Reunion 2013: Tough Mudder Ohio

Kili Girl/Hochi Mama has transformed one more time into HOCHI MUDDA, and a new tradition is born... Team Kilimanjaro reunion events.  The first annual romp took place at Ohio's Tough Mudder. We will pin the blame for this fiasco squarely on the conniving spirits of Howard and Gayle of TK Ohio.

This is where the Diamox started talking...

Fourteen months later and 20,000 feet lower, we were reunited with our climbing crew (and a few new, gullible, fresh, youthful faces) to test our Kili resolve at sea level.  We needed to answer the lingering question: Had it just been the Diamox talking, or were we certifiably insane?  The verdict is in.  We are completely nuts, but we do know how to have a good time.

The Tough Mudder bills itself as "the toughest event on the planet." I'm not sure who tests the veracity of these claims, but I will vouch for the fact that this event was indeed one Tough Mudda. Not only was it tough, but there was MUD!  What???  I honestly thought this was going to be an 11 mile jog with obstacles thrown in for amusement.  Prior to the race, I assured many people that I wasn't concerned about the run - just the obstacles.  Apparently I missed the memo about the mud.  It was an eleven mile slog though every kind of mud that you could possibly imagine...thick and gooey, thin and runny, puddle mud, rocky mud, rooty mud, mud covering holes, mud slides, mud mounds, mud tracks, mud ruts, hardened mud, softened mud...always mud.  I had never really considered the possibility that mud could be the death of me. However, after getting my feet (and then seat) suctioned to the ground by ten inch mud on multiple occasions and having to be pulled out (with a nasty giant sucking sound), it did occur to me that a face plant could very well be fatal.  This was no eleven mile jog with obstacles thrown in.  This was the Tough MUDder.  Now I get it.

                

Reunion weekend began harmlessly with family introductions, lots of eating, a trip to the Cleveland Zoo (where we saluted our missing teammate from Australia, SuE, by taking a kiddie train through the kangaroo compound), Kili reminiscing, and nervous banter about the race ahead.  Somehow I managed to cookie/cake/ice cream load an extra layer of blubber in the two days before the race courtesy of our gracious hosts and hostesses.



 

 

(Harkening back to the rotting buffalo incident, it comes to mind that Chris may have a problem with putting his fingers in places they do not belong...)



Sadly the sugar blubber did nothing to keep me warm on race day. In twenty-four hours we ate our way through two local ice cream parlors, a pile of home-made Mudder logo cookies (thanks Stephanie), chocolate covered strawberries, a dirt trifle and a box of VT chocolates. We left Gayle and Jeff's house the night before the race feeling as though we could be pig-rolled through the mud and dreading the reality that we would be called into action to lift our well-stuffed bodies over obstacles the next day.

   



Poor eating habits aside, we really did prepare well for this race. The night before the race, we quickly bonded with Alex and Stan (the twenty-somethings who would significantly help the average age of our geriatric team).  Most importantly, however, we were diligent in our uniform preparation. Earlier in the afternoon, Gayle and Jeff had humored the VT crew with a trip to Target (a sight that literally causes drooling in VTers) where we resisted the urge to outfit our team in tighty whities in honor of Howard's little Day Seven strip-down trick on the mountain (see Day Seven of Kili Blog for a recap). We opted instead for coordinating shower caps and colorful duct tape.  Not all members of our team were excited about this costume decision I might add (and a few shower caps had to be duct taped to heads for photo opps before the race). We debated the merits of duct taping shoes to legs (for that awful, sucking mud), duct taping pants to legs (to avoid losing them), and duct taping support systems for various body parts.  Howard clarified the application process for anti-chaffing Vaseline (after we finally convinced him that this might be a good idea). And, in a nod to our absent teammate from Kenya, the amazing Lisa)  we practiced out team cheer: HARA, HARA, HARA, HARA (loosely translated from the Swahili as "I have diarrhea, I have diarrhea, I have diarrhea, I have diarrhea.")  She would have been proud to hear us rehearsing in Gayle and Jeff's kitchen and prouder still to hear us chanting it on the course on race day. With uniforms coordinated, cookies consumed, and cheer in place, there was nothing left to do but get some rest and prepare to leave it all in the mud the next day.

