The Mudder Who Never Was

Yes it’s been awhile now since our last event was cancelled. But it’s taken me a bit of time to climb out of the well of feeling sorry that I didn’t get to run in the Richmond Tough Mudder due to a wittle wain. Obviously I may not be completely over it, but I have gotten off the donut couch and focused again on the original goal of getting ready for the WTM. Real goal –right! How many posts have we mentioned that our ultimate goal awaits us in November. 24 hours of bliss!!  And as educators how often do we get caught up in the day to day life of going in and facing the challenges of the moment and lose sight of our ultimate goals. I've found that reflecting and refocusing (don't forget regrouping of course) are some of the most important skills that we educators need to keep highlighted on our own mental white boards. So let’s reflect and then refocus shall we. 

We should have known with the lead up to the Richmond Mudder that we weren’t going to be in for an easy weekend to say the least. First of all there was the fact that we were going to try for 3 laps - that should have been enough of a red flag that something was going to go wrong - but then there were a myriad of other signals that we chose to ignore. Let’s take a look through all the symbols that came to represent our lead up to the Richmond Mudder. 

Banged Up and No Redemption

General Web pic and toughmudder.com

While the scooter has become synonymous with me being beat up, my conditioning was as good as it was going to get heading into Richmond. Shoulder still not 100%, but ready to give it a go. Pain in the left knee - gone. We got a chance to preview the official course map though the night before and saw that we wouldn’t have the Hanging Tough obstacle. I took that as a bad omen that in two consecutive races I wouldn’t be given a chance to redeem my past fails. I'll just have to live with my most recent fail from Miami throughout the long hot summer. Yippee!! Be ready Tri-State - and TMHQ - can I please get another shot. 

Mighty Achilles

http://legendofthecryptids.wikia.com

Obviously the Achilles injury to the Gazelle left us all stunned and saddened. Don’t need to reflect on that other than the healing that is underway, but what a punch in the gut – figuratively for two of us. Honestly the race wasn’t going to be the same without the three of us on the course together. The good news is that I hear the healing is going well but that is another post for another time. 

A Back Tested

A lesser known injury was suffered by Brian at about 2 weeks from the event. Brian’s back gave a little tweak from flipping an enormous tire as part of our interval workouts. I can't even get this thing off the ground but we've all seen the guns on this Brian guy. The ominous thing is it happened on the same track that took down Pat. While this injury didn’t put Brian on the sidelines - this crazy Brudda has already assured me that he will hobble through the course in a body cast - it did slow training a bit. You definitely appreciate how important the back is as you try to do sets of burpees. 

Another Superstorm

Then of course there was Superstorm Andrea – no not a superstorm at all – but just enough of a storm to drown the Richmond Mudder. What a truly disappointing weekend. I think we all knew it was going to be tough to run on Saturday, but to have Sunday stripped away too was a lot. I mean Brian did get to attend a high school graduation and wish another graduating class off into the next phase of their lives. It just came at a time when we had finally gotten our thinking around to the feeling you get coming through Electroshock and not the pain of starting off. 

www.toughmudder.com

 So what it all amounts to is the Mudder who never was. While I frankly loved the look, I had truly succeeded at finding a look my wife hated. I mean HATED. Judge for yourself!

But alas he was not meant to be – but now he is back and more focused than ever. I’ll be honest there have been times when the question of why in the hell I keep coming back reared its ugly head, but after almost a month of feeling upset that our next race isn’t until the Fall, I completely understand why I keep coming back. I have two brothers who keep pushing me along, and there is nothing like a Mudder family. Also, the excitement to run again is back and to compete in the WTM event this year. The drive to get out there and get back on the trail has returned, so here we go.