For the record, this was all Kelly and Andy's idea....so the credit for the good, the bad and the ugly goes to them :)
We committed to and signed up for the Tough Mudder in early November....leaving us "plenty" of time to train and get in shape. Then it was Thanksgiving, then it was Christmas and then it was Ellie. Can't blame the weather, because we've had a beautiful winter. Dave has the extra excuse of long hours at work. Ok, never mind. There's no excuse! We just didn't train very well. Regardless, as we neared the date, we were just excited to go spend the weekend with some of our best friends.
Dave and I flew out of Wichita late Friday morning and arrived in Atlanta in the afternoon. Can I just say I love traveling with my husband? Always an adventure. We have been to Atlanta quite a bit, and decided to just start driving east towards Washington, GA, the location of the infamous Tough Mudder Georgia. As Dave drove, I used my iHand (Brandon named it that a while back. he's right) to look up lunch spots/breweries in Athens. Terrapin Brewery wasn't open until later in the day, but we found a little place called Trappeze Pub with a great draught beer menu. The atmosphere reminded us of ABC in Ann Arbor. And we had our own little booth with a door. It was cool! Hey I appreciate the small, unique things.
After eating too much, we continued our drive toward Washington. Good thing we already had the directions to the hotel in our phone because there was "less and less 3G" as we got closer :) We actually missed the turn onto this small little road that, when we turned around and got onto it, would lead us to the little plaza where our hotel was located. It felt so cozy when we pulled in. Washington, GA is a very small historic southern town (check it out here). Our hotel, The Fitzpatrick Hotel, was originally opened in 1898 and renovated in 2002 after being closed for 50 years. It opened again in 2004. Dave and I LOVE places like this. I have no idea how to describe this type of architecture besides saying "wood everywhere and wood floors" (Dave could), so I will just explain it the best way I know how...pictures.
The owners (at least the only two we met and talked with during our visit) are a husband and wife with 4 children (1 recently adopted from India). She is Indian, with a Southern accent. Unique! Anyway, they were just the nicest people and we talked with them for a while before settling into our room, which we of course got into with "regular" keys as opposed to plastic card ones. So weird....it felt like home. Then we grabbed another bite to eat about 25 feet away on the other side of the plaza at The Washington Jockey Club restaurant. Greeted by so much southern hospitality and conversation (which I'm normally not even really interested in, to be honest. But it's different when it's so genuine). True Southern Hospitality (never experienced this in Warner Robins...). It was such a nice change.
Ran into this too, nice. Noted.
We got back to our room well before 11 (if you planned on getting back later you had to make special arrangements with the owners to get in the front door! looking back, this would not have been a problem because they are the friendliest people in the world and would do anything). We got to bed by 11 and set the alarm for 7. We were supposed to be at the site 2 hours before our start time, which would be 0840. Once we figured out that night that it was going to be colder than expected, we weren't really interested in standing around too long before. Kelly and Andy met us at about 0820, at which point we were still just distracted by the fact that we got to see our great friends. Then, denial was over. We were actually doing this Tough Mudder thing. We piled into our brand new rental (turned out to be an interesting choice later....NBD, nothing Resolve can't fix) and drove about 15 minutes down the road to the site. As we got close to the driveway for the motocross park, we saw a huge lake and all gasped. Like we didn't think we were going to get wet and muddy?? Oh we (at least I) had no idea though. I'm really glad I didn't know what we were getting into.
Since I didn't bring my brain with me, or it was already half frozen, who knows, I forgot some stuff I needed in the car after we started walking toward the check-in point. So we did a little loop back to the car (chance to escape, should have taken it).
We checked in, threw some Tough Mudder paint on our faces, went to the bathroom, got a pic
decided it was freezing and checked our bags so we could start. Starting is the hardest part, right?? Right. Let's go with that! Thought about getting my free beer beforehand as a way to warm up a little, but I felt I should earn it.
We turned the corner to the starting wall....yeah they made us jump a wall before we even got the starting speech/pep talk thing. Soooo, we did that. They had us all take a knee, and went through safety points and motivational speeches. He talked about how the event supports the Wounded Warrior Project and wounded warriors who had completed Tough Mudders....and about real heroes. I was glad to be a part of an event that recognized the real heroes. And it kicked off with the National Anthem, like any sporting event should. I'll be honest, the "starting ceremonies" did a decent job of getting me pumped up.
