I'm Retiring...

from ever running a race at Wintergreen again.

We have just returned from the Super Spartan at the infamous Wintergreen Ski Resort.  It is hard for me to imagine that people go there to vacation because my only three visits have been to run races which have been the three toughest to date.  The trip to Wintergreen marked our return to where this journey started and it could be described exactly in the way that A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens begins.

             It was the best of times,          It was the worst of times

                             

The course was just as grueling as I remember it.  My course time has improved each time I have ventured back to the course.  This time the group of three finished in the top 8% of nearly 6,500 racers on Saturday.  That's not bad for a group that typically would reside on a couch just a few short years ago.  This is possibly the most important leadership lesson there is.  Anything is possible if you just have the courage to start.  What began as a dare has turned into a life-changing experience that continues to unfold before us.  We are already plotting and planning for 2015 and we still have many races left this year.  

There were times that I conquered the course such as nailing my spear throw for the first time ever!  There were times that the course conquered me like the monkey bars and the traverse walls.  Even in failure I got further on the traverse wall than ever before.  Unfortunately I have been cursed with big feet which make fitting on the little blocks quite difficult.

That's the beautiful thing about these events.  You can appear down and out or stronger than ever within moments of each other.  If you need further proof of what I'm talking about then look at the two photos below taken moments after each other.  In the photo on the left look at the bottom right corner to see me resting on my long.

                                       

Wintergreen continues to challenge me in ways that other courses never do but I have come to the conclusion that I am retiring from this course.  I'm taking my talents to places and courses that I've yet to run along with some favorite course along the way.  We may even follow Pat's lead and take this entire adventure global in 2015.

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Wintergreen Wonderings

We are two short days from our return to Wintergreen.  For those long time readers (both of you) this is where the whole journey started.  We were different people then.  For further proof just look at Exhibit A below:

Exhibit A

This return to the venue that started it all has brought back a number of flashbacks from the first visit.  This course still stands as the most brutal course we have ever taken on.  We are not alone in this feeling.  Anyone who took on the Wintergreen mudder talks about it in the same respect.  Many questions or Wintergreen Wonderings come to mind as the race nears.

• Will this race hold up to the original race?
• Will I be able to take more than ten steps at a time?
• Will the race come to a grinding halt as we run right into a hill?
• Will the Super Spartan contain as much fun and excitement as the Tough Mudder did?
• Will DC and I be able to hit the spear target in less than 20 tries?
• Will Pat T sprint even faster now that he has a timing chip on his leg?
• Will I spend the entire event telling people that I'm retiring from Wintergreen racing?
• Will the camelback sloshing become too much and cause an international incident on the course?

Pat and DC can certainly add additional wonderings.  I'm just excited to test myself on the course that started it all with the two people that got me mixed up in this life-changing experience in the first place.  Hopefully, we will capture some good footage and get an updated Wintergreen group shot for comparisons.  T minus 2 days!

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Done and Dusted

I don't care what you think about selfies...
if you get a chance to pet a Koala, you're taking a picture.

Greetings from Brisbane. As one of my last tasks in Australia, I wanted to put up a post about my "Down Under Mudder." Two laps at the Sunshine Coast Tough Mudder are in the books, and I must say, it was glorious and ludicrous at the same time.  I went out with the 8:00 wave, and finished the first lap in just under 2 hours.  I wasn't able to get into the 10:00 am start wave and had to wait to go out with the 10:15 group.  If everything had broken my way, I might have been able to get back around for the 12:15 (and final) start time, but it very quickly became apparent that wasn't in the cards.

Obviously, the course was much more crowded during the second lap, but the biggest impediment was the weather.  For one day, and one day only, the Sunshine Coast was grossly misnamed.  It rained steadily throughout the day, and what would have been a pretty standard course under better conditions because an 18 kilometer-long mud pit.

 I took video, but the sound quality is pretty bad because I didn't want to take my camera out of its waterproof casing.  For the vast majority of the time (I would say maybe 95% of the time) we were running in ankle-deep mud.  It was like running through wet cement the entire time.  Slippery mud, hidden holes, lots of folks, and steady rain made it pretty difficult to make good time on the second lap. 

Having said all that, I must say, I enjoyed most everything about it.  Yes, the weather was crappy, and, yes, I would have liked to have done the elusive Triple, but those things pale in comparison to the joy of sloshing around in the muddiest Mudder I've ever done.  I only had to fly halfway around the world to do it, but there's something about having to run through a lake right before Everest or climb up and over muddy mounds of dirt in Camel Humps to make a 42-year old dude feel like a 16-year old kid again.  I'd do it again in a heartbeat. 

Now, on to Wintergreen next weekend.  

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Upside-Down Mudder

I'm in Australia for some work, and was able to arrange my schedule so that I'll be able to run the Sunshine Coast TM event this coming weekend.  It should be a blast, although I'm not quite sure how many people to expect.  There seem to be a whole bunch of folks who did it last year, but I have yet to talk with anyone who is doing it this year (although, I will say that I overheard a girl on the train talking about preparing for it, so there's always that).  The earliest start time is 8:00, unless you want to pay extra for the exclusive opportunity to run starting at dawn, and the last wave leaves at 12:15.  That doesn't seem like too many starting waves, but I have been told that this is the largest TM in the world, so perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

I have an "official" start time, but my goal is to go out with the first way at 8, do a second lap and then see if I'm back in time to do a third lap with the final starting wave at 12:15.  It will definitely be tight, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it.  Much will depend on the course, and having to essentially run 2 2-hour laps back to back might be too much to accomplish.  Either way, I'll get a second lap in, which will give me my 18th and 19th orange headbands, which I will politely ask them to put on upside down since I'm running "Down Under".  A third lap would give me my 20th headband, which I might just wear home on the plane on Monday if I get it.

According to the course map, I'll have a couple new obstacles that we haven't encountered on a regular Tough Mudder course before.  I'll have Sewage Outlet (I'm not sure what to expect from this in reality), Leap of Faith (which is different from the WTM Leap of Faith - thankfully), and Fire in Your Hole (which should be a blast, but doesn't even have a page of its own on the TM website yet).  I'll also have another shot at Hanging Tough, which - hopefully - won't include a rope midway across like it did on the Legionnaire Loop in Virginia.

I'll give an update once I'm done - but either way, whether I get to do three or have to "settle" for two laps - it should be a lot easier to do Everest upside down - after all, isn't it just a slide then?  Or, maybe I'm misunderstanding how gravity works on the bottom of the planet. 

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