It is difficult to explain just how many fears I had to face in this one event. Tough Mudder is not your average mud run! It was one of the hardest, most exhilarating and exhausting things I’ve ever done, but somehow still tons of fun! The greatest part about Tough Mudder is that to get through mud, over 12-ft walls, out of ice-water and through 10,000 volts of electricity, you NEED a team. Camaraderie is everything and I could not have hand picked nine other people I rather do this with!

My other favorite part? We never took ourselves too seriously.

Destin led us in a “pre-game” team stretch.

We only remained clean for about 1 mile of the 12.5 miles until we met our first obstacle: crawling through mud under wire set 8″ from the ground.

The 2nd obstacle was probably the most brutal of all 29 of them! The “Artic Enema” is a bath filled with ice water (38 degrees!!) that you have to jump in, swim under a board and try to pull yourself out. It took my breath away!! This is probably the one challenge I would be most afraid of ever doing again. Here is a video of us all experiencing the icy torture….I think we are all in shock coming out of the water!

We scaled the 12-foot high Berlin walls…

Crawled through the “Boa Constrictor…”

Made like a lumberjack and hauled a log for a mile…

Fought our way through a maze of thick-mud trenches in the “Mud Mile…”

Climbed over cargo nets…

Scaled up slippery muddy mountains…

And slid down them…

Jumped over hay bales, tires, logs and ditches…

And added to the numerous knee and elbow bruises/scrapes! [Side note: the wires hanging down were supposed to be electrically charged, but apparently it was too upsetting to the morning group so they turned them off...THANK GOD!!]

It seemed that the course saved all of my biggest fears for last. First, I had to “Walk the Plank” and test my fear of heights and cold all at once with this 15-foot high splash. We all decided to jump at the same time and it happened so fast that I didn’t even give myself time to freak out. At this point in the late afternoon, the sun was beginning to go down and the temperature was dropping fast. Our morale began to really tank as our muscles cramped up from the cold water and 10+ miles of running with heavy, wet/muddy shoes!

Thoroughly exhausted, I then had to face the other obstacle I had been dreading: Everest. You had to run up a slippery giant quarter pipe and hope one of your teammates grabs you from the top. Here is the video of our team dominating this obstacle (notice the girl in blue next to us trying over and over again with no luck…the poor thing finally made it up after about 30 tries!). Also note: 1) I’m terrified and needed a pep talk from Nick and 2) Sean is the one that grabbed my hand…it was a miracle he was able to hold on since he only had my fingers!

And then came the most physically challenging obstacle: the Funky Monkey bars. Sean and Nick were the only two to make it all the way across. I fought hard to make it about half way but just couldn’t do it, which meant another dunk in cold water!

Last, we were corralled into the “Electroshock Therapy” obstacle where we crawled in cold, muddy water (are you seeing a theme here?) underneath dangling live wire, some of which carry a 10.000 volt shock. Sounds fun, right?! It was straight out of a nightmare. I avoided the wires until the crowd began screaming that we had 10 seconds to run through the course while they turned the electricity off, but apparently it was a lie or I wasn’t fast enough because I definitely got shocked at the very end! That kind of finish to a four-hour challenge is NUTS!

Although completely out of it at this point, I was thrilled that all eight of us finished each and every obstacle and had no injuries!! We earned those Tough Mudder headbands (which I forgot to put on for the pic and apparently didn’t get the memo that we were smiling this time and dropping the warrior poses)!

Big thanks to our “crew” Rachel and Meg for cheering us on, feeding us and documenting this awesome day for us! We couldn’t have done it without you!