Can't believe I've rambled this far and haven't gotten to the meat of the story. But I actually don't think I want to do a play-by-play of the obstacles (can't really even remember the order) because the anticipation is half the fun if you plan on doing one. Let me sort of summarize: Run (for 12 miles), jump, fall in mud/deep water, slide through mud, get shocked a little, jump in "Arctic Enema" (glad I didn't really know the definition of that word before I jumped in.....) which was just flat out scary, trudge through thick mud waist deep, whine a little (yeah, broke that rule), repeat water & mud....25 obstacles total, have I given away too much?? The thing is, it's all on their website. But I DIDN'T BOTHER PAYING ATTENTION BEFORE WE DID IT. Haha. I truly believe this was a blessing :) The one last thing I will point out is that they DID write our bib numbers on our foreheads and arms in permanent marker in order to be able to "identify" our bodies, if necessary. Thought it was sort of a joke, but I don't think so as your BIB easily rips off and there are some serious injuries...
I guess what I found to be the coolest as we all got more cold/freezing/hypothermic as the wind picked up and the temperatures dropped was that I really could not have done it without Dave, Kelly, Andy and their friend Phil, along with the other random dudes who hurled me over hay bales, pulled my shoe out of the mud (seriously could not get it out) and pulled me up muddy hills. The guys helped me physically and Kelly helped me mentally as she took the "let's get this over with" mentality. Normally that is the way I am with runs, but this was testing me for sure. There were a couple points when I wasn't sure if I could make it....primarily due to temperature, but no one let that last long. We did skip a couple things at the end, like jumping 30 feet or so into the lake.....this would have been awesome in warmer weather but I literally did not think my body could handle the cold shock again. I felt slightly bad that we had to skip a few like this, but not really. I think we pushed as much as we could. The winds were so strong at the end...so cold. Were we in Kansas?? It was annoying.
We all took the last challenge of Electroshock Therapy and got our orange finisher bands. Grabbed as many free protein bars as I could, only to find out that I couldn't bend my fingers to hold on to them, yet I managed to grab my free cold beer and endure the pain of holding THAT. Ha. I wanted more muddy pictures of us, but for once, I was not really giving a CRAP about pictures. Because I don't think I had ever been so cold in my life. We got our bags, got a quick pic (in which we all look way too clean), and went back to the car. We managed to get our shoes off and leave those in the field (donation?).
Kelly and Andy came back to our room with us and we showered 2 at a time. I think we no kidding considered going all at once (ok it went through my head.....in survival mode, no kidding). And then, we all realized we would survive as feeling came back to the extremities, and core. We all got dressed up in our finest sweatpants, and Andy even sported his new $2 CVS sandals he and Dave went to get because he forgot extra shoes. We settled back into The Washington Jockey Club and got burgers, steaks, fries, and beers. I read a sign at Bessie's today that said "Dogs are our only chance at picking our own relatives." Disagreed! Andy and Kelly feel like our family.
They went back to Winder, GA to stay with Andy's parents and we went back across the street to the hotel, but not before a stop at the restaurant there to have ice cream & a cupcake and coffee. We talked with the hotel owners for about an hour after that (this was great except that my knees were in a tremendous amount of pain) before going back to our room for some R&R. I didn't really want to leave this place.
The next morning, we got ready and drove to Winder to spend the afternoon with the Morrisons. Finally got to meet James! Love him. "If" we have kids, I can only hope he is half as cute and calm as sweet baby James. It would have been a relaxing afternoon if Andy didn't make us watch The Walking Dead. Kidding. Definitely an interesting series. His mom fed us delicious chili right after watching zombie guts, it was perfect! :)
Our last stop with Andy, Kelly & James was Rocky Mountain Pizza Company in Atlanta. Yum.
I always feel lucky after a perfect weekend with Dave, or great friends, or both. We'll certainly never forget what we went through together.....it's kind of like a deployment. But we decided we are Tough-er Mudders than if we had done it in warm weather. Tough Mudder in semi-extreme conditions- check.
Tough Mudder 2013? Summer event please.
http://toughmudder.com/
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