A Single Mom’s Life

With Cameron away in Wyoming hunting Antelope, I’ve gotten a glimpse into the life of a single mom. For the most part, it hasn’t been too bad. The security of not having Cameron there isn’t the same as when he is – but that’s why we have a house alarm and two dogs, one with a fierce bark (Tulley) and one who looks fierce (Melody). I also miss having Cameron around at night to chat with, but he’s made the effort to call every night so we can talk for a few minutes at least. I’d say I miss cuddling with him as I fall asleep (and I do) but I also have Tulley right there who is the main cuddle monster any way.

I’ve had a few middle of the night wakings from London, but that’s not totally unexpected – she does have three molars (maybe four – she doesn’t like me feeling around in there and I have been bitten when I do) and her fourth tooth in the front, on top, coming in. I have had to resort to giving her Advil a few grumpy nights as well as the binky when it was getting to the point that I was going to loose a considerable amount of sleep if I didn’t.

Around the house, I’ve been able to stay caught up on all my DVR’d TV programs and really gotten the place clean. Plus, the areas I’ve cleaned have stayed clean! Hmm, maybe I’m on to something…Joking. Rather have a mess and my man around than an empty, clean house. It would be nice if he makes an effort to help keep it clean when he does get home, but I’m almost positive the front room will be destroyed within 10 minutes of him returning Saturday night or Sunday morning. Oh well.

Tulley is suffering the most since she has to be crated all day while I’m at work. Thursday she even tried to hide when she saw London and I getting ready to head out the door. To add insult to injury, when I do coax her down and toward the crate, London smashes her head between the crate and crate door because she was trying to close it. The child likes closing everything even when you’re trying to get something or trying to get through. Poor Tulley. But as you will learn shortly, it was one of THOSE mornings after one of THOSE nights.

Wednesday night was the night I really missed Cameron and was thankful I wasn’t a full time single mom. I don’t know how they do it. It goes back to these teeth coming in. They are causing some diaper blowouts – I’ve been sent home with a child in different cloths or missing clothes from what I dropped her off in, along with a plastic bag with the soiled clothes to launder 3 of 4 days so far!

So back to Wednesday night. I’ve fed London and am just sitting down to feel myself an actual home made meal when I smell something. I know ifs London’s diaper but it can wait while I eat, right? Wrong. London gets up on the chair across from me at the table and is contemplating getting onto the table to try my dinner. I look through our glass table and notice something yellow that is not apart of the chair upholstery. Major diaper blowout! I abandon eating dinner and am running upstairs, dangling London by her arms yelling for Tulley to follow, as just as I picked up London, Tulley was smelling and literally about to lick up the mess! I did eventually eat my now cold dinner, with a very large glass on wine after cleaning up both my child and the chair. Thank goodness for Fabreeze – got the smell out, no problem. And this was after a second attempt at sitting down to eat, when London decided she needed to be whiny and unpleasant. With my patience running low, I whisked her off to bed without a second thought. Good thing she didn’t protest bed.

Not that having Cameron there would have allowed me to eat dinner in peace from the moment all this happened. I would have just had someone to share in the pain and help with the cleanup. Plus, when he’s home we share the time with London so there we each get a little bit on time to relax and unwind from work without having to wait for the moment until after she goes to bed.

You’d think a good night’s sleep would help. Nope. Thursday morning wasn’t any better. London woke up just as I was getting out of the shower and I could tell if wasn’t because she was ready. It was a bad dream-type wake up which meant she was still tired and whiny. I had no choice but to get ready with her whiny butt right next to me. When we finally make it downstairs to get my lunch thrown together, London ends up slamming my head between the door and fridge. Adding Tulley’s head slamming 10 minutes later, that girl was on a roll! London would whine all the way to daycare. Had Cameron been home, he’d probably have gotten up the second he heard me losing my patience with London and taken care of her to give me some time to get what I needed to get done. I’m happy to report we were both in better moods Thursday night and this morning.

Before Cameron left, my biggest had been whether I’d be able to get a few runs in early in the week, as I have my next half marathon on Sunday. This ended up not being an issue as Lynde wanted to get a few in too before she headed to San Diego on Thursday. She volunteered Matt to watch the little bug.

This would be interesting. Yes, it was only for 30 minutes or so each night (Monday & Tuesday), but you have to understand that Matt has never changed a diaper on this child, spent time alone with her and has probably only picked her up once.

