141 Days...the Most Heroic Mudder.

The total number of days between Friday, May 17th, 2013 and Saturday, October 5th, 2013 is 141 days.  I tore my Achilles on the 8th of May, but I didn't have surgery until the 17th, so that's the date that I'm using as the starting point for my recovery.  That means that it was 20 weeks and 1 day, or 4 months and 18 days, between my surgery and my first Mudder.  I'm not sure how impressive that is, but for an injury that is supposed to take as much as 18 months before you're fully yourself again, I feel pretty good about it. 

A couple thoughts:

Me and Simon (first time Mudder) after crossing the finish line

• The venue in Seattle was absolutely beautiful.  It was just over 11 miles, and was run in a Quarry.  It didn't have any new obstacles, but it tested my ability as much as any other course so far.  There were A LOT of blackberry bushes, and they could have caused some serious headaches with all of their thorns, but otherwise the course was very nice.
• I was expecting the course to be more mountainous, but it ended up being relatively flat and wooded.  There were a few steep inclines, but nothing too bad.  The worst part of the inclines was a series of slides and climbs out of a watery ditch.  The sides of the slope were so steep it was impossible to go slowly, and most people ended up sliding down into the ankle-deep water at the bottom of 15-foot inclines.  I refused to slide because I didn't know what the water held and I didn't want to hurt my ankle, so I ended up going really slow. 

Approaching the Electroshock Terapy, the finish line and beer!

• Speaking about the series of inclines, this was perhaps the silliest obstacle in terms of causing a backup and injuries.  While I was doing them, we had at least one person require medical assistance (in fact, I was able to throw my first X up).  When we came back around the course and stopped at a water station relatively close by, we were told that injuries had been happening all day long at that obstacle - one of the girls at the water station said she had been there 10 minutes and medical had been needed 3 times in that 10 minutes.
• My ankle held up pretty well.  Although I fell while doing the rings, the only obstacle I felt beat me was Everest.  I made an attempt, but I couldn't get enough speed to really do it.  I probably could have tried again, but I kind of jammed my foot while going back down the ramp so I figured I'd live to fight another day.

The official Seattle TM Course map.

• The electrical obstacles weren't all that bad.  I got zapped on Electroshock Therapy, but I didn't get hit at all on the electric eel.  Hopefully, that's not simply tempting the electrical currents in my next event to hit me extra hard.
• I came out of my Saturday run with relative few bruises.  The only two bruises I had were caused by carrying a rather bulky waterproof video camera in my pocket...it would bounce around while I was running and caused two pretty big bruises on my thighs.  I think I could have done the Sunday run, which I had registered for, but I would have had to run it by myself.  That's not nearly as much fun as it might sound, so I decided I would spend time with my sister, niece and father.
• This was the first mudder that I've run where spectators came to see me run.  My father, sister and niece were in attendance, and got to enjoy the 2-mile spectator route through the course.  I think it was as muddy as what I had to run, but they seemed to enjoy it.
• I still can't believe that I'm the first one of the three authors of this blog to actually complete a Tough Mudder course since my injury.  That's gotta count for something.  

Our custom has been to provide a superlative for each of the mudders that we run.  For example, Wintergreen was The Toughest, Mid-Atlantic was The Windiest, and Miami was The Coldest.  When Danny asked me what the superlative for Seattle was, without hesitation I said it was the Most Heroic.  Running a Tough Mudder with a surgically repaired Achilles less than 5 months after surgery is easily worth 3 headbands, but I wish the boys luck this weekend with their little Blackjack - if the weather allows it, of course.