Throwback Thursday: Tri-State Tough Mudder 2013

As we make final preparations for another Mudder at the historic Raceway Park in New Jersey, I grew nostalgic and found some epic shots from our time there last year. This race was one for the Year in the Mud Record books. It was the first ever completed Black Jack run (2 laps on Saturday and 1 on Sunday) plus the first ever quadruple completion of Funky Monkey. When I say Funky Monkey I mean the old, real Funky Monkey where the wood bar handles rotated as you grabbed them. 

For this year's race, team Year in the Mud will again be without one of its founding members. He will be missed and we will have to look for ways of celebrating his name during the run. 

Hope to see you all on the course. If you see one of us on the course, give us a shout out. 

First Ever Quadruple - Brian

Second Ever Quadruple - Danny

 

No Caption Necessary

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I Can’t Hang

Virginia Tough Mudder 2014

First of all – let me take a quick moment to allay any fears I may have created with the title of this post. This is in no way a post about an impending retirement. There has been enough of that talk and I have chastised those needing chastisement.

Nor is it a post about my inability to keep up with the younger generation as I ease into the ripe old age of 41. Frankly, it is way too much fun to continue to celebrate my birthday in the cold November mud with my extended World’s Toughest Mudder family. This year in Vegas will be the second year I get to spend my birthday doing an activity I’ve grown to love. You think TMHQ would have an award for most birthdays celebrated.

This is simply a post about me and the beautiful things I continue to learn as I push on to the next race and beyond. Frankly, races and competing aside, why would I retire? I couldn’t be happier with the physical changes I see in the mirror each morning. In comparison to that guy who took on Tough Mudder Wintergreen back in 2011, I look and feel like a completely different person. 

This year, in my preparation for Vegas, I’ve lost 30 pounds. It took a little longer than one would expect, but I guess I finally got tired of carrying that 30 pound weight around each course. Some people carry extra-large stuffed animals and for others it may be a large section of a dead tree. For me it was not even something I could show off appropriately – just 30 pounds of fat. I now stand before the mirror each morning at a strapping 179 pounds with 175 in sight. Honestly I can’t remember the last time I looked this good or felt this good. The reassuring thing is that I have been assured that it will now be even easier to throw me over Berlin Walls as we head into the early morning hours of WTM. 

Virginia Tough Mudder 2014

Without OCR though, I never would have had any reason, of course other than wanting to be here to walk my daughters down the aisle one day, to take the weight off. And with each new race there is no doubt that eating better and pushing the workouts has improved my performance. This time at Wintergreen Super Spartan I was a wall climbing, barb wire crawling, log carrying monster. You can take that 75 pound bucket of gravel and shove it though. That is going on the shoulder!

The weight loss has led to some great improvements in my overall strength. For those constant readers out there, you may remember that I personally have had several internal debates about different types of workout strategies since we started the blog. There have posts rating different workout routines, all of them that will get you drippin’, and even discussions on how we planned to become stronger runners – that one is still a work in progress. One thing I have come to realize though is the fact that I really don’t like going to a gym. This is probably more so because I just can’t build it regularly into my schedule, but I would much rather work out around the house when I have the time to fit it in. One day it might be in the morning, and another day after my girls are in bed. But I have found it so much easier for me to walk out to the garage than it is for me to actually get out of the house. I know that may sound terribly lazy, but that’s just the way it is.

Of course, this has made it nearly impossible for me to engage in more regular workout programs such as a regular Crossfit routine, but it has allowed me to mix and match different ideas to create programs that work for me. So over the past year I have been focusing almost exclusively on body weight exercises. My program today consists of 200 regular push-ups (sets of 30 with each set followed by a door jamb pull up – this are quite brutal I might add but needed as I’ll discuss in a second), 100 wide arm push-ups, 100 pull-ups over the course of the work day, and tabata finger-tip planks (20 seconds with 90 second rest). Just doing the push-ups and pull-ups has produced great improvements. For the guy who maxed out at 5 pull-ups (with a leg kick on the last couple) to the guy who can get 15 pull-ups. Personally this is just an amazing accomplishment for me. I was always the kid who couldn’t do pull-ups and wouldn’t even attempt the rope climb.

What I have find most interesting though are the lessons I’ve learned about myself along the way. It actually has become quite funny that I continue to find things I can’t do. If I take a few days rest and jump up on a pull-up bar, I can easily crank out 12. I say crank out because I still hate the dang things. But even with this new strength, I’ve learned something about myself – I Can’t Freakin’ Hang!!

https://toughmudder.com/obstacles/hangin-tough

Our constant readers will have read about my Hangin’ Tough albatross. For those of you new to the world of Tough Mudder, you can read all you would like about this lovely obstacle on Tough Mudder's Web site.Probably the only Tough Mudder obstacle I have not completed. I am sure my Mudda Bruddas will correct me on that one if I’ve spoken in error. Yes – Twinkle Toes is behind me. My goal has been to improve my core, build up my arm strength, and I would finally put that obstacle behind me as well. But I had quite an enlightening experience last weekend.  

Virginia Spartan Spring 2014

My weekend is the time when I focus on my longer runs or some swimming. As I was heading out for a run, I happened to look up at the rings installed in my garage, installed for the single purpose of completing Hangin’ Tough, and thought about seeing how much I’d improved at simply swinging back and forth on them. You know that little rhythm you work to swing to the next ring. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would have improved – for goodness sake, I’m doing sets of 10 pull-ups.

As soon as I hopped up on them, a sense of wonder filled the air. I could do it. I have never been able to gather any momentum on these things, but now the tide had turned. I had arrived and ready to transfer my hands. And that is where the joy ended. While I can swing, I apparently still can’t hang like a monkey from one arm. I don’t have any idea whether it is strength in the arm, back, core, grip, or whatever – I just simply can’t hang.  It is hard to put into words just how frustrating that realization was. After all the work it seems I am no closer to swinging from these rings than I was 4 weeks ago. (Well that is not entirely true, but I don’t see myself completing this obstacle after 4 laps of the WTM this year either.)

What I found most interesting though, as a little time brings some perspective, is not the fact that I couldn’t do something, but the fact that I learned something new about my strength that I never would have known before. Understanding that I can’t hang could only be realized once I got the pull-up monkey off my back, and just when you climb over one peak, there is another one staring right back at you. But, in truth, this is a weakness I simply was unable to diagnose two years ago when simply crossing Funkey Monkey was the challenge. So in a way, with a few days to reflect that is, it has become this rather satisfying failure that has allowed me to gather some new focus on where I am physically and where I actually want to be when I do one day hang up my OCR gear and announce my retirement.

As is common in many of my posts, we all can decide what that special tough mudder is we want to chase in life. I must admit though that I am still working to love the baby steps and all the unforeseen hurdles that rear their ugly little head when you start to believe that you’ve gotten somewhere. Learning to appreciate the journey and lessons learned along the way become as important as actually getting off the couch and planning to conquer that tough mudder in the first place.

How much more relevant is it for those of us in leadership positions. And by “those of us” I mean all of us because leadership is not any particular position in an organization but a role that you as an individual can choose to take on if you are passionate enough. These little setbacks, or learnings as they eventually become, can either make us give up or they can inspire us to realize that we still haven’t crossed the finish line quite yet. We are simply on another leg of that Death March and there is just a bit more climbing to do. (Death March I curse thee!!!)

Can't want to see what's next!

http://homebrewedtheology.com/whats-next.php

 

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