None of these issues turned out to be a factor. For the diaper part, I made sure to change London before we headed over each evening as well as made sure she had a full belly. I also brought along her Gerber Crisps for a snack just in case.

Monday, we took Tulley over with us to romp around with Cody in the backyard. When we left, we heard London cry for a second and when we returned we found Matt and London looking out the backdoor watching Tulley and Cody be crazy.

Tuesday when we left, we took Tulley and Cody on the run with us. London tried to walk out the front door with us, but Matt was quick and pulled her back as we shut the door. We heard a little more crying as we headed out. This is what we walked in to find when we got back:


Apparently, after we left, she crawled under the coffee table to half cry/half whine, crying more when she’d bonk her head on the coffee table. Matt said he coaxed her out, at which time she cried until she fell asleep. Of course, this was a great little snooze for London that by the time we got back home, she was raring to go and stayed up a little later than normal.

Here’s another funny picture to share with you that happened this week. Last night, I started the shower before bed. I must have left the door open a little, as when I came back a few minutes later after letting it warm up some, I found this:

I don’t know if it’s Tulley being afraid of my leaving her too or her being overly protective that she needs to be in the shower with me, but all week she has tried to get in and has sat by the door when she’s been unsuccessful. Monday after the run, I was about to take a shower when London got in (she needed one any ways) which left the door open for Tulley. There I was with a toddler and a pooch in my shower. Tulley got kicked out shortly after I got in – it was a bit crowded and I didn’t want to deal with wet kid and wet dog upon getting out. But all in all, makes for a pretty cute picture.

London’s 15-month Stats

In anticipation of our first trip to Disneyland with London in November, I recently was playing around on their web site to see which attractions she’d be able to go on. Amazingly, there are many, as there are no height restrictions to most of Disneyland’s attractions – California Adventure is about 50/50. We will avoid some of the longer attractions unless London’s attention span increases to more than 5 minutes – which I hope it does as I think she would like the Enchanted Tiki Room.

However, I was surprised to learn from this research, that Autopia has a 32” height restriction. I was half thinking there would be none and half thinking it should be higher. Being that London was almost 31” at her 1-year check-up I wasn’t too worried that she wouldn’t be 32” in November. My worries were completely erased after her 15-month old check-up this past Monday. The girl is not slowing down at all – I swear I throw more and more clothes into the “Doesn’t Fit” pile every day.

Here are her latest stats:

Height: 33 ¼” (well into the 100th percentile as usual and cleared for Autopia! If she passes 35” by November, she could possibly go on Gadget’s Go-Coaster. Too bad we’ll have to measure her at home. Her next appointment isn’t until after Christmas!)

Weight: 22.3 lbs (35th Percentile. At least she’s consistent and its not like she doesn’t eat – the day care jokes that she puts more away then the other 3 combined!).

Head Circumference: 17 ¾” (25th percentile – we know she got her daddy’s small head.)

The poor little bug has at least three of her four 1-year molars coming in right now. There could be a fourth, but I just can’t tell. London doesn’t like us looking in there or feeling around (I’ve been bitten on several occasions). Plus, she’s got a fourth tooth coming in on top in the front.

I have to admit, she’s still in good spirits most days and Advil definitely helps her sleep at night. With Cameron gone this week, I’ve had to resort to giving her the pacifier a few times just to get some much needed sleep myself. But, this has been in the middle of the night, so she still has no problem falling asleep without it.

Now if we can just make the switch from the bottle to the sippy cup. This is still an all out battle of wills – one of these days I’ve gotta stop giving in! Maybe when Cameron is back.

Tough Mudder: Part 4 – The Adventure Continues…

Our Small Group After Tough Mudder

At the bottom of the rock slide, we met up with the Log Jammin obstacle. It was easy enough, as I was able to use the strength of my legs to help me climb up and over 3 or 4 logs. And I was small enough that I could get under the barbed wire wrapped logs pretty easily too. Tui decided to have some fun here and would roll through the dirt to get under a log.

We all were ready for a break at this point. Conveniently, a cement support at the end of a chair lift was nearby which also provided shade. The cool cement block felt good to sit on. Yes, we’d actually warmed up at this point.

We filled up on some Gels and Blocks for some much needed fuel and rested for 5 or 10minutes. Time was a blur to me by this point. I had no clue how long it had taken us to get here and none of us carried a watch with us.

