It was almost exactly two years ago today: Saturday, February 9, 2013. According to the National Weather Service, Weather Underground, and Accuweather, it was 41.3 degrees F. in Temecula, California, 10 below normal.
But they were wrong. It was actually 0 degrees F. I should know. On that day I was there on the cruel peaks of this about-to-be wine country*, dripping mud, gazing at the pitiless iron grey sky with a wild surmise and freezing my ass off.
It all started the year before...
*Temecula is about 60 miles north of San Diego. It's been avocado country and casino country and of course, we-don't-want-mosques-here country. But it's morphing once again, into a Sunset magazine vision of goat cheese and bruschetta and pinot noir.
Summer 2012. My youngest brother, a mere tad of 59 called (for purposes of this account) Duck, completes a Tough Mudder™ (12 mile obstacle course) in Lake Tahoe and carries on about it for weeks, flooding his siblings' emails and cellphones with pictures and vivid accounts which feature his triumph over huge obstacles, rough terrain, enormous elevation gains and of course mud™. I disregard these paeons, as do my siblings. So far so good.
Late October 2012. Get together with subcommittee of siblings featuring my brother's screwdrivers and sister-in-law's godlike hors d'eouvres followed by night on the town in San Francisco. In cold light of the following morning, discover that I've agreed to participate, with Duck, his stepdaughter and her boyfriend, in Tough Mudder experience.
November 2012. Google Tough Mudder™ and discover what appears to be the realm of Special Forces wannabes seeking Community. Being neither, am nonplussed. However, website is beguiling and assures me that I do indeed want to Accomplish this physical and mental feat and win the coveted Orange Headband by running 10 to 12 miles and addressing fearsome obstacles on the way, and by the way, you can opt out of any obstacle. Am impressed by assurances that you are competing only with YOURSELF and will not be timed. Website asserts that everyone helps everyone else, which seems nice. Website also implies, without actually saying, that those who meet the Tough Mudder™ challenge are really cool people and everyone will want to hang out with them. Enchanted by this, I forget that Duck seems pretty much the same as he was before the Tahoe Tough Mudder™.
Early November 2012. Begin training. Though utterly without agility or upper body strength, I have always been able to run forever. Therefore go on long runs interspersed with Billy Blanks Advanced Tae Bo Workout (the original). Decide against method urged on website of beginning each workout by pouring ice water over self. Mistake, as it turns out.
December 2012. Try to get other family members and friends to sign up so we can all be really cool together. Meet unyielding wall of no.
February 9. Game day. Duck has signed us up for an early start time so the course won't be all chewed up. Good idea except weather. Cold, wet, and I'm in running shorts and a T shirt because the website says you want to wear stuff that will dry out quickly.
Would-be Mudders are directed to a corral. First hint that this may not be my thing is discovery that you have to get over a five foot wall in order to get into the corral. Once in, we are exhorted by very talented enthusiast who has us cheer for military participants, firefighter participants, cop participants, cancer survivor participants, and many, many others. Duck and I try to raise a cheer for criminal defense lawyer participants and teacher participants without success. Mudders are mostly young chest thumping men, with healthy sprinkling of young women, and soupcon of older people who have clearly spent their lives running ultramarathons and eating granola. A 63 year old vertically challenged bookworm, I feel distinctly out of place.
Run begins with rousing cheer from lucky spectators. Corral opens. Everyone in our group of 50 or so surges out of corral and begins running.
Course is directly up and directly down steep, dusty, rocky hillsides. Beginning of course is up the very steepest hillside and goes on beyond what I can see. Within 90 seconds I stop running and hike. My team disappears way, way ahead of me. I am attacked by profound uncertainty about this whole escapade.
First obstacle is giant wall that you're supposed to scale. I am lifted over it by team members. Huge guilt because I panic and become dead weight. Elect to avoid all additional giant walls (there are many) out of consideration for Team.
Another obstacle! Big ditch of muddy water with electrified wires dangling down to 12 inches above bottom. I can do this! Cleverly avoid all electrical shocks except when heedless bozo flings himself through the ditch at top speed, sloshing water and shocks all over everyone else. Others remain stoic; I scream, "YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!" He makes apologetic moue and runs away. Very cool woman next to me has a big body and gets shocked a lot on the butt. Greets each shock with a scream and a belly laugh.
Am now soaking wet and temp has dropped. Sun peers out briefly a couple times over the next two hours and then flees, pursued by wailing from toiling crowd. I continue to get wet.
Fall off balance beam challenge into icy mud.
Fall off hand over hand challenge into icy mud.
Fall off wall traverse challenge into icy mud.
Slog triumphantly through icy mud hill challenge!
Swim under three obstacles in icy lake (where did they get a lake)? Jump into giant truck bed full of ICE CUBES and ice water and duck under more obstacles. Ice cubes crowding the far end make it hard to get out but I launch myself over them and team members are there to help. Can no longer feel extremities or remember name. Luckily ID number has been written on forehead per Mudder custom.
Lots of camaraderie, just as promised on website. Chats with other participants while scrambling up and plunging downhill to next horrible obstacle. Cheers for injured participants who have to be driven away in all terrain golf carts, mostly because they fall plunging down hills.
I refuse clearly ludicrous challenges, including carrying a team member 100 yards (unlike awesome woman carrying much bigger guy), and crawling through narrow tunnel half full of water and INVISIBLE wires dealing electric shocks (Duck does too; we stand at the far end and listen guiltily to the screaming). Scramble up muddy hill on which everyone helps everyone else.
Finally, reach wall which is climbable by goat. At top, you get to jump about 100 or possibly 20 feet into giant pool of icy water. Spectators have gathered here, including Mr. Emmet, young Emmet, and sibling. I am terrified of heights and I can't climb and I am developing hypothermia BUT I somehow reach the top, where several people are already gathered, reasonably dithering. I push through them and walk right off the edge into the water. Gosh, it was a long way down.
Refuse all remaining challenges and arrive at finish line with teammates, where we each receive the coveted Orange Headband, a congratulatory T shirt, and a promised beer, which I think had little ice floes on it, plus a very, very welcome thermal blanket.
My teeth chattered throughout the drive home and the long, hot, long, hot bath and all the way into a big dinner, but none of us had any ill effects. The coveted Orange Headband hangs on my bedside table lamp. I wear the congratulatory T shirt sometimes when I run. I must've reached my personal really cool peak before the run, because nothing has changed on that front. But in a weird masochistic way, it really was kind of...fun.