Spittin' Mud

(Contributed by Mitch Greene)

A few years back my dad and I entered a race called the Tough Mudder. Not a problem for real men like us, right? Wrong. See, the problem was that it was about 46 degrees out with complete cloud coverage and a very significant amount of wind. So, it was cold.No big deal for us! The cold was very manageable…. when we were dry. There was an obstacle about a third of the way through the 10-mile race where we went down a slide into a dumpster of ice water. Once we were in, we had to dive under several boards, ensuring we would be completely soaked. The water was that take-your-breath-away cold and made you panic immediately. The only thought when we got in was, “GET OUT NOW!” 

As soon as we got out of the ice water, all the heat we had left was gone, and the wind felt more like needles of freezing air, stripping away any heat we could generate. It was another 6-miles minimum to the finish, and we were getting colder by the second. The obstacle at the 7.5-mile mark had us crawling through cold mud pits.  It was here that my mother got a glorious picture of me in the action of spitting out a glob of mud.

We were dirty, tired and most of all freezing to our bones when we came to the final quarter-mile. This last stretch was at the top of the hill where there were no trees, and the wind could finish us off.

The last 20 minutes were the most painful I have ever experienced. The wind went straight through us, and our bodies were getting so cold that the muscles in our legs wouldn’t contract correctly, making it hard to walk. We limped and stumbled our way to the finish. I don’t even remember much of what happened after that, other than being wrapped in an aluminum blanket and laying on the ground shivering.

It was the most excruciating thing I’ve experienced and yet… I am so glad it happened, and I would do it again. I feel that a lot of people would look back on that experience and call it awful, but in my mind, it was an adventure. I am going to be telling this story for a long time.

No matter how painful and challenging things get, remember: it is an adventure to live and a great story to tell.