After our little rest, we had another trek up hill – all the way up to the very tip top of Squaw Valley. On the way up, we were privileged to walk behind a team that had picked up a large pine log left over from creating Log Jammin. Why any one would opt to add in another obstacle, I don’t know, but they did. Maybe they thought it was one, since there were quite a few pieces left over, but there was no sign and no Marines overseeing it. At one point, they stopped and we all heard “Head on Left” several times before we watched as half the team attempted to toss the log over their heads on the left to the left and the other half tried to toss the log to the right. The giant log (about 12 feet long) scissored before taking three people out, running for their lives down the hill to the left of us. Luckily, no one was hurt but the team started arguing about which way they said they were going to throw it – all of us behind them yelled that we heard “Head on left”! Because of this, we’d been stopped in our tracks and piled up waiting to pass. Guess that’s why we all felt it necessary to clear up the disagreement.

Here’s what I found very silly about the whole situation – why would you put your head on the side that you were going to throw the log. So much easier to just roll the dam log off your left shoulder then in one fluid motion raise the log over your head to chuck it left. It didn’t make sense to toss the log to the right, because that was uphill and you’d risk having the log roll back onto you and possibly the whole team would have been running down the hill for their lives. Oh well, it wasn’t my team falling apart and with no one hurt, made for a good laugh. That reminds me, some one did catch that on their Go-pro. I wonder if it made it onto YouTube?

At the top of Squaw Valley was our next obstacle – Hold Your Wood. Cameron wanted me to sit this one out, but it looked harmless enough. Grab a piece of wood and navigate the circle that went down some rocky terrain and back up. He found me a nice small one and we started the loop. It was probably 100 yards in total. And, it really wasn’t too hard – slow and steady, like the rest of the day had and would be.

Since there was no more mountain for us to trek up, we headed downhill, staying to the right, being that we were of the slow and steady mindset. The faster traffic could pass us on the left. Why any one was running down this path, I haven’t a clue. There were loose rocks every where begging to take some ankles out. Low and behold, one girl came barreling past us, slipped on a rock and immediately stopped, raising her ankle like every one does when the roll it. Stopping that suddenly probably resulted in a pulled quad or two, as well. I'm sure she had a nice twisted ankle thanks to that move. She’s lucky it wasn’t broken or that she didn’t fall down the shear cliff that was on the left side of the trail.

We were almost back down to Squaw’s upper lodge when we encountered the first of the Berlin Walls. Jeff, Cameron and I all opted out, but Cameron made sure to help get Kelley and Tui over the first of the walls before walking around. Cameron had been limping down from the summit and finally told us about landing on his hip – his knee was now hurting because it was over compensating for it. We both felt any extra jarring to our bodies via jumping down from the top of the Berlin Walls could prevent us from finishing the course.

Not too far from the Berlin Walls were the Walk the Plank and Underwater Tunnels obstacles. Again, I opted out. I wasn’t ready for swimming 50 yards in cold, muddy water, or going under barbed wire-wrapped barrels. Jeff opted out too.

Cameron, Kelley and Tui braved the frigid water and swam. I’m not sure if Kelly did the underwater tunnels or not – Tui did and ran into issues with an overcrowding of people at the first barrels. Cameron decided to swim around the barrels and just get out.

Before heading up yet another mountain, we needed to pass the Boa Constrictor. The only one to participate in this obstacle would be Tui. She ended up in front of a very strong man literally up her a$# yelling “YOU CAN DO IT!” (I imagine him saying this the way Rob Schneider’s character in The Waterboy does in his bad Mexican accent). And he literally was that close to Tui - his hands were out of the tube before her feet were.

As we looked up at how high we were now expected to trek, again, we began to wonder what happened to 5-6 miles up, 5-6 miles down. Shouldn’t the rest of the course be downhill from here on out? But up we climbed. We watched as a first aid guy passed us by twice on an ATV to rescue a few people that had thrown up an X.

We’d end up walking the next few miles before the next obstacle, going up and down, up and down along the ridge of Squaw Valley. It was full of more dusty and rocky trails on the edges of cliffs. Finally, we came to the next obstacle, another set of Berlin walls. Cameron and I opted out again while Tui and Kelley completed it. Jeff made a beeline for the water station just past this obstacle. Had my back not been totally stiff at this point, I would have attempted this one. The walls weren’t as high as the previous, so with a little boost I could have gotten over. But with my back, I might not have survived the dismount.

