Tough Mudder - Toughest Minnesota 2023

 Race: Toughest Twin Cities 2023

Date: July 8th/9th, 2023

Time:  90k in 10:50:09 - Relay

Place: 1st Place Team

Pre-Race Conditions:

Pitter Patter - Lets get at ‘Er

That phase has been stuck in my head since we were out wakeboarding up at the cottage for the 4th. It’s a great phrase for this race. 

I’m out in Hugo Minnesota with Christian, Elliot and Jake. We just finished breakfast and our Walmart trip for last minute supplies. We have about 3 hours before we have to head to the venue and 6 hours to go time. 

It’s going to be an interesting race. I’m feeling pretty good. It’s hard to know how much or how fast we are going to run. My concern is mostly the breaks between laps and not stiffening up too much or getting too cold.  Right now the plan is Christian and I doing the first full team lap then not stopping to head out on the 2nd lap. After that we hand it over to Jake and Elliot for lap 3. We figure by the time Christian and I have to head out for lap 4 we should know where we are at and how to pace better. We could need to push the pace, stay where we are or reign it in a bit. Without knowing who all the other teams are there’s no way to know. 

The course looks pretty easy. A lot of zig zagging through fields. Last time I was here it was only like 400’ of gain in the 5 miles. It’s a pretty flat and fast course. Even now that the laps are 10k I doubt they found that much more gain. There’s also still only the 20 obstacles in the 10k. That means it’s more suitable for runners. The obstacles don’t seem to be too bad and the penalties aren’t bad either. I’ve been able to complete at least 4 loops at infinity penalty free on a clear day. Tonight is going to be super humid which means that the grip obstacles are going to be wet later in the night. Maybe those bypass bands will come in handy later for some of the slippery obstacles. 

I know one thing. Soon as I recover from this my WTM grip strength workouts are going to get kicked into high gear. 4 months to go and it’s time to build that strength to compliment my running. 

Time for a shower, quick nap and then pack up and head to the event. 

Race Recap:

The race corral was very thin this race. I heard there was only about 350 total racers which is low for one of these events. Especially since they went from 5 mile loops to 10k. It really spreads everyone out more and you feel very isolated. This is the first race where Sean wasn’t the start line emcee. I didn’t find out until a few days later that both Sean and Clinton were there and I missed saying hi to them both.The start speech from the RD was very lacking. Coach did his normal thing to get everyone warmed up and ready. I mostly sat next to Evan at the start line and relaxed a little bit. I used to be part of the insanity and excitement at the start line. The last few races I’ve watched Evan who sits down on the side and does his own thing. He relaxes and focuses. This time I did that while Jake, Elliot and CBJ did their own thing. 

The countdown started and we took off right about 8PM. We went out fast for the first quarter mile and then settled in and formed up as a group. We mostly ran in partners and swapped around. About mile 1 Hannah Carta came up and we had our normal banter. I don’t think anyone was expecting the yelling at each other that we did. It was just being us. Dave was bouncing around the course and adding to the fun. The course was pretty nice. Some small inclines but everything was incredibly runable. We were a little slower than I expected for that first 10k. I had expected us to be in the 45 to 48 minute range. Elliot was still bouncing back from being sick a few week earlier. We were giving him a push up hills by putting a hand on his back and taking a little of the work. Towards the end we were helping him up an hill and hot swapping in to spread the effort between the other 3 of us. Lap 1 was finished in 53 minutes. 

CBJ and I headed right out without stopping. Jake and Elliot got to head back to the pit and rest and recover. I knew that we could possibly hit 3 obstacles that were opening at 9PM. CBJ started kind of fast for me and I asked him if I could set the pace. I jumped in front of him and we got moving. We picked up the pace on lap 2. It was still comfortable and I kept thinking that the pace was unsustainable. I was actually wrong because we held that pretty well the rest of the laps. We got to pitfall and found our we had beat the clock by a few minutes and got to keep on running. We did have to do the barbed wire crawl and the inverted wall. Pretty fast and easy still. There wasn’t a lot of water in the crawl and it was pretty warm. Cold water would have been miserable. We finished lap 2 in about 48 minutes. Not bad for our second 10k with a few obstacles. We fist bumped Jake and Elliot. They took off and we got our rest. 

Our first break went by pretty fast. Jake and Elliot had a few more obstacles on their lap. That gave us about an hour break. I put my dryrobe on to stay as warm as I could. I noticed that after the second lap I wasn’t fueling like I should have been. If I do this again I think my plan is to carry a bottle with some tailwind those first 2 laps. I did eat a little. The excitement of everyone got to me and I wandered around the pit and said hi to some of the other people I knew. The excitement kept me occupied and we went to the start line to wait for the boys. Our plan was always to get through 3 laps and see where second and third place were at. We saw that they were only about 16 minutes behind us. That meant we had to keep our foot on the gas and try to put some distance between us and them. 

