Training Tips for the Tough Mudder

So you are one of the 5,000 people entered in the sold out Tough Mudder at Bear Creek Ski Resort, PA on May 2, huh? Well your How to Train for the Tough Mudder google search got you to the blog of not a sports physiologist, not a personal trainer, nor a coach; but the blog of an experienced adventure racer than can give you a couple pointers on what to expect going off road for the first time and having to jump over things, carry things, lift/pull things, and just plain have fun. And believe me, they ARE fun, no doubt hard. There are four key ingredients to obstacles/off-road running:

Endurance
Strength
Running experience off-road
Perseverance

And there are three key things you should not expect:

To be fast
To be able to do all the obstacles
To run every hill

There's about 5 weeks to go until race day and if you don't pretty much have the key ingredients in your pocket already, there's very little time to get there, but you can if you are careful. Start by getting off road. Run hills in a field, run the perimeter of a park or playground. I'd reserve the flat pavement for your speed work once a week. For everything else, find some off-road trail or grassy area and run -- even your long run. If you've never ran anything but pavement, you really should get a feel for the constant uneven surfaces so you can strengthen your ankles a bit and be ready for less-than-flat-and-even surfaces, not to mention going slow. Off-road racing is always a slower pace because there's more challenges than a flat surface. More hills, more off-camber surfaces, and more varied hardness/softness of the surface to make your body work a little harder. Be prepared for it. Endurance is also a key factor. Sure, you can run a 10K with ease, but can you stop 17 times and do 30 push-ups, chin-ups, and swim a lap in-between? Those obstacles are going to require energy -- the same energy you expend in a run, so be ready for it. After you do a run for 45 minutes, hop on your bike or some other form of cross training and go another 45 minutes. The key is keeping your heart pumping at a slow-steady pace (60% of your maximum heart rate) for at least 2 or more hours. 3 hours is ideal. Figure about 1.5 to 2 hrs for this baby at a higher than normal heart rate -- the Tough Mudder website was right on time to finish. Yes, you ran a marathon on pavement -- but can you carry a 10 pound pack for a mile or two? Will your knees hold-up to the extra weight going up a hill? Strength is pretty darn important to do many obstacles. And not just pumping iron. Grab a weighted ball or fill a backpack with cans and start hiking a hill. Guaranteed if you've never done this, you'll feel it in your legs the next day. Do push-ups (mens, not girls), work your core (you'll back will pay if you don't), and take every opportunity to use stairs and put the water bottle on the cooler at work. And the perseverance? Here's where team mates really, really help. You don't want to let them down, nor yourself. You'll help each other immensely just by being by their side. I've been blessed with the best of team mates for many years to help me through some amazing feats. You'll need to be mentally focused on completing the entire thing -- to endure all obstacles and overcome the challenge, and having a friend to help stay focused is truly helpful. You will be tired, hurting, and wanting to serve up a whole lot whine with that cheese. Don't. Your friend doesn't want to hear it. Persevere to proud of yourself for finishing. I'm 50, and I have to play mental games every time I do something. I fight the age thing all the time, but between my own self-satisfaction to finish a hard race or event and hearing it from my friends, I persevere and keep going. You will too -- to be a tough mudder! Congrats!

p.s. disclaimer: I'm not an expert at anything; I'm not a doc, a coach, a personal trainer, nor trained in anything having to do with physical ability. Like I said earlier, just a gal sharing some tips on off-road racing from experience for those that never raced off road. It'll be some of the most fun you ever had.