Tui and I would take on the next obstacle a short while later – Bale Bonds. By this time so many people had been through them that small, narrow passageways had been made through the bales of hay, so it wasn’t too hard – slippery, but we breezed through. It would have sucked if we weren’t skinny women – we commented on what it must have been like to be a bulkier man trying to get over these.

We’d also begun our final descent down the mountain. We now had to follow a zip zaggy, dustry trail and from the top we could hear the music as well as see the finish area below and the last few obstacles. But the slope was steep and slow going (single file only here folks) and we had a good mile to go before the next obstacle.

Cameron was leading us, walking behind a man that we figured was in his 60s. The poor guy slipped at one point and took a pretty hard fall – but he kept going, limping and hunched over. We were all too close to drop out now. We could taste the beer promised to us at the finish line.

Up the wooden ladder we all went when we got to the bottom of the trail and arrived at the Turds Nest. Brett had mentioned that morning that he’d read it was best to roll through the cargo net versus trying to walk your way over it with hands and feet. This was pretty clear once we got to the top – almost every one was rolling through and sometimes over one another. At the other end, I did need to use my hands and feet to get to the platform, but I found it was pretty easy if I went sideways so that one foot and one hand led the other set across the net.

We only had 200 yards left to go before we could cross the finish line and collect the most well-earned beer I’d ever worked toward. We saw Kyle and Angie cheering us on, saying we only had 200 yards to go. Magic Carpet ride came on over the loud speakers and suddenly Cameron was off running, followed by Tui, Kelley and I. At this point I had no clue where Jeff was – I think he’d gone ahead.

Here’s the cruel joke I played on myself at this point – somehow I’d forgotten about the last two obstacles. I thought I was just running for the finish line. That was, until I rounded a corner and found Twinkle Toes. I stopped running and walked to the line. After a few minutes of waiting it was my turn – Cameron would go behind me. We lost Kelley and Tui here to the masses and wouldn’t see them until after the course.

I made it only a few steps onto the board before it got pretty wobbly. My legs and body didn’t have the strength to fight it and I figured it was the last of the water so why not? I was hot at this point. I jumped in and swam as quickly as I could to get to the ladder to pull myself out. I turned around just in time to see Cameron falling in. He’d made it pretty far - about two thirds of the way across. One more obstacle and we would be done.

But it was the one obstacle I was sure I wouldn’t do and was quite scared of – Electroshock Therapy. But the course was set up in such a way that I couldn’t get around it.

Guess what – Cameron and I both made it through without a single shock! We went slowly and found a nice path led by those before us. We both admitted later that the only way we would have been shocked would have been by flying wires kicked up by someone sprinting through it. We got lucky. Every one by this time was taking it slow and steady.

We’d done it – we’d completed the Toughest Event on the Planet! We were exhausted but exhilarated by our accomplishment, full of smiles. We were greeted with our prizes just after it too – an orange Tough Mudder head band, a t-shirt, and a cold Dos XX beer. We were sore, tired, hungry, thirsty and dying to get our shoes off. Kyle and Angie came over to congratulate us all. They, along with Brooke and John had completed the course almost two hours before us - it took them five hours to complete. It took us 6 hours and 40 minutes. Now we were all wondering about Brett, Trina, Kell and Lisa. Were they still out there?

Yes, we kissed right after the finish line too! If you look closely you can see mud on my cheek still

While we waited to find out, we headed for bag check. You’d think Cameron would say he had the best, most awesome wife in the world for even attempting Tough Mudder. Nope. Those words came when we picked up our bag from bag check and he discovered that I’d packed his sandals for after the race. He thought he was going to have to choose between walking in wet shoes back to the car or barefoot with exposed blisters, neither of which sounded good at all. Good thing I think ahead (most of the time).

We made our way back to the car to change out of our wet clothes and get some food to eat while we continued to wait for the last four. Soon we got a call from Kyle that there had been a Kell sighting. The last of our team was on the zig zag - Kell wasn't hard to see in his birght purple shirt. Did I ever mention our team name was the Purple Glitter Pooping Ninjas?

45 minutes after we had crossed the finish line, Brett, Trina, Kell and Lisa did the same. Our team of 13 beat the odds and we all finished. Best of all, the Tough Mudder NorCal event raised more money for the Wounded Warrior Project than any other event Tough Mudder has held so far.

