Yes... we did a Tough Mudder. What's a Tough Mudder, you say? Well, it's a 12 miles course full of obstacles designed by British special forces to test a person's endurance, will, fears, and perseverance. It just so happened that a cold front came in the day before our Mudder, reducing the temperature to a freezing, 20°F. It was the hardest single event either of us had done before, but we did it, and had fun doing it.
Jacki got the idea in her head one day while checking her Facebook. She saw an add on the side and checked it out. Once Jacki says, "We should do this.", there's hardly any turning back. She began rallying team members, became our captain and dubbed us Swamp Ass. Pretty soon we had a team of ten built, even though some of the members had never met each other. Two months before the race we got serious about our preparations. We put ourselves on relatively strict diets and began to follow a rigorous workout routine to build our strength and endurance. It helped, but we were still nervous about the big event.
The night before, Jacki arranged a very large dinner party with our entire team and many of their family members. Many traveled from out of town, my best friend Logan from Austin even flew in for this crazy event. The dinner gave our team the opportunity for everyone to meet, relax, iron on our team logos, and just have fun socializing. One of our team members, Kathrine, only knew one person, who she met while thru-hiking the AT. She admitted to being very nervous about the idea of staying with a bunch of strangers for the weekend, but by the end was sad to leave. After the dinner, things quieted down and we all drifted off to sleep, some not so easily.
We all woke up early the next morning, around 5:45AM, rallied our team, and left the house heading towards Aonia Motocross Track in Washington, GA. We arrived 40 minutes later. Our Mini Cooper read the current outside temperature as 18°F. I for one did not have a settled stomach and had to visit the frozen porta-potty a couple of times. It was rather unsettling seeing the blue stuff frozen solid. Once we checked in we stood by a barrel full of burning scrap wood for about an hour before we heard our call to the starting line. Our nervousness quickly transformed into excitement as we climbed the small 6ft wall to the starting line.
Here's the Swamp Ass Tough Mudder.
It was SO cold, it's hard to describe. It took hours for our bodies to return to a normal temperature. It didn't matter though. After four and a half hours, we had finish and were more happy than we probably should have been.
That night we gathered in celebration of our camaraderie and success. New bonds had been formed and we knew that none of us would forget this day. It was the day a bunch of crazy people calling themselves, "Swamp Ass", set out in the freezing cold to get wet over and over while covering 12 miles of ridiculousness. It was one of the best days of our lives.