Trying to be a Tough Mudder on a Rainy Weekend

Every morning starts with this 10 pounder between my legs, under my butt, on each side of me, and over my head. What better way to start your day? Ha! This weekend was rainy, rainy, and rainy - perfect weather for a tough mudder, eh? It poured all day Saturday and the wind was so intense it made Rick go out and cuss at the corner of the house. "Mother fucker." If you could have heard Rick standing at the corner of the house cussing it. You see, the wind pulled up a corner of the siding and started pulling it off. It has been a problem for a while now and maybe Rick was cussing at himself for not fixing it when it first happened. He likes to tape it down and the tape came loose and the wind caught it. Well... it's taped again until next time I get to be entertained with Rick cussing the corner of the house. I was also entertained on Saturday by a Quentin Tarantino movie -- Inglourious Basterds. OMG. Talk about a typical Quentin movie -- right down to the HUGO STIGLITZ, cartoonish wording splashing across the screen. The story line and how it was played out is also typical Quentin. Scalping Nazis? "The Bear Jew?" Burning Hitler and his men in a movie theatre? And one of my favorite lines, "Now take your wiener -schnitzel finger and point out on this map where they are." It was the perfect movie to watch on a rainy day sitting on the trainer for a couple hours. It rained a little more on Sunday, but I already planned on a trail run for two reasons: to check out the bike trails to see how things fared over the winter and to get a nice 6 mile run in. I covered myself in rain gear and hit the trails. Mission accomplished, although trail runs after a wind storm aren't exactly a solid, good run since you have to continually stop and move crap and watch your step. But I got 'er in with a couple snap shots in between. Check out http://www.rcst1.blogspot.com/ to see the update on the trails. So yes, the rainy weekend was a good one to prep for the Tough Mudder. Now that the time changed, it can only get better.

Woes of a Fat Bike Rider

Spring fever hit hard and I took the day off yesterday to garden, run, and bike. I'm practicing the balancing act and decided it made sense to dedicate ½ day to each so yesterday morning was in the garden and yesterday after noon was pedaling and running. The run was first and went ok. It was a steady 5.20 mile tempo run at maybe a 10:15-10:30 mph pace (not sure on that). I took a real short 20 minute break to chat with my neighbor, then hopped on the bike. "Damn!" I thought. Why is it so hard to pedal? Why are my legs like lead? Why am I going so slow? Why do I feel like I have to get off and push on a hill I've ridden a thousand times? "It's because you have a very fat ass Jill… you gained enough of weight that it now affected your bike riding and you've turned into a true-blue slug. Yes, you were sluggish before, but now it's worse and you're really, really going to embarrass all your friends. What are you going to do now you pig? Go eat some bread maybe?? Don't forget to slather on the butter nice and thick. "

I'm devastated. This was my first road ride of the year. All I could take of the torture was an hour and yes, the hills really were that bad. No amount of trainer riding at an average heart rate for hours on end is going to get my ass up a hill at a semi-decent pace come spring time. It's now or never… either drop the cheese and flab or park my butt in a kayak seat and forget about it. I hate being 50. The trade-off for no-more-periods is a couple extra pounds that DO make a difference on the bike. It sucks.

Run Training - Painful!

I sit on the trainer for 3 hours and sweat my ass off and walk away feeling great with no aches and pains. I run one hill a couple times and can't walk for two days - what's up with that?! I'm finding there's a distinct difference between running on flat, smooth surface vs. running off-road, up-hill, off-camber, and over rocks/roots/obstacles. It's obvious I really need to be doing this training to prep for the Tough Mudder in May. Ricky Brown wants to go to the Tohickon Creek on March 20 (Ralph Stover State park) to watch the kayakers on the dam release weekend (it's too cold or he'd probably do it) and I'm anxious to go along 'cause the Ralph Stover Park will be an excellent place to train. The woods are nice and open and we can easily go off-trail and down to the river and the banks are s.t.e.e.p -- just what the doctor is ordering for the Tough Mudder. Depending how things progress, I may sign up for a 10K in Danville on April 17. It's flat (rail trail), but it'll be a good high heart rate workout for a longer distance run. (yes, I know, 10K really isn't long -- but it is for me!). This is a nice change and I'm enjoying the switch up to a run focus for a spell.

Switching Up the Focus of Spring Training and Racing

Just three short weeks ago, I was all-systems-go for training for long endurance off-road biking competitions starting as early as April. I even already signed up for the Rattling 50 mountain bike race in Weiser State forest to assure I start training in plenty of time (and take advantage of discounted registration fees). I had three, maybe four biking-related endurance races on the schedule: the Tour MonTour (75 mile road), the Rattling 50 Mountain bike, and the Ironcross cyclocross. The Adventure tris are another story - they start in September and continue throughout October.