By the time we had finished Tough Mudder on Sunday, Cameron and I had both agreed that we’d never attempt a Tough Mudder course again – we’d done it, we could check it off our bucket list and move on, right? We could barely move, we were so sore after the event. It would take until Wednesday to move without wincing in pain and the black boogers didn't go away until Tuesday. Why would we even think of doing this again? Enough people thought we were crazy enough to attempt it at all.

Still in the throws of pain and soreness, Monday night I asked Cameron if I was crazy. After all we’d said on Sunday about never, ever even thinking about doing Tough Mudder again. But here I was starting to think maybe we would. Cameron is with me on this too. Maybe it’s the competitive nature in us both, the former athletes we once were. This course had handed out a#*es to us in a silver cup after being blended into a fine puree. We now know what to expect and have a better idea of how to train for it. Now we want to complete a Tough Mudder and feel like we have conquered it, not the other way around. I did make Cameron promise to install a pull up bar for me. And I still may opt out of any Chernobyl Jacuzzi. We’ll see if and when the time comes.
Yes, I guess we are crazy.

Tough Mudder: Part 3 – The First Half of the Course

Now for the fun, play by play of our time on the Tough Mudder Course...

We were off, taking on the first two obstacles immediately as we past the start line. A reminder, the first was the Braveheart obstacle that found us running straight up a steep incline. Not much running actually took place. With all the people, and the steep incline, we mainly power hiked our way up, at one point through orange smoke that was set off near the starting line. Wasn't a huge fan having to walk within inches of the canister. Luckily, once past it, I could breathe in the beautiful, crisp, cool and clean air that Tahoe has to offer.

We quickly fell behind Kyle, Angie, Brooke and John. We wouldn’t see Brooke and John at all after that and Kyle and Angie when we had only 200 yards and two more obstacles to go. Just before the race, Tui said she would stay with the last person in our group and most of us agreed we’d do the same but we quickly found that this was going to be hard. It was the first split of two within our group of 13.

We quickly came upon the Ball breaker obstacle. None of the oversized exercise balance balls came near me as people taller than me did a good job at keeping them above my head. At the bottom of a rocky incline we came to a hault, then moved at a snail's pace up to the top with the mass of people. At the top was the Kiss of Mudd.

While the water was cold and muddy, I didn’t find it too hard. I used only my arms to move my body through the water, gliding and floating under the barbed wire to get to the other side. Some guys behind me would pass me, using their legs more. Problem was, that by using your legs at the end, your butt wound up out of the water and more than a few who passed me got caught up on a barb or two. Of course, I didn’t go unscratched either. The pit was full of fine gravel/pebbles/sand that tore up my elbows as I'd already taken my hot pink arm warmers off. I still carry miniscule scabs on my elbows from where I got cut up. It would be the first blood drawn, but not the last, for me.

Brett, Trina, Kel, Lisa and Tui would fall behind after this event, and soon Tui was told to catch up to Cameron, Kelley, Jeff and I. This is how the groups would stay the rest of the day.

At some point, as we powered our way up more and more inclines, I saw a sign for the Death March obstacle. It wasn’t any different from any other incline or hike we would take part in the rest of the day and the only way one could have opted out of this one was to throw up an X. Only 2 miles in, I don’t think any one did this unless they had twisted an ankle. It was disconcerting to see a gal running down the hill, past us, back toward the finish line, but we never saw any one that needed help as we continued our way up.

Eventually we came across the Mud Bath. We jumped right in and made our way under the board and across. I do have to admit this is when Cameron and I began to notice that I’m not fond of dark, cold water and going under an object, even for 2 inches.

Upward we continued to the Chernobyl Jacuzzi. While I jumped into the muddy, watery ice bath like everyone else on my team, I froze when it came to going under the 2-inch thick board. My heart was fluttering and I was scared of not coming up. Cameron was already on the other side as were all my teammates so they cheered me on as quickly as possible. Cameron says he grabbed my hand as soon as he saw it coming up on the other side, pulling me up and pushing me forward to get me out as quickly as possible. I remember the ice was harder to get through than expected - it had started to melt together into blocks, versus being small, cocktail-sized cubes.

