The Mudder of the Family

For the past 6 weeks, we've been training for Tough Mudder Kentucky.  It's a 12 mile extreme obstacle course that includes underwater tunnels, plunging into ice water, climbing over and under fallen trees and tires, running through fire, scaling high walls, navigating your way through ropes and nets and it all concludes with a sprint through live electrical wires.  This shouldn't be called Tough Mudder.  It should be Crazy Mudder, cuz we actually paid money to do it. 

Once again, my husband and I have taken different training approaches.  He's spent the past 6 weeks running.  He can get away with that.  But being the paranoid detailed woman that I am, I did my research on the Mudder site and printed off their Tough Mudder Boot Camp regimen.  It's 5 circuits of varying strength and cardio exercises while running a mile between each circuit 3 days a week.  It takes roughly 2 hours a day.  So Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays became known as 'Mudder 5 n 5's' and then I rotate between kickboxing, elliptical, P90X, swimming, biking and weight lifting on all the "off" days.  Thank goodness I'm not a working mudder, because there wouldn't be enough hours in the day.

The closer we get to this event the more nervous I become.  My biggest fear is not being able to keep up with the rest of our team (all of whom are under 30 years old) and that I'll die a slow and agonizing death alone with my feet tangled in ropes and my head stuck in cold mud.
Bear with me, people.  I'm physically exhausted.

I finally shared my fear with my husband and we decided to make a pact.  We were sitting at a stop light in the van and he turned to me and said, "I promise to stay by your side the whole time no matter what."  I repeated that back to him, we shook hands and K started a slow and awkward clap from the backseat.  I feel like we might have just renewed our vows.  I think the government would call it 'No Mudder Left Behind.'

It had the desired effect and my mind was put at ease.  At the end of the day, he would be there to cut me out of the ropes and give me CPR. 

So imagine how upsetting it was when he stepped on a freaking landscaping spike this morning, exactly one week before the big day.  Deep puncture wound right through the bottom of his foot.  Thankfully, there is nothing broken and no permanent damage, but he's under strict orders to keep it clean and dry until it's healed.
"So, doctor....what are your feelings on mud and water?"

He plans to rest it all week and pray for fast healing.  On Friday he'll do a test mile run and see how it feels before making his final decision.

Everyone is asking me the same question:  "Will you still run it if he can't?"

Now hear this:  Next week, this stay-at-home-mudder is traveling to Kentucky to put my training to the test, come hell or high water.

....and rest assured, it's gonna be hell and there will be high water....