Wednesday night

Another group run with the local chapter of Who's Up?  One of the guys likes to document the weekly run to post to our Facebook page, so we get a picture of the beer and a group picture each week.

Tonight Bane decided to join us for the run:

Actually that's a guy who is training for the World's Toughest Mudder in November.  The mask simulates the difficulty of breathing at altitude, and for tonight's run he had it set to 15,000 feet. I think this was also his third run of the day.  And people say marathoners are crazy.

He finished 74th last year out of several hundred competitors, and is aiming to finish in the top 20 this year.

There was a time when I was thinking of trying to qualify for the World's Toughest Mudder.  But now they've done away with qualifying so that anyone can sign up, which strangely eliminates the appeal for me.  They've also moved it from NJ to Las Vegas which would make it much more expensive for me.  The third nail in the coffin is that it is now the same weekend as the Philly Marathon.

Guess I'll stick to marathoning.

2013 recap

2013 was easily one of the best years of my life.

In February, together with one of my students, I won a charity dance competition at my high school for which we'd been rehearsing for months.

April was an action-packed month.  Over three days of spring break, I completed a 50 mile trail through the Pine Barrens of NJ.

I also won a long term bet with a co-worker about riding my bike to school for 100 days out of the year.

At the end of April, months of planning came together for Stevie's and my wedding at Camp Ockanickon.  Friends and family came from far and wide for an unforgettable weekend of campfires, capture-the-flag, running in the woods, dancing, plenty of drinking, and of course a gorgeous outdoor ceremony led by my uncle.

Directly after the ceremony on Chapel Island.

June was another epic month.  I ran my first Tough Mudder, two half marathons on consecutive weekends, and my first 10k trail run.

Like the wedding, months of planning came together when I then chaperoned a group of students for the first time, taking seven of them on a ten day trip to Germany which I designed and organized myself.  We visited Berlin and Munich, stayed in youth hostels, visited more museums than you can count, and sampled the culinary delights of the Vaterland at all turns.

With my students at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin

In July Stevie and I headed west for our honeymoon: Alaska and the Yukon Territory.  We spent time on a cruise ship, and on buses and trains taking in the scenery and imbibing at every brewery available.

In August my sister and her family flew in from Minnesota and spent time with us in Ocean City, NJ.  Together with my stepsister and her family, and my dad and stepmother, we spent a week at a beach house together.

Using my nephew Oliver for strength training at the Jersey Shore

In September Stevie gave me an introductory flying lesson for my 32nd birthday, and in November I flew a plane for the first time.

My focus for the majority of the fall was on the 2013 Philadelphia Marathon and attempting to qualify for Boston.  I threw myself headlong into a training regimen I made up myself.  With amazing support from Stevie, I managed to balance starting my third year of teaching with the rigors of training, and prevailed with a time of 3:03:05 in November.

December brought with it more changes and projects that will carry over into 2014, such as a roadtrip with Stevie during spring break, a year long documentary that I began filming over Christmas, the setting of some very ambitious running goals, and the decision to move out of our current apartment this summer.

As cheesy and clichéd as year-end recaps can be, I like them because they give me an excuse to reflect and remember just how blessed I truly am.

I have no doubt that 2014 will be even bigger than 2013.  Here's to it.

Tough article and pictures

Article from today's Buzzefeed:

And two pictures from the obstacles known as "Electroshock Therapy" and "Arctic Enema:"

2013 Philadelphia Tough Mudder

Should you do a Tough Mudder?  Yes, you should.  It was one of the greatest events I've ever participated in.

If spending a morning running for hours, getting dunked in ice water, jumping over fire, climbing walls and getting shocked by 10,000 volts of electricity sound like even remotely your thing, don't hesitate to sign up.

Oh wait, you're still hesitating?  Keep in mind, you can walk most of it, you will have thousands of fellow mudders to help you through the obstacles, and you will bask all day in the camaraderie the event encourages.  And there is beer at the end.

After years of missing Tough Mudder events in my area for various reasons, I finally got to participate in one today.

5am wake up call this morning.  Out the door by 5:30, arrived at the Tough Mudder site near Allentown, about an hour outside of Philly, to see a full-scale military operation in effect.  That's the first thing I'll comment on.  The level of organization was simply mind boggling.  The shuttle busses ran perfectly. Registration was a snap.  Water stations were perfectly placed.  Event staff as well as police officers, fire fighters and paramedics were everywhere.  After a few years of operations, Tough Mudder has obviously fine tuned the process to a T, and there is literally nothing to complain about.

