa, so use your arms to pull yourself through this obstacle. There really is light at the end of the tunnel. “

We then climbed a steep hill (not that I’d complain in light of what the participants were going through) and came across the Funky Monkey (17) “Sure monkey bars were easy when you were 5 years old, but you’ll need to hold on extra tight to these. Some have been greased with our finest mixture of mud and butter and if you slip you’ll fall into an icy pond below. Bars are spaced 1.5 feet apart and you will be on an incline upward for the first half of the Monkey and then descending downward for the second portion. Seasoned Mudders keep their arms bent at a 90-degree angle and bicycle-kick their legs to gain momentum.” Participants were dropping from the bars like flies, some made it across, most didn’t, and those that dropped landed in a deep pool of cold water that they then had to cross or backtrack in.

A short trek from Funky Monkey was the last obstacle we visited, Everest. “Snowboarders and skate boarders have the half-pipe. Mudders have a real obstacle: Everest. A quarter-pipe that you’ll have to sprint up and enlist the help of other Mudders to hurl you over this beastly summit. Everest is coated in mud and grease, a combination which will likely send you right back to where you came. Call upon other Mudders to catch you as you run up the quarter-pipe or work together to form a human chain so that you can scale someone’s shoulders to finally summit Everest.” We just gawked at it trying to understand how the first team member would possibly scale that thing. It was slick with mud and water and one heck of a long way from the bottom to the top.

It was about then that we received a text from the team we had come to watch and so we hoofed it back down to the starting area to find them among the hordes. A few texts back and forth served to get us hooked up and we gave them our best wishes and accompanied them to the starting paddock where they had to climb over a relatively small wall to gather. An emcee gave them a pep talk before they all sang O’Canada and then they were off. Kirk and I walked down a ways to wait for them to go by. Fresh faced, eager, and clean, the 1pm group started to pass. Kirk was videoing and I was taking photos. We were perched up high on a rock overlooking the path and many of the runners smiled and gave us thumbs up, hoots, and hollers. One runner veered towards us and was holding something out towards me as he ran directly up to me. He said “I don’t need this with me” and placed $3.50 in change in my hand. Kirk laughed and said “You got tipped!” I suppose jingling change would have driven him nuts, and it wouldn’t have lasted long anyway, it very quickly would have ended up at the bottom of a mud bog somewhere along the trail.

Our group went by, and disappeared into the trees. We figured we had about 15 minutes before we’d see them again, they would be reappearing to us at the Arctic Enema. They made it through gasping for breath, the cold having winded them. Nothing like leaping into a bin of ice and water at the start of the course to start the muscles seizing… Up over the hill they went, and under an overpass, and out of sight, not to reappear again until obstacle 11, the Electric eel. We figured we’d have at least an hour so we wandered back through the course to see some others tackling the hurdles.

Turns out that we underestimated the length of the course that was out of sight. We started to worry that we’d missed them, but eventually a group we recognized as being ahead of them came through. So we waited, and waited.

During the wait, we were astounded to see one team come through. One of the participants was a woman in a wheelchair with rickshaw bars. The rest of the team helped push and pull her up the hill and then she dragged herself out of the chair and into and through the Electric eel, a slimy mud and water obstacle with electric wires dangling down to shock the participant as them crawled through on their belly. Everyone was in awe of her fortitude. Not much to say other than . . . WOW. . .

Eventually our crew came into sight and paused along with other runners to have a banana and some water and regroup. They looked up and saw us on the hill above them and it was smiles and thumbs up all around. Then they were back at it, up the hill, through the electric eel where they wriggled through the voltage laden wires and out the other side. Another regroup, and they were off and up the steep hill and back into the forest. But they were looking good!

