Tough Mudder Wisconsin - September 12, 2015

I did the Wisconsin Tough Mudder on Saturday.  If you haven't done the race before, you may know it as the long mud run (12-ish miles) with the electric shock obstacle (as opposed to Spartan Race, Warrior Dash, or the zillion other mud runs that have popped up).  I've done plenty of other mud runs and lots of other regular running races, but this was my first Tough Mudder.

Tough Mudder is not timed; rather, it is about teamwork.  Some of the obstacles are literally impossible to do without a team.  At first, that was really off-putting to me.  I'm a solo runner and I like to race the clock.  That said, the teamwork stuff was actually pretty cool.  Most of my team consisted of friends-of-friends who I hadn't met prior to the day of, and over the course of run I felt like I really got to know these people and could happily hang with them over some beers anytime.   I guess helping people in and out of mud will do that.

The Course

The course varies from state to state of course, but they really hit a home run in Wisconsin by having this at Road America.  They used the miles of rocky, rooty, rollercoaster hills on their offroading trails and it was fantastic.  My trail runner heart had a blast bombing down the hills and chugging up the steep inclines.  I want to go back and run the trails again and again.  There were plenty of long segments of running in between the obstacles, so unlike some of the shorter obstacles courses, there was plenty of time to stretch the legs.  I loved it.

The Obstacles

Honestly?  Pretty fun.  There were tall walls to scale, barbed wire to snake under, mud to forge,  heavy logs to carry, etc.  Some of the more memorable obstacles included the "Arctic Enema" which was a waterslide that lands in chest-deep ice water, "Everest" which is a slick half-pipe that you run up (and if you are part of the 95% who can't scale it without help, you hope for some strong arms to grab you and haul you over the crest - plenty of people are willing to lend a hand to help a fellow Mudder, so no problem there).  I loved watching King of the Swingers which involved jumping off of a 15 foot platform to grab a swinging bar and landing in deep water.  Incredibly fun to watch, but as a non-swimmer I had to opt out of this one.  "Electroshock Therapy" involves shocking electrical wires that you basically have to put your head down and power through.  I took a good shock to the hip that rocked me, but other than that it was okay.

I made some pretty big assumptions that Tough Mudder would have the same AROO!BEASTMODECROSSFIT4LYFE attitude that the Spartan Races have, but it doesn't.  Tough Mudder is about working with your team to make it through any way you want.  If you want to run Tough Mudder, that's cool - no one will look down on you for making a run of the course.  If you want to walk it with your friends, that's cool too.  Make it an 11 mile party?  Sweet.  You do your Tough Mudder your way.  I've been on both ends of the spectrum, from the balls-out Spartan Races to the "let's take 2 hours for this 5K and then go get a cosmo and donuts" Dirty Girl mud runs, and this was a nice in-between.

So, all that said, was this the smartest race to run 3 weeks before my 50K?  Maybe not.  The potential for injury in an obstacle course race is pretty big as there's lots of room to fall, turn an ankle, etc., but I think I got a huge benefit from the hillwork I did and the time on the trail.  I'd definitely do it again in a heartbeat, especially off-season.

Finally, here's the obligatory team before and after pics.

Photo Credits:  Jeff Hammes.  Aren't these amazing photos?  I am blown away by how great the pictures turned out.