I haven't really tried to pick that one back up either - I decided that at least until after the "Tough Mudder" I really shouldn't try and loose any more body fat/mass... And after finally competing in the Tough Mudder last Sunday I'm beyond glad that I had what little body fat I did...
In fact, somewhere in the middle I told my running partner, Andres, that if I ever run another "Tough Mudder" I want to gain 20 pounds of fat prior so that I don't freeze to death :)
The experience I had was something I can't really put into words... From what I hear, Saturday's event was like a beach party compared to Sunday. Not to put them down, the obstacles were the same and they whipped our behinds - but due to weather conditions there was an extreme difference between the completion %'s.
Saturday had a 87% completion rate.
Sunday was only 63%. And most of our drops were due to hypothermia.
I'm going to back this up a bit. Saturday was a bit of a cluster for me. I got up, played with the boys for a bit, then went into the spa to get my eyebrows waxed, and to do a massage... Then ran some last minute errands, and came home to get everything loaded up into my car. From here we left to go to Disney to spend time with Matthew's cousin Jennifer, and her husband Lucas. We took both cars, because Matthew and Steven were going to spend the night at Disney and do the Character breakfast... After a few hours at Disney (admittedly a bit longer than I'd planned for) I finally got on the road and headed from there up to Big Bear.
The drive was ridiculous. With construction I managed to get lost for a bit, though nothing awful, I just had to turn around and find my actual turn off that I missed due to bad signage. Once I got to the mountains it was a decent drive - that is until the fog that moved in 1/2 way up that I couldn't hardly see through! I drove 15 mph most of the way from that point on, because I could only see about 10 feet in front of my car :/
Finally I got to my campground (oh yes, I forgot to mention that... I went up the night before to camp so that I wouldn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to drive up) and it was blowing, and chilly. So I pulled my car in, ran it for 30 minutes with the heater on high and then burrowed into the blankets I had piled in the back on top of the sleeping pad I had. Not the best nights sleep ever - but I made do.
I finally woke up the next morning, for good, around 7:30. Ran the car a bit more to get some heat, and put some food in my face to get me going.
I'm going to say that at this point I had no idea if I was actually going to be running that day. I'd dropped the ball a couple of times, due to health reasons, and also because it was just "something I keep meaning to do". And had not officially registered for the Tough Mudder. So I wanted to get to the venue ASAP to see if I could do a day of registration, and also find out when I'd be running.
Got down there, and while signing my Death Waiver I seriously started to question my sanity. Not only were my fingers already starting to loose feeling, but a DEATH WAIVER?!?!?!
I went back to my car to start psyching myself out for my run - they had different start times, and I could pick anyone that I wanted to jump into... I chose the 10am, hoping that maybe it would have started to warm up by then.
It was only 29* when I arrived at Snow Valley Resort that morning... And I believe I heard that officially during the time that the race was occurring it didn't get over 35* at the base camp.
I listened to loud music, jumped up and down, coated my bare arms, neck and face with sunscreen, and did my best to calm my jumping stomach.
At 9:30 I couldn't take it anymore and thought that I'd go drop off my stuff at the bag check (so that you had a place to put your keys if you didn't have anyone to leave it with), and that maybe I'd jump into the 9:40 time slot. With everything going on I missed that slot, but got up to the starting line in time to hear all of the rundown for the 10 start time. I met a nice woman, Laurie, who after the race started I didn't see again.
The countdown started and we were off! (and I need to go get breakfast for my crazy early riser, so I will finish the recounting of this later)
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