Tough Mudder - Tougher Pittsburg 2021

 Race: Tougher Pittsburgh 2021

Date: 10.2.21

Time: 1:14:50

Place: 3rd / (113 total / 91 males)

Pre-Race Conditions:

Man there isn’t enough weeks in a month. Snuck away this weekend for a quick tune up race before WTM. I wanted to get one more in to play on the obstacles a little bit more and try some things I’ve been thinking about. After a lot of completed obstacles in Chicago I'm feeling pretty comfortable but there’s always room to improve. It’s like when Hobie was racing. Every race he stumbled on something he showed up to the next race and had figured it out and cruised right through. 

After a decent training block I can say I'm in a better place than Missouri. This should be a fun flat fast race. I just got the weather report and was expecting mid to low 50s and just saw 44 at the start. That water is going to be chilly. My plan is to go with my normal race gear and just deal with the cold and keep running. Nothing else I can do but run faster. 

While I should be focused on a race in 12 hours my mind is on Nevada. 6 weeks away. Airbnbs and flights are booked. I bought the brunch tickets. I’ve started buying my gear and figuring out what I need. My mind is there ready to get that done. 

Sleep time before a 4:15 wake up! Luckily the venue is only 15 minutes away. 

Race Recap:

The morning started with a 4:15AM alarm. I got up and had breakfast and got moving a lot faster than I had expected. The race was only about 15 minutes from the hotel. I had plenty of time to worry and get in my head. I left the hotel and got to the race a little after 6. I put my shoes on and walked up towards registration and found out they weren’t going to open until 6:45. Not a lot of time to warm up and get ready. I was Beth with the volunteers and hopped the rope and hung out there. When they went to their locations I went to get in line at registration. 2nd in line and I got my bib at 6:55. Really now worried about having enough time to get a good warm up in. I dropped my bag by the start line with Beth and went for my quick warm up. I wanted to get a good 2-3 miles in and see some of the course. I only got in just over a mile and ran by the last little bit of the course. I got back to the start line about 7:25 and found out Sean wasn’t even there yet and they were delaying the start a bit. A few last minute things and a bathroom stop and we finally started at 7:45. Those late, rushed starts are always hard on the runners. 

The race started fast. The top few of us went out hot as expected and by a quarter mile in a few had already dropped back. I knew at that point this was going to be an all out effort. We got to the first obstacle, Devil’s Beard, about 3/4th of a mile in. I was in 3rd place by a few steps and then slowed down so we could do the obstacle together. The obstacle is a heavy cargo net you crawl under. It's a lot easier to do as a group. After we got through I picked the pace back up and closed in on second and we were close through the river crossing and split by about 15 seconds on the next run. I struggled on one of the climbs and slowed to try to keep my heart rate under control. We got through the barbed wire crawl and then the top 3 of us were in the mud mile together. The trenches were deep and steep walls. It took some effort to get through them. A short run over to Mudderhorn again all 3 of us were on that obstacle again. While we were running to Mudderhorn the DJ put on Hakuna Matata 

From there we got split up pretty evenly. By the time we got to Ladder to Hell 1st and 2nd were about 10 seconds apart and I was about 45 seconds back of first. 4th place was about a minute or so. We kept going and got through Castaway and then to Rope A Dope. I was confused here because there was a guy I knew wasn’t 1st or 2nd at the obstacle looking confused. It seemed like he failed the obstacle and was going to do the penalty when he took off running the course backwards down the course. After the race we were talking and we couldn’t figure out what was going on with that guy. Never saw him again. 

We then hit Arctic Enema. I was worried about the temperature and hitting that cold water. Luckily I was pretty warm by then and slid into the water that wasn’t that cold. Some more running and we hit the hurdles of Lumberjacked. That was the halfway point of the course. I was finally settling in and then we hit the two track and technical section of the course. I think I picked up the pace here. There was someone in a UTV ahead of me on the course. I was wondering if they were pacing the leaders so I just kept up with them. There were some fun sections of running with some fun terrain. There were a couple spots where there was a steep downhill so they put a piece of webbing tied to a tree to help get down. I grabbed the webbing and kept running down, squeezing the webbing to keep me from falling. That was a fun thing to do in a race. 

A few more small obstacles, field running and a little bit of trails and I got to the gauntlet. Easily cruised through it and was informed by the volunteer that I was the first one to get through it. This was a big moral boost knowing that the first 2 had to do the penalty and I would have made up some time. Later on I found out that the penalty was about a 100’ run. It was actually faster to do the penalty than to do the obstacle. The top 2 actually made up time there instead of losing time. From there it was over to Electric Eel. That was the first cold water we had to deal with and low wires this time. Running up I looked for a path through on one of the sides or middle. Nothing. Only thing I could do was to get low in the water and hope I could move fast enough to keep up and not get shocked too bad. I was probably a little slower than I should have been but didn’t get shocked. I got out of that and tried to warm up my hands to get ready for Funky Monkey. I got there pretty red lined and stopped and took a few breaths, had the lifeguard move a rock at the landing pad and started through the monkey bars. I took a few breaths while hanging on the monkey bars and completed the obstacle. 