We opted out of waiting for them at the Boa Constrictor and the Walk the Plank obstacles as they were so close together, we wouldn’t be able to see them come out of the forest and they’d be hard to catch on the top of the wall above the pool of water. It would also be difficult for us to get to the top of the hill at the Funky Monkey before them if we did, so we opted to head to Funky Monkey next. We figured we had at least 45 minutes to an hour before we’d see them again, so we wandered back to the start line and grabbed a bite to eat – some free Cliff bar samples, to take the edge off. On our way we passed a man with a sign sticking out of his pack. . . “My wife is tougher than I am”.

Back at Funky Monkey we walked back down the trail a ways, to a bridge the runners had to cross. We planted ourselves on the edge of the bridge and watched people pass. We watched teams come together and have group hugs. We watched pain, we watched happiness, we watched triumph. We watched cold and shivering. And we watched faces eye up the next obstacle. We enjoyed some of the team names, the humorous t-shirt slogans:

“Tight butts, sweaty nuts”
“Fudder Muckers”
“I’m not sweating, those are my fat cells crying”
“Where is the Mudder F&%?$!g finish line?”
“Trail trash”
“A Face only a Mudder could Love”

A runner, whose eye I caught, ran at me with his hands outstretched and said “Mind if I dry my hands off on your pants?” I felt guilty sitting there in clean running shoes and relatively clean (mins a few mud splats from passing runners) cream coloured capri pants. Another runner smiled at us and quipped “You guys are doing a great job, keep it up!”. Still lots of humour at this late stage. Definitely stronger mentally than I’d be at the same point!

Finally our group came into sight and were faced with the Funky Monkey. A serious set of monkey bars, over a deep pool of cold water. Each took a stab, two came close to making it, but in the end they all went for a swim. Then it was up to Everest. As I said earlier, I wasn’t sure how they’d get the first team member up, and then one just took a flying run and leapt towards the top. His outstretched arms were grabbed by complete strangers and he was hauled up to the top.

That’s how!

I think looking at a wall made me think of Storm the Wall, where each team, or individual, is out for themselves and it is a competition. This is different. This is about camaraderie, about trust and confidence. About humans helping humans. It was pretty cool. Only one of the team didn’t make it up on the first try, and her look of focus and determination made it pretty obvious she wasn’t going to take more than two shots. Up and on she went. Then we watched the coolest thing. An elderly man, with a long grey beard, and running with a blue hardhat, was ready to try. The PG team leaned down and called to him, banging the wall in encouragement. He ran, they caught, they hauled, and up he went. It was awesome!

Kirk and I took off down the hill and bypassed the Berlin Walls, knowing if we waited for them there that we might miss them at the finish. So we headed down to the finish line, to the Electroshock Therapy obstacle, and waited. It wasn’t long before they appeared, linked arms, and made the push through the high voltage wires and out the other end where their photo was snapped, they received their Mudder t-shirt and headband, and a much needed beer. We cheered for them, snapped a shot of them and bade them a good night and a well deserved sleep.

We then headed back to the bus line and made our way back into Whistler. We intended to stop at the Duhb Linn Gate Pub for a beer and then back to the hotel to figure out dinner. In the end we never left the pub until well after 11pm since it was so entertaining. The Village was a huge party and finishing the course was well worth celebrating!

The spectators paths covered about 2.2km and we calculated that we went back and forth and up and down enough that we probably covered about 9km. Nothing like they were faced with, but it was a lot of walking on gravel with heavy bags and a camera, and this morning I woke up with a stiff neck and a sore shoulder. I can’t even imagine how most of the Mudders felt, there were a lot of limping people in the Village today. I also looked in the mirror and realized I’d gotten a sunburn on my face, yet it was completely overcast all day. The power of the sunshine to burn through a thick layer of cloud and provide a burn was phenomenal.

I have about 600 photos, and also some video, to sift through, and the first priority is to go through all the images that include the group we were there to cheer, that numbers about 200 photos, of which I hope 30 – 50 may be worthwhile, and the video too. So I only managed two shots unrelated to that here.

More to come in the next week…

In the meantime, here is a video that Mudder Hans put together from my shots….