 

Saturday dawned sunny and bright for our torture session.  We assembled at Gayle and Jeff's house where we insulted each other's outfits and discussed duct taping strategy. What do you wear for a romp in the mud?  Your best running clothes or your ugliest?  Jeff was sporting a purple, super-compression top borrowed from Gayle.  Despite the ridicule, his fashion choice turned out to be a great strategy move.  When trying to locate your teammates while surrounded by thousands of similarly mud-colored competitors, it helps to have a wardrobe that stands out. Chris' choice of hot pink swim cap served the same purpose - a beacon on the course. The rest of us opted for the more traditional mud-on-black look that the hippest of Mudders sport. 

Clean Mudders in the kitchen before the torture begins

 

More important than the wardrobe analysis, however, was the arrival of our west coast TK stalwart , the beautiful Eva.  In her ever-optimistic, always-energetic way, she sweetly smiled and shrugged her shoulders as we stood in awe of her commitment to this reunion...a four-connection red-eye had deposited her in Cleveland at 8:00 a.m. (by way of Bend, OR, Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, and Chicago??). Oh, to have that energy again!  And, in a perfect salute to the task at hand, Eva was sporting the sneakers in which she had summited Kilimanjaro (yes folks, due to a small packing oversight, Eva hiked the highest peak in Africa wearing sneakers) with the intention of making the Tough Mudder their final victory tour.  We enveloped Eva in some TK love, strapped on her shower cap and piled into various cars for the 90 minute journey to the start. 

 

Garrett applies a thick layer
of sunblock for...?????

Chris displays the results of his intense
Mudder training program.

Eva questions what she is doing
(and is still trying to figure out
which time zone she is in).

Gayle and Stan reassure us that the
quality of the port-a-potties is
up to our standards.

I'm still not exactly sure where this race actually happened - some muddy spot in Ohio with parking lots, shuttle buses, and lots of crazy people (including the final gullible addition to our team, Garrett).  After a quick shuttle from the parking lot to the course, we determined we were in trouble.  As we listened to racers who had already finished the course lament the voltage in the final electric shock, Chris proceeded to lose a shoe in the mud before we even made it to the registration table. We checked in and nervously prepped for the race - duct-taped shoes, sun-blocked faces (ridiculous in retrospect), ate snacks, snapped photos and noticed that everyone around us looked really buff...and young...and fit...and buff...oy.

       

Completely ready to torture ourselves, with nothing left to do, we took it upon ourselves to move our start time up by thirty minutes or so, and just joined the wave of racers ready to rumble.  We strategically snuck into the mass in front of a group of very buff (noticing a theme here?) looking young men who would undoubtedly prove very useful to have behind us when we hit the first obstacle that needed to be scaled.  Lifting power from the rear is always a good strategy.  Unfortunately we didn't clue them into our plan.  They sprinted past us in the first ten yards.

 

 

 

Did I mention, BUFF?  That's my guy!  He's going to lift me
over every wall with one arm.
Photo credit to Brianna (shocker)

 

Finally on the move!

After a long and enthusiastic cheerleading session at the start led by some kind of Tough Mudder Crazy Man (which found me squirming in the mud and whining about my sore knees before we had even begun) they finally released us onto the course.  We scaled the first mini wall and ran across a muddy bridge, and I actually remember asking someone if those were obstacles #1 and #2.  Ha!  If I only had known then what I know now. I thought the mud bridge was an obstacle?? Ludicrous! That was just the course - eleven miles of mud everything.  And the wall?  That wasn't a real obstacle - just a means to spread out the field.  It was going to be a VERY long afternoon.

We ran in the mud for about 3/4 mile before hitting the real first obstacle (this was the only time all day that I was remotely warm), The Kiss of Mud, which involved crawling  in the mud on our bellies under a barbed wire "ceiling" of sorts.  This wasn't a bad start...no cold water...firmish mud...worst case scenario you forgot to stay low and scratched yourself or ripped your clothes.  "Piece of cake!" I thought.

The Leaping Technique
 

Then we arrived at the Arctic Enema.  I had been fearing this gigantic dumpster filled with ice and water from the day I had first heard about it.  The challenge was to jump into this hellish tank of freezing slush (neck-deep for me) and wade or swim across, while diving under a barbed-wire covered plank halfway across.  On every video I had watched on You Tube, this obstacle was colored electric green or pink.  When we arrived, we were greeted by a mud-colored nightmare.  I am sorry to report that I did not watch many of my teammates complete this challenge.  I became very self-absorbed with my own survival.  We had opted for the buddy system to keep everyone together and ensure that there were no fatal accidents.  My buddy, Chris, took a gigantic leap into the tank which put him and his sporty pink cap halfway across in one leap. 