Those guys came in just after an hour and we headed back out. We knew there would be more obstacles open and with second place close by we were going to hammer out another lap. Lap 4 was a few more obstacles open and our first time through mud mile. It was rough. They have been upping the game for some of the obstacles and this has been one of them. The mud pits were deep with very thick and slick mud. We tried to get up and over but weren’t able to. We resorted to having to use the ropes they had for us. It was slow going and the first time I got a little cold on the run. My hands and forearms got a little chill while we were finishing the last mile. We got to mudderhorn now open and up and over it with the help of the Men of Mudderhorn. Powered by Smores poptarts they were a big help all night. We still beat EST opening. Got to tag Elliot and Jake and headed to the pit for our second break. 

This break was a little different. We took it a little bit easier. It was right about midnight and the temperature was starting to fall. He huddled up in our warm clothes by one of the fire pits and tried to stay warm and get some rest. I did some Kion EAAs and a little bit of food. Sitting there I started to get cold. I was starting to get hypothermic from being damp and not moving. I was shivering a little bit and went to a dark place. I was on the border of falling asleep and was upset. I wanted to be done with the race. I was wondering why I was here doing this to myself yet again. My mind was even thinking about canceling WTM this year. I finally got up and started moving. We had expected to head to the start line after about 80 minutes for those guys. I was smart enough to put an applesauce and maple syrup in my pocket for this lap. I was really worried about the cold so I put on a swim cap to keep my head warm. I was terrified that the water obstacles would be cold and I would get even more hypothermic during the lap. I was sure I could make it through another lap but wasn’t sure what it would cost me. While we were sitting there we started to figure out our lap time. It occurred to us that we would now be hitting another 11 obstacles compared to our last lap. Scott had seen me cold and getting ready to go out on my lap. He was nice enough to give me a hug and try to keep me warm before we headed out to the start line. While standing there Jake ran up yelling at us for not being ready. We instantly jumped and got moving. We had figured we had about another 5 minutes. This little mistake cost us about a minute in the transition. Still not bad and I’m sure our adrenaline made up for it on the next lap. 

Lap 6 started fast. We were making up time and trying to loosen back up. It didn’t take long to get warm again. The course had some really weird weather going on. There were some areas where the air felt 10 degrees colder. Our solution was to just run faster. It seemed to work. We hit the first few obstacles and were pretty fast. We had a good line through pitfall that kept us into calf deep water and then most of the others had no water. The first big obstacle we got we in was blockness. We got there and jumped in. The water was warm! Soon as I hit that warm water all my fears were alleviated. The water was deep and it took a little bit of a hop to get over the blocks. Out of blockness I was now warm and feeling good. I took my applesauce pouch to get some fuel going. We cruised through the rest of the obstacles. The new hanging tough with all the ropes was really fun. It wasn’t too difficult but different. After that we hit a nice trail section and then at the water station I took my maple syrup. A few minutes later I was feeling a lot better and back to my normal self; telling jokes, running fast and screwing around. We decided to use our bypass bands this lap at mud mile. For us it was worth it to save the time and not have to go into the pit wet and muddy. Doing this meant that we would have to do EST or the penalty. The EST penalty started with 20 burpees the first hour. The second hour 15 air squats got added. Then every hour after that another exercise like box step ups, sand bag presses, jump rope and more got added. We decided to do the burpees and air squats. It only took about a minute. We finished this lap with all the obstacles in about 1:12 and tagged back to the other guys and went for our 3rd break. 

In the pit we stopped by the race center to see the place updates. We were still in first place. Second and Third had swapped places and they were still kind of close to us. We had to keep the zoomie zoom going. I got back to the tent and this time put on my wind pants and dry robe. I got a fitaid, made a cup of noodles and downed an applesauce. Instead of just sitting down I kept moving. I waked over to Everest. Sandy was there volunteering and we kept coming through so fast that I didn’t get to stop and say hi. I spent a few minutes over there telling jokes and yelling inappropriate things at Francis and the rest of the Everest Angels. Everest has been harder this year and since it was right after mud mile it was covered in mud and super slick. Those guys are amazing being there all night. After like 15 minutes I walked back to the fire and finished my soup. Christian was there and trying to plan out our next laps. We knew we were in first. The question is when we would all try to go out for our final lap. The rules are that our full team must complete our first and last lap together. After some debate we decided that we would do our lap and then do a full team lap and hope that was our last. If we needed to, we may have had to do 3 laps in a row. 

