OCD FOR OCR

For the third year in a row, I was able to make it to the Tri-State NJ Tough Mudder and after a one-year hiatus, Tough Mudder returned back to the Raceway Park, Englishtown venue to host the race/event.

• Pre-race MC:

It was a wet and rainy morning and the second day of the race weekend, but Tough Mudder MC Sean Corvelle still killed it and inspired and fired up the race wave. As I have come to expect, he was high energy and inspiring even though the weather was not the greatest.

• The Course:

As noted above, it rained most of the day and poured cats and dogs most of the night at the venue, so the course was drastically different than it had been on Saturday. I know, because I asked a few of my friends that ran both days and they all agreed Sunday was a more challenging course due to the increased mud throughout the entire course (trails, dirt race tracks, and obstacles). The course was a total of just over ten-miles and one observation I want to make is the mile markers were almost all exactly spot on with my GPS watch, which was a first!

The course started out with a brief sprint into a wooded trail section and the first obstacle up was “Bale Bonds” which is a series of large spool shaped hay-bales to hurdle/jump over. The course continued on and just past the one-mile marker and up next was “Pitfall”, which was a muddy water trench crossing. The course continued on back into the trails and had a challenging natural trench crossing, the next challenge was “Hero Carry”, which has racers carry one another and swap half-way. Just past the two-mile marker came the next obstacle, “Pyramid Scheme”, which was a slippery inclined wall, that required teamwork to get up. I was happy to have two really strong racers at the top that helped lift me up. I paid it forward and helped about five or six racers get up as well before continuing on my merry way!

At this point, the course had another long trail run and arrived to “Birth Canal”, which is a crawl under several strong hanging plastic wraps filled with heavy water and racers have to worm underneath each section. The course again continued on for a long sprint and just prior to the three-mile marker came to “The Block Ness Monster”, which I remember from last year’s World’s Toughest Mudder, the obstacle was a series of two rotating barriers in water that requires teamwork to get them rotating in the water while racers hold on and rotate with it. I arrived with a group that wasn’t familiar with this obstacle, so I took control and coached them to help us all get over both sections. The course continued  on and up next was the barbed-wire crawl obstacle “Kiss of Mud 2.0” and then after another short sprint came to TM’s version of an inverted wall, “Skidmarked” just up ahead was “Mud Mile 2.0” and I am not sure how hard it was Saturday, but on Sunday with all the rain, it was pretty brutal and most of the racers skipped the mud walking/crawling section and walked on the right side of it, while several of us labored through it.

At this point, the course passed the four-mile marker and just ahead was “Devil’s Beard”, which is a low net crawl. The next few obstacles were: “King of the Mountain”, which was hay-bales stacked several rows high, to climb up and back down, “Berlin Walls”, which is TM’s version of high walls to climb up and over, and then “Everest 2.0”, TM’s warped wall, that is designed to again involve teamwork. The course now came to the five-mile marker and a split, the half-mudder course finish line was to the right and the left continued on for the remainder of the full course! The course now had about a half-mile sprint and eventually arrived to “Quagmire”, which was another mud mounds and muddy water trench crossing, after another sprint, it was time for “The Liberator” (for first time Tough Mudder’s) or a modified version called “Back Stabber” for Legionnaire racers (have completed more than one Tough Mudder), both versions are angled walls to climb with the assistance of hand pegs that racers insert into peg holes as they climb, the main difference  between the two obstacles is the “The Liberator” uses a series of two pegs and two peg holes, while “Back stabber” uses just one peg and a series of peg holes dead middle of the climb.

The course spent a lot of time on the venues dirt motorcycle tracks and at this point was on them as well and up next was “Cliff hanger”, which was a climb up a wet and muddy section of the track that was pretty slippery on a rainy day. Up next was “Lumberjacked”, which was a series of high logs suspended to climb up and over and again this was a teamwork inspires obstacle. It was time for another long sprint and just prior to mile # seven, was “Rain Man” & “Cage Crawl”, which were shut down on Sunday due to safety concerns. I completely agree with them shutting the obstacles down, but I was looking forward to “Rain Man”.  Just up ahead was “Funky Monkey 2.0” which starts with a monkey bar section, then transitions to swinging bar and finishes up with a straight bar traverse.

The course looped around for a while and made its way to “Arctic Enema 2.0”, which is TM’s ice water obstacle that starts with a slide under a chain-link fence and then jumping over a wall while still in the water and then racers exit. The course now surpassed eight miles in distance and up next was “Mineshafted”, which started with a slide down a black drainage pipe and then a very short crawl in muddy water and ended with having to get up a very slippery angled wall, this was another teamwork required obstacle and I received help and made sure to help a few others as well. Up next was “Balls to the Wall”, which is a wall climb with the assistance of both a rope and notches in the wall. After another long sprint and passing mile  nine, it was time for the large wooden log carry, “Hold you wood 2.0″, which for me being solo, was pretty tough, the log I picked was large and heavy and it took time to carry it the entire loop and toss it over a wall and also through a hole in a wall, while doing this obstacle my TM bracelet got caught in the log and over tightened on my wrist cutting off the circulation to my hand.

At this point, the course looped around and went around a large pond and I started to lose feeling in my hand and the color started to not look so good, so when I arrived to the next obstacle, “King of the Swingers” all I cared about was finding someone with either scissors or a knife, thankfully, the lifeguard staff had a utility straight razor and they cut the dreaded band off my wrist. Now with my hand throbbing and no grip strength, I continued on and the course made my way to the Mudder Village, and the last two obstacles: “Frequent Flyers’ Club” (for Legionnaires only) and “Electroshock Therapy” and then the finish line!

• The Bling:

The bling includes an orange 2016 finisher headband and if eligible, other color headbands and a stylish gray dri-fit type finisher shirt.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I am happy I ran on Sunday rather than Saturday because the rain made for a more challenging course and the temperature was almost perfect for me. I actually wouldn’t have minded if it was a little colder.

I enjoyed the course, my only complaint is the new red-light/green-light wrist bands that TM is using, I understand the need for them, but to design it so it only tightens and cannot be loosened and requires being cut off, on an obstacle course doesn’t make sense to me and as happened to me, it can get caught on something and over-tighten and depending on where it happened on the course, it could take time to find someone with the tools to remove it. I suggest a better/safer design going forward.

I enjoyed the course, the volunteers and staff on a rainy day did a great job all day, MC Sean Corvelle killed it as always, the new finisher shirts are nice, and the obstacles were, as always all solid and safe, I am rating the event/course a 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Article Written by: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)