We were risking hypothermia by this point. I hardly remember much as my mind stopped processing anything until I realized more people were in and behind me needing to get out. Cameron and Jeff stalled after getting out to help those people out while Tui, Kelly and I moved around in the after area to get warm quick. We would still be cold when we arrived at Everest. Thankfully, Tough Mudder provides what looks like Mylar sheets to help warm people up if needed. We'd see these scattered about the course the rest of the day and see oethers use them as supermen capes. We joked that Kelley looked like a baked potato or potato chip bag whenever she had hers on. She was the only one that would use one from our group.

On we climbed until we got to Everst. There was a pile of people waiting for a turn to get up and over so we had to stand around for probably 20 minutes. People who had already made it to the top stayed up there to help pull a few more and this continued in waves. Finally, we it was our turn. Cameron laid on the bottom of the curve with his feet up against a small lip to brace his body. Jeff climbed up to stand on Cameron’s shoulders while laying against the last of the curve. I used Jeff’s knee to climb onto his shoulders and reach for a hand from above. It took a moment to get someone’s attention from above and I was still too short to be able to comfortably grab his hand. He and another guy said to wait for a shirt that was being used to hoist another person up. As I waited I could feel us slipping down more. Finally we got the shirt and I wrapped a hand around it. I was going up, I could almost reach the top or someone's hand when…

The shirt snapped. I fell. Hard. I didn’t slide down like Everest is designed to allow. I went straight down and hit the curved portion with my lower back. I instinctively curled into a ball as I fell knowing Cameron and Jeff were below me. I luckily didn’t hit them, I don’t think. Tui was right there asking if I was alright. I knew my back was hurt – I’d hit it twice like this before falling down the stairs of our house in Fremont. I got up and walked to the side of the crowd to grab my breath and then quickly decided to opt out, walking around the event to wait for my team on the other side. First Kelley, then Tui came over. Tui would ask again if I was ok. According to her I’d taken a pretty knarly fall. I said it hurt, but not enough for me to stop. I knew the next day would be worse and would tell Cameron shortly after this event that I wouldn't be working the next day. He didn't question me - he could see I was in more pain than I was letting on.

Finally, Jeff came over. Cameron would end up falling twice before making it over. The second time he fell, he fell hard like me and would hurt his hip. This would cause him to compensate for the injury by overusing his knee on the other side through the rest of our adventure. But he made it over. In hindsight, Cameron thinks he should have had me try to get over using one of the sides where some two by fours were nailed to the wall to aid in climbing up to the outstretched hands. I look back and think I needed more upper body strength training that involved me being capable of performing many pull ups.

We walked slowly to the Funky Monkey to allow me to get comfortable again. Cameron wouldn’t tell us about the hip injury until later. At this point I was determined to finish the course, but maybe not attempt even one more obstacle.

Kelley and I both opted to walk around the Funky Monkey. She didn’t want any more water and I didn’t want to fall and risk jarring my back more. I think Jeff made it the farthest on this obstacle. Cameron made it almost half way up to the peak and Tui only made it one rung.

Our mystery obstacle was only yards away. And so much for me not doing any more obstacles. I'd now decided that I would evaluate each obstacle as we got up to them to determine if I would do it or not. I'd avoid anything that risked jarring my back but I'd also come up her to not just walk 13 miles, but participate and test myself of the obstacles.

We all made it up the ropes to the platform thanks to some help from each other and other participants. Cameron and Jeff stayed a little longer to help another team get started.

On we trekked to almost the very top of Squaw, to the Devil’s Beard obstacle. It may have been September, but at this elevation, there were still patches of snow and the people that had laid out the course decided it would be a good idea to lay down the cargo net for Devil’s beard in one of these icy patches. There was already a trail of people going through which made entering Devil’s beard easy, but as I watched, some people lost their Tough Mudder bib numbers on their backs trying to slide through. I didn’t put my bid number on my person – we already had the number written on our foreheads and one arm or leg (I had one of each). I found Devil’s Beard hard to navigate if I tried to walk with my head and hands up. On the other hand, if I raised my butt up and lowered my head, using my hands to walk across the snow, the cargo net slid right over me. With a few stops here and there because of other people slowing in front, we got through rather quickly and I stayed a moment to help hold the net up while others got through.

After trekking to almost the top, it was time to head down a not so rocky rock slide obstacle path. Don’t get me wrong, it was difficult. It was mainly dusty, slippery dirt and steep! My way down was slow and steady while others passed me running by, almost uncontrolably. The rest of my teammates definitely went the slow and steady pace as well.