Last week, I signed up for the Tough Mudder, a 7-mile run with 17 obstacles. Yesterday, I ran my little heart out up hills, down hills, around hills, and then did it again - over and over and over. In other words, I did hill repeats after a 5 or so hilly mile run and oh it was painful. All the while I was thinking, how can I train hard and allow for recovery for a good hilly running competition with obstacles, AND do long bike rides. It may be too taxing for my 50-year old bones - they need a little longer to recover. So I think I'm going to change my focus for the next 7 weeks and do mostly running and when the Tough Mudder is over, I'll switch it up to the long rides to prepare for the endurance events starting in August. It makes perfect sense -- run now to lose some weight, ride later when the trails are sure to be dried out. So the early spring long stuff is off the schedule. In fact, the only thing on the schedule this spring is the Tough Mudder and a long hiatus after that to prep for the Rattling 50.

Obstacle Courses

Chili is signed up for a 7-mile run/17-obstacle competition on May 2 called the Tough Mudder. The team is Kera, me, and two young guys names Preston and Ryan. I may be the old gal on the team, but damn it I'm proud to say I'm experienced at much of what we'll encounter in this race and hopefully can give the team some tips. The Krista Griesacker 12-hour adventure race is one of the races that brings to mind a true-blue obstacle course. Full pictures are here of the whole race. The obstacle course was actually a training course for outdoor survival skills for search and rescue folks. There were mud pits, ropes, walls, and of course water. We climbed walls, crawled through tunnels, jumped over a water pit, walked a tight-rope, pulled ourselves across a ladder, and swung like monkeys. The race itself was much of the same. We had to run, jump, skip, crawl, and pick our way through all kinds of terrain - briers, rocks, trees, underbrush, etc. It was hard. The Capital City Challenge is the other race with many obstacles. While it wasn't as natural and mountainous as the Krista, the obstacles are equally hard - maybe harder. Comparing past race obstacles with what's in the Tough Mudder, the similarities appear to be the crawling under webbing, tunnels, the rope ladder, the muck/water stuff, the wall, and the tight-rope. Obstacles are where some strength coupled with endurance comes in handy. The strength obviously is needed to pull yourself through tunnels, under ropes, up walls, over things and under things. And the endurance is needed to continue on that 7 mile run we also need to do. Climbing up over a 12 foot wall and carrying a log up a hill will zap more energy from you than you realize. Training for obstacles? Rock climbing (Climbnasium) comes to mind, along with just plain climbing around in the woods and the backyard. Find a good wooded area that is super, super steep and start climbing up and coming back down. Don't just go for a run on a trail -- hop, skip, jump, go off-trail, climb, wiggle, and duck under and through things. I'm really looking forward to changing things up a bit this. Now if only the snow would melt in the woods...

Spring Training and Some Humbling

It's March 2, and as far as I'm concerned, it's Spring! Forget the fact there's probably still a foot of snow on the ground, not to mention the mountain bike trails will likely be snow-covered into April. It's now or never and time to kick it into high-gear for beefing up the fitness for summer's events. All winter, I slugged it out on the trainer, did some weight-work at the Y, stuck in a wimpy run or walk every now and then, and basically kept it low-HR to keep and build the endurance. Today, I'm switching things up. I'm going to be running at work two times a week during lunch since my time is pretty much taken in the evenings with gardening, biking, kayaking, and cooking. But one night a week I'm going to squeeze in my hill intervals in the backyard or next to my house on the road while the snow melts in the field. the road hill takes 4 minutes to run up and the field hill is a little steeper and takes 2 minutes. Both are perfect quad-building for steep hill climbs. My 4:00 am routine (when I can role my ass out of bed) was expanded a bit to add push-ups and an extra exercise with the 10-lb medicine ball. It's only an extra 10 minutes or so, but will really add on some fitness with that little bit of added strength work. The bike will build into more tempo and higher-HR stuff. Probably an hour or two in the week of high-HR, and one long tempo ride on the weekends. Oh, the weekends -- one day is a long run and the other day is a long ride. Maybe I'll combine the two if I feel up to it. Long is runs going from the current 50 minutes to eventually 1.5 hours (?) and the bike from the current 3.5 hrs to 5+ hrs so I can do the Rattling 50 in August and the Ironcross in October. Yup, I'm a dreamer, but we gotta have dreams, don't we now?! I sure hope I can stick with it. I gotta drop 10 pounds and running really boosts the effort of weightloss. But then again, all the above is nothing compared to this video. My dear hubby spied this while he was purusing kayak videos. This video makes everything we do very, very humbling. It's a video of a kayaker who broke his neck 30 years ago, and every day he goes to the spot where he broke his neck, and paddles. It's the effort it takes him to get there... he's in a wheel chair.