I had signed up for the 8am wave but was assigned to the 8:40 wave.  But at 7:45 I was already ready to go, and they were announcing that people could start in earlier waves if they wanted to.  8am start after all.

Most of the obstacles were no problem.  I'm a small guy but have pretty good upper body strength relative to my size, so I had no problem hurling myself over the Berlin Walls or crossing the monkey bars without falling into the water below.

I did, however, hesitate at a few obstacles, such as the ones involving tunnels.  Because I am slightly claustrophobic, I was worried about starting to panic inside, especially the one that included water in addition to the tunnel.  It took a few minutes at each one, but I managed to convince myself to get through them.

The only other time I hesitated, this time for a full ten minutes, was the final obstacle: electroshock therapy. It's the final obstacle at most Tough Mudders, and one must cross dirt hills and mud pits while hundreds of live wires dangle above.  I had already been shocked in a previous obstacle, and it genuinely hurt, and I was not too keen on barreling through this obstacle to face the same pain.  I knew I would be disappointed in myself if I didn't complete the entire course, so I finally forced myself into the fray.

Strangely enough, I had more trouble with the running than I did with the obstacles.  The course was in farm country in Pennsylvania, just south of the Pocono Mountains, meaning there were a lot more hills than expected, and the Tough Mudder organizers incorporated every hill they could find on that farm.  Due to the heat, I forced myself to walk up most of them.  I finished in 2:34.

Extremely glad I finally got to do a Tough Mudder.  Hope to do one with a team in the near future.  Just need to befriend more people who enjoy this kind of stuff.  In the meantime, overheard from Stevie's conversation with her mother:

Stevie's mom: why would he want to do all of that to himself?!
Stevie: because he's badass and likes to prove it.

I think she understands me.

First death at a Tough Mudder

Article from a few days ago regarding the first ever death at a Tough Mudder event.

The author brings up many valid points, centered mostly around his surprise that it has taken this long for a death to occur.

Tough Mudder events seek to emulate military training obstacles to give people the same sense of accomplishment without the lengthy commitment to a branch of the armed services.  The problem is, in the military, one only reaches these extreme obstacle courses after previously completing a series of increasingly challenging mental and physical challenges.  In a Tough Mudder, anyone can join, no matter his or her level of training and fitness.

I am doing a Tough Mudder in Pennsylvania in June, and though I am not exactly nervous to do so, this young man's death will still be on my mind, especially as I approach the "walk the plank" obstacle on which he died.

A conversation about the Tough Mudder

Talking with Ben recently about the Tough Mudder.

Ben: Have you signed up for it?
Me: Yeah, just signed up.
Ben: I know some other guys who want to sign up.  Maybe we could do it as a relay.
Me: Um... I don't think they let you do it as a relay.
Ben: Yeah, but it's 12 miles.
Me: Ben, it's called the Tough Mudder, not the Wuss Mudder.

You could argue that relay teams would allow more people to experience the thrill of a big event like the Tough Mudder, just like marathon relays.

But I would argue that if you want to participate in the event, then you put in the time and train for it and earn the experience.

Movie Monday: Tough Mudder

I've been meaning to do this for years, and I finally registered for the 2013 Tough Mudder in Pennsylvania. It's on June 1st, and I am beyond excited.

I signed up for the first wave at 8am because I've set the ambitious goal of running fast enough to qualify for the World's Toughest Mudder the following December.  At the very least, I hope to see if it lives up to all the hype.  

And this:

I would hardly call marathon running boring.  I'll be interested to see how the Tough Mudder compares.

And in case you're unfamiliar with the Tough Mudder, here is a promotional video:

Time for the Tough Mudder

Time Magazine, proving to be a bit slow on the uptake, has an article in this week's issue claiming that "obstacle-course racing is taking off."  Really, Time Magazine?  What is it, 2011?  Mudruns exploded ages ago and you're just now writing about it?

I only have two mudruns to my name, but hope to tackle a Tough Mudder this June.  The very first Tough Mudder was a mere two hours from me, but I didn't hear about it until afterwards.  The next few times it rolled around it kept selling out before I had a chance to register.  Which means I should probably register soon...

The article also describes the cult-like following that Tough Mudder enjoys.  Will it truly live up to the hype?  We shall see...

In the meantime, here's a link to the video about the author's Tough Mudder experience.