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.