Right after was a nice uphill and I thought that we were climbing up to Greased Lightning, a 200’ slip n slide. I peaked back and saw 4th place completing Funky and knew I couldn’t slow down. I got to the top and saw the slip n slide but the course detoured through a nice technical trail section with a few nice ups and downs. A couple of the downs had the webbing to help on the steeper sections. I barely used it flying down. 

I climbed back up to the highest point on the course moving as fast as I could picking up the pace on my way to the slide. There were a bunch of people around at the top I think TM employees finishing the setup. I didn’t break stride going in and superman dove onto it. No time to waste. I started drifting to the left without any ability to control where I was going and then noticed a big mud pit at the bottom. My thinking was I may have made a small tactical mistake. I hit a big pool of soap water right before the end too. It splashed in my eyes and made me stumble a bit for the first few steps. 

I knew it was only about half a mile to the finish. I could see the finish line and took off though a pretty flat field with only Blockness and EST left. I got to blockness alone. There were no 5k runners there yet. I easily went over the first block and turned and saw 4th place coming down the slip n slide. Plenty of time between us. I went over the second block and completely submerged, then made a joke to the lifeguard that the last obstacle got us all soapy and that Blockness must be the rinse cycle. I don’t know if I ever finished a Tough Mudder that clean. Out of there it was less than 400 meters to the finish. I went at a good pace knowing I had 3rd locked up. I heard Clinton on the mic calling out as I was running up that I rounded out the podium. Since I had time I took it slow through EST and ducked under a few wires. Didn’t get shocked there either. Clinton made some joke about me only in my tights as most of the guys had shirts on. I got out of the obstacle, took a couple steps and tucked and rolled over the finish line to put on a little show. 

It was over 8.5 miles of red lined running to get 3rd place 3 minutes back from 1st and second. There were times in the race where I knew I was pushing hard early on and tried to back off and settle in a bit. Without a good warm up it felt like it took forever for me to settle in. On the back half I was running fast but had to pull back a couple times then cough a few times and then motivate myself to keep going. A lot of it was just in my head and I was able to keep pushing through. I never really felt like complete death out there but there were a few times I was hurting more than others and had to push myself by taking a couple deep breaths. The field running was annoying because you just saw an open path that felt like it was never going to end. The trail sections were awesome because they took your mind off running and you had to focus on every foot placement and navigate through the terrain. That was fun running. 

In the end it was the podium finish I was there to try to get. I completed the race without failing an obstacle and got in some good practice for WTM in 6 weeks. 

The Bad:

Wow was I in my own head a lot and hyping myself way up before this one. It’s something I need to focus on in the next couple weeks before Nevada. Luckily I have some time to so a lot of prep for that race and will be able to go in with a lot setup. The extra few days in Laughlin before the race will be nice. The only thing to focus on will be the race. 

The Good:

My running in this has to be the best I’ve ever done for a short course. I averaged a sub 9 minute mile pace for 8.5 miles with 23 obstacles and 1000’ of gain and 1000’ of loss. We were flying. I planned to start around a 7 minute pace and settle in faster later on. Everytime I kept looking at my watch I kept seeing mid 6 pace and was able to keep it up for the most part. 

Moral of the Story:

I was there to get one more race in with some obstacle time prior to WTM. The goal was to try a few different things during the race that seemed to work well for me. I always try everything prior to races to see how it is going to perform and how my body will do with it. It was a success and I walked away with a hard fought podium finish. 

Best Moment:

Another 3rd place podium. For someone who has been really good at getting 4th or 5th it’s feeling nice to get that step up and finally be on a podium here and there. I still have work to do but I seem to be going in the right direction. 

Worst Moment:

Ugh. I work myself up so much for these and it definitely hurts me more than helps. I was so nervous and worried going in. My stomach was in knots and I was doing everything to settle down and relax. Even with that craziness in my head I was still able to come there and throw down a good time for a podium spot. I do wonder how much better I would have been able to do if I was more calm. 

Funniest Moment:

Funniest moment was coming down Mudderhorn singing to Hakuna Matata and the photographer under the obstacle looking up and shooting me a really weird look. I didn’t even slow down. 

Map:

Results: 

https://www.athlinks.com/event/352598/results/Event/987742/Course/2128099/Results

Gear:

• 2XU full tights

• Altra Superiors 4.5

• Feetures Elite Socks

• Home Depot Gorilla Gloves

Nutrition:

• Alix’s oats for Breakfast

• My preworkout mix 30 minutes before the race

• I had one Untapped Maple shot with my but never slowed down long enough to take it. I had planned on hitting it at Lumberjacked but was focused and forgot.