So many people had signed up for this Norcal event that there were 12 heats of 350 people for both Saturday and Sunday. Each wave would begin with a few chants, the national anthem, followed by a real Scottish bag piper before the mayhem would begin. The course was a little over 7 miles of up and down steep, terrain through the ski resort. Along the course there were 19 military obstacles along the way.
The beginning of the course consisted of a lot of crawling in the mud, climbing over walls and jumping over large pinwheels. Then after a few miles of steep terrain there were haystacks you had to jump over while climbing up the hillside. And to top it off, they turned on the snow blowers so that there was water practically knocking you over as you did this. That one was a doozy! The middle part of the course consisted of more extremely steep running followed by pits of mud, larger walls to get over and an old school bus with ropes you had to ascend and safely make it over. After the school bus my friends and I were definitely wet, muddy and tired. We were also pretty disappointed to have to start running downhill because we knew what that meant. After we got back to the near bottom of the backside of the ski resort we then had to proceed to the top again. Once we reached the top there were more 15 ft walls to get over followed by perhaps the sweetest yet most painful obstacle of the course. Slip n'slide into the snow making pond, followed by having to submerge yourself to swim under a couple of barrels. Once we got across the pond we had to turn around and do it again. Lets just say going fully under in the water at 8,000+ feet in the sierras this time of year was very shocking.
The last couple miles of the course was filled with carrying logs of wood, climbing up and down 20 ft. fences and some more crawling in mud. When we made it to the final stretch we had a mystery obstacle of taking a shot of hot sauce before we got to run through fire and cross the finish line. Having been a rookie and not having much experience in even running races I'd say this was a lot of fun. The event was all about camaraderie and testing yourself in more ways than one. It was physically challenging but the fun level outweighed any pain.
I highly recommend this event and think the more friends you have with you the better. Check out the schedule and sign up for en event near you at ToughMudder.com. ToughMudder is a supporter of the wounded warrior project and raised over $90,000 for the foundation just this past weekend.