Down and Dirty

By Megan on March 7, 2012 • ( 0 )

On this visit home with my parents my mom has been inquiring about this “Tough Mudder” thing I am doing. I had yet to send her the link to the the race because I know she would have a small melt down. Well I caved. There were plenty of oh how can you do this, you are crazy and are there going to be paramedics to make sure you don’t die? Oh and by the way has any one died doing this? Needless to say she is worried and doesn’t understand why I am doing this and why I would pay to do it.

Now for my opinion, I am psyched out of my fanny pack to be doing the Tough Mudder. Seeing the pictures of people dominating / being rocked by this course is enough to to get my adrenaline flowing.

How FUN does that look!?! It must be a generation thing, I think people in their 20s/30s now are a bit more of adrenaline freaks than the 40/50 crowd ever were. My mom also has a closet of cute shoes and I am excited that I have 5 sweet pairs of running shoes in rotation right now. I went shopping this week too and just bought some AWESOME new gym gear. I haven’t treated myself to anything new in the realm of work out clothes in a while so I was stoked to get some really snazzy sports bras and running pants. I’m pretty pumped for the summer months when I can start trotting around outside sans shirt and showing off my bright fuchsia sports bras. Get ready DC metro area.

I finally ended up reading through the list of obstacles for the event and am a little nervous about a few of them:

Now the monkey bars may not seem like the scariest thing in the world but for some one with shoulders like mine I am slightly nervous. I have what is called multidirectional instability of the ligaments. So that means I am double jointed, can dislocate things at will, will sometimes wake up and realize my shoulder has been popped out all night or that sleeping funny on my wrist has caused it to be dislocated also. It’s a hoot and a hollar. Also made raising my hand in class a total bitch because my shoulder would be exhausted ASAP. It has taken a lot of hard work over the last year or so to get my shoulder to the point where I can do push ups now (still so exciting) and I do lots of shoulder exercises to tighten the muscles around the joint to keep that bad boy in shape. None the less the monkey bars are terrifying. I’ve decided to start hitting up some playgrounds to practice though. I do fear that my height (5’7″) will prove to be a bit much for the pint sized monkey bars made for average children. We shall see.

And the rope climb. Ugh. I have all the faith in the world in my legs to pull me through the hellish course and I’m hoping that I can use them for this rope climb. I don’t have any means to a rope of this sorts to practice so basically I’m screwed. If you can think of anything that would prove to be an effective training for this type of event please pleaseeee don’t be shy and comment. I will love you forever. As I was reading through the obstacles with my mom she suggested tying my own knots in the rope, some how I don’t think that will fly.

Work outs this week, 10 miles yesterday, 30 minute Tough Mudder Circuit today, planning a quick 5 mile run at 7am tomorrow – LASIK is at 9am and then I get a Valium and instructions to sleep for the day wooo, and then hopefully I can get back to the gym / outside Friday. I am hoping to get another 10 mile run in Friday or Saturday with the buddy I ran with Tuesday. I want to break 1:30 like you wouldn’t believe and I think he can definitely help me do it. Dream big!!

Hope every one is having a good week and if you have any thoughts on the rope climb please do share : ) Or any advice if you are Tough Mudder veteran. All words of encouragement are greeted with much happiness!

-m