The "OMFG this is cold!" ginger drop technique

I, however, could not bring myself to plunge. I gingerly lowered myself into the tank and then panicked when I realized that this meant I had to wade/swim twice as far in this water that seemed to have shrunken my lungs to the size of kidney beans and arrested all brain function.  In some kind of robotic trance, I made it to the halfway point, saw the plank in front of me, said a prayer, and plunged under the ice.  Once I surfaced on the other side, I am not sure how I got out of the tank.  Pushed, pulled, dragged?? I don't think my legs carried me there, but there are photos of me exiting, so somehow I did get through.  I gasped. The full-body shakes began and really never went away for the rest of the day.

Firewalker was up next.  There was nothing I wanted more than a good, hot burn at this point.  Sadly, this was the lamest obstacle of all.  I was craving heat.  It was really more of a smoke run - hold your breath, run, don't choke, move on.  It was over before I could even appreciate the heat.

Eva and Alex set a blistering pace!

Glory Blades, up next, proved to be our first foray into lifting one another over tall walls.  We determined early that this was not one of our strengths.  Once again, I was mostly concerned with my own survival and bodily preservation.  I let someone boost me over, and I have no idea what kind of hell they went through on the other side to get the last guy over.  Somehow we all made it and moved on.  It wasn't pretty, but we'd have lots of opportunities to perfect our technique (Some walls went better than others. One found Howard kneeling in the straw looking for spare body parts that had been left behind).

Still all smiles as we hit Mud Mile #1

Mud Mile #1 - ridiculous fun in the mud if you are part pig and part mountain goat.  We crawled and clawed our way to the top of seven-foot high mounds of mud before rolling down the other side into knee/thigh deep trenches of freezing mud/water and then starting again.  Mound after mound of mud needed to be scaled.  I could not stop laughing despite the rather rough treatment I received at the hands of teammates who seemed more intent on throwing me into the next trench of muddy water than truly helping me gently to the top.

 

 

Ummm, Kelly?  Everyone is going the other way!

 

The Electric Eel was up next.  I took a pass.  My Wimpy Mudder side kicked in here where live electric wires hung over a pond of water through which real Tough Mudders slithered.  Electric shock scares me, so I cheered.  My teammates slithered brilliantly and reported relatively warm water temperatures and tingling shocks (maybe even Diamox-like?) rather than body-convulsing jolts (those would come later).

 

And then all of the obstacles began to blend together. There were tunnels of mud under the ground, uphill monkey bars over freezing water, rings over freezing water (that you would have to be half-gorilla to complete), a finger-tip shimmy over freezing water, island hopping on unstable/slippery surfaces floating in freezing water, walls to scale, a ladders to nowhere, a plank jump into freezing water, logs to carry, partners to carry, a slippery half-pipe to scale and an enormous field of live wires just before the finish line (which every one of my teammates completed while I tip-toed along side to jeers from my ever-supportive children, "Mom, don't be such a wimp! C'mon!").  And then there was the mud. The obstacles were not-so-pleasant distractions from the all-sucking mud fiasco that was the entire course. Five hours after we had begun the adventure, it was over.  Five hours.  Eleven miles. If you do the math, it's not pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little electric shock therapy to finish the day!

 

 

 

Somehow we muddled through.  In the same way that we survived Kilimanjaro, we conquered the course with teamwork, laughter and a blissful ignorance of the peril at hand.  And, really, this was the "pampered" adventure.  There were port-a-potties at every turn, potable water and power bars (unfrozen).  The air was thick with oxygen and the altitude gained throughout the day was negligible.  Sadly, TK Guide John was not along for the ride to remind us to go "pole, pole."  Alex and Eva set a blistering pace, and Gayle and Jeff ruthlessly dragged the middle of the pack along - occasionally pausing for a walking break just long enough for the rest of us to catch up. We could have used a few of our fearless guide's reassuring "Hakuna Matatas" before signing the death waiver.  And, honestly, if there was any day in my life that "rain gears" would have come in handy, this was it.  Alas, we still managed to pull it together and do ourselves proud.

 

 

 

At 20,000 feet or at sea level, one amazing crew of tough mudders!

The aftermath...

 

 

Bound together as tightly as the fat molecules in Medium Fat Spread, I have no doubt that Team Kilimanjaro will meet again for another insane adventure (preferably one that doesn't leave me feeling like a hypothermic, drowned pig at the end of the day).  Hara Hara!