32 Days to the Tough Mudder

That's only a little over 4 weeks remaining to what's being labeled as "The Toughest one-day endurance event on the planet."

From the PR Newswire in February:

NEW YORK, Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Tough Mudder (www.ToughMudder.com) announced today the toughest one-day endurance event on the planet. Launching in various locations across the U.S., Tough Mudder is now accepting applicants for its first event -- Tough Mudder NY & PA -- on Sunday, May 2, 2010 at Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania, just a short drive from the Metropolitan New York and Philadelphia areas. This is not your average mud run or spirit-crushing road race. Tough Mudder is a 7-mile obstacle course designed by British Special Forces to test all-round toughness, strength, stamina, fitness, camaraderie and mental grit.

I truly believe the "toughest one-day endurance event on the planet" may be in the eyes of the beholders. Yes, to some, this will be hard as hell. Me and my Team, Mind of Mudder? Maybe, maybe not. For me personally, the closest I can compare this to is the Capital City Adventure Challenge that usually has several obstacles of some sort, and the Krista Greisacker 12-hour Adventure race that had 7 or 8 military-style obstacles. The interesting part (thus my belief of what's tough is in the eyes of the beholder) is that neither of these had a just a 7-mile run with the obstacles -- they also had 20+ mile mountain biking and 5+ mile canoes, WITH the run and the obstacles. Soo... my thinking is this may not be the toughest one-day endurance event on the planet for me. But I could be wrong. Those 17 obstacles may kick me AND my team's ass. I never jumped from a 15-foot high plank (I'm gonna hold my nose with my fingers!), nor ran through fire, nor bobbed up and down through a maize under water. I think our whole team will be working together in a variety of ways to get through this one. Finally, my training for the past two days. Monday was rest day with only a bit of stretching (I even slept in and skipped core work). Yesterday was am floor core (50 side-to-sides with 10 pound weighted ball AND 2 pounds strapped on my ankles; 50 hip lifts, 50 lean-back side-to-sides, 50 bicycles) and we stopped at the YMCA last evening since it was raining so hard. I did bike intervals for 45 minutes, then hit the machines for some tricep (5 plates - not sure of the weight), shoulder press (50 pounds), and lat-pull down work (90 pounds) - all 15 reps for 3 sets. I'm giving my running legs two days rest this week after the 7-miler on Sunday. Tonight will be a 5 mile tempo run on the fairground track in Gratz. I want to check my time for a 5K, thus, the flat track for a fast-paced run.