Lap 8 went pretty fast. We still pushed the pace in some areas but were able to relax a little. I noticed this lap that my hip flexors were starting to fatigue and was struggling to climb some obstacles. We caught up with Evan right before the sandbag carry. They had light sandbags which was nice but they had us have to go under a heavy cargo net. Toward the end of the night someone had thrown some sandbags on cargo net making it more fun. We went though and cleared the way for Evan. He was in second place and a little teamwork was a big help for him. He had said he was alone most of the night. Right after the sandbag carry we hit the water station and I went to take my applesauce. It must have fallen out of my pocket because I didn’t have it. I still had my syrup so I knew I could fuel through the lap. I waited until about halfway to take it. The rest of the lap was pretty smooth. We had the debate about skipping mud mile again or EST. If we skipped Mud mile we would either have to do EST or do the penalty. We had decided to skip mud mile because I was worried about my hip flexors going up Everest. We managed to get up everest and then got to EST. The penalty had now grown to burpess, air squats, sandbag presses and box step ups. With my hip I convinced Christian to do EST. I was worried that the squats and box step ups would kill my legs. I made it through unscathed. Christian took a good hit. We finished the lap. Elliot and Jake were there waiting for us. 

Instead of heading back out immediately, Christian wanted to get some fuel so we headed back to the tent for a little bit. We had now learned we had lapped second place and had tons of time. Our pit time was about 13 minutes. We could have taken more time but we started to get cold and knew we had to move. We got moving and headed towards the start line. 

Lap 9! Our victory lap. The full band back together again. We crossed the start line moving at a good pace. I jumped up to the front to lead and set the pace. This lap was fun. We had no pressure and got it done. We moved through the obstacles. In Blockness, I noticed that I had lost my applesauce again. I searched for a minute and learned my lesson that I need to be more careful there with it in those compression shorts. We moved over to the barbed wire crawl and I actually found my applesauce from the previous lap. At this point, I was so loopy that it was the best thing ever. I took it and was really happy. I had some troubles on hanging tough when I got there but made it through. Elliot had dropped off and failed. We told him that we would wait for him to try again. He told us that he wanted to save his strength for some of the other grip obstacles. The rules for team are that if one of us fails an obstacle we all have to do the penalty. The penalty for this obstacle was walk the plank. There were 2x4s with straps for your feet. You had to walk a 25’ path and then back. We picked a 4-man setup and hammered it out without much issues. Back to the run and we decided this time we would do mud mile and then skip EST. The penalty for EST would have been a killer by that point. The rest of the obstacles were a breeze up until the end. We handed over our bypass bands at EST and crossed the finish line. At the race center we found out that second place was about 45 minutes back and a lap. There was no way they were going to finish and be able to get another lap in. We had first place locked in. Time for warm dry clothes and the hunt for a cold beer. 

The Bad:

While I was in the pit after lap 4, I was at a really low point. I was questioning why I was there doing this to myself yet again. I wanted to quit. I wanted it to be over. I’m happy I was able to rally and get back to an amazing race. 

The Good:

Running as a team was a blast. I said no to running with them a few times before I finally made the decision to do it. I’m so glad I did.  

Moral of the Story:

Everytime I say I’m done with these races and moving on to something else I get drug back (after saying that I wasn’t going 3 times) and have a great time. Great people, great running, great team. 

I can’t believe that I was going to skip this. 

Best Moment:

There were really 2 good moments on this one. Obviously the first place finish was a great moment. The second was bouncing back from my low point. The transition from very low to back to normal in that quick of a time proved strength and was a good confidence boost. 

Worst Moment:

Worst moment was easily after lap 4 in the pit. I was sitting in chair by the fire and getting cold. I think I was getting hypothermic. There was a moment there where I was about to pass out from being cold and tired. I realized what was happening and was able to get some calories in and stay warm. I took an applesauce and a maple syrup out on lap 6. I took the applesauce at 3k and the syrup at 6k. I bounced back strong and was back telling jokes and running strong. 

Funniest Moment:

We were pretty much all business during this one. There was screwing around and having fun but nothing really stood out. The best I can think of is the normal banter between me and Hannah Carta in lap 1. I don’t think anyone expect that level of arguing. It was half entertaining and half disturbing. Can’t wait to see her and Dave at Ode next weekend. 

Map:

Results: 

Gear:

• White Altra Superior 5

• Dirty Girl Gaiters

• Smart Wool crew socks

• Virus compression tights

• Gurney Goo

• Trail Toes

Nutrition:

• Untapped Maple Syrup

• Kion EAAs

• Applesauce 

• FitAid

• Bananas

• Coke

• Cup of noodles

• Water