Tune in tomorrow to here about the other half of our adventure and how it turned out. Will we ever do this again?

Tough Mudder: Part 2 – Before the Race

Sorry for the delay in this post - it took longer than expected to get the photos loaded and we were busy getting Cameron ready for Wyoming at the end of last week after recovering from Tough Mudder earlier in the week. Next few posts should come back to back.

Cameron & I after being branded with our Race Numbers. The hot pink sleeves were for warmth. It was about 45 degrees that morning.

Our Team

We headed up to Tahoe Friday evening after passing London along to spend the weekend with her Grammi and Poppy. Our team captain, Tui, was kind enough to secure a cabin for all of us interested in coming up to acclimate to the elevation. We arrived just in time for a nice pasta-filled dinner. With all the energy we would be expending Sunday, we needed to carb-load to some degree. The cabin was also fitted with a hot tub on a balcony overlooking the drive way. Many of us spent some time in the hot tub catching up or getting to know each other, as besides Cameron, Jeff and Tui, I didn't know a sole. Luckily, all my teammmates were friends of Tui's via skydiving, which tends to mean they were a friendly bunch in general.

Saturday morning, Cameron and I headed over to Reno to meet with his hunting buddy Gilles and pick up some supplies for Cameron’s Antelope hunting trip to Wyoming which is taking place this week. On our way back we stopped in to visit with Cameron’s grandparents for a couple of hours. That pretty much killed the day for us. By the time we got back to the cabin, it was 5 PM. Tui and Jeff were out shopping for ski boots, while Kyle and Angie were off getting supplies for the race - a fanny pack to carry fuel and gloves to help with some of the events. Kell and Lisa were the only ones at the cabin. Kyle and Angie would get back next and we all decided to start dinner, as we were aiming to head to early. It was another fun night, chatting and getting to know people as the last of the overnighters arrived (John & Brooke) but alas, it didn't last long given we all needed to get up at 5:30 AM. I was the first to head to bed at about 9:30 and I think everyone was in bed by 10. 5:30 AM still came too quickly.

Wrangling 10 people that early in the morning, with only two bathrooms, made for quite a feat, but we did get out the door just after 6:30 AM, which was 10 minutes past our planned departure time. While we were literally 10 minutes from Squaw Valley and our start time wasn't until 9 AM, ToughMudder recommends arriving two hours before your start time to compensate for traffic, transportation shuttles and lines at registration. So we technically needed to be there by 7 AM and not knowing how traffic would be to get in and up to Squaw Valley, we wanted to leave early just in case.

We quickly found out there wasn't a huge need. Parking and traffic weren’t an issue at all. Cameron and I breezed through registration, but some of our teammates did have to deal with some pretty long lines. The people-watching was amazing. ToughMudder encourages outrageousness – there’s a costume contest and a Mullet & Mohawk contest. There's even a tent where people can get Mohawks shaved right then and there. We saw people dressed up in everything from Harry Potter to a banana to a bride and groom on up to guys wearing nothing more than a speedo or loin cloth. I saw a lot of bare bottoms along the course thanks to those loin cloths, some of which looked raw thanks to the side effects of many of the obstacles.

Cameron spray painted his hair and bear white to be silly.


The next two hours seemed to drag on. There was a lot of waiting around before we finally headed toward the start line. Some of the waiting involved the fact that we didn't want to give up our bags until the last possible second. More of the waiting involved the registration process taking different amounts of time for each of our teammates and people running to bathrooms or cars. And yet still, on our way to the start line, many of us made beelines for the porta-potties one last time. This would be our last "bathroom" until we ended the course. Not that that didn't stop any one from making their own bathroom when it was needed.

We'd been joined by the last three of our teammates at registration - Kelley, Brett & Trina. The 13 of us were together, stretching and jumping around before the start gun. Before the gun, the announcer provided us with some words of encouragement and reminders for safety. Mainly, we needed to know that we could opt out of any obstacle – all we had to do to qualify as a finisher was to cross the finish line. If, at any point in time, we wanted to stop and get off the course without finishing, we just needed to throw up our arms in an X above our head.

After a quick reminder that Tough Mudder events are not races but tests of endurance, strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie, the National Anthem was played and then we were off. I think there was a gun but I really don’t remember.

Stay tuned for my next post about my experience with the first half of the course.

A Silly Group Shot Before the Event