Tough Mudder 2013 (3 of 4)

DSCN1419Everest is a big skate park quarter pipe about 15 feet high, coated with a hard and slippery surface. like hard plastic. you can only run so far until you have to launch yourself at the people at the top who are there trying to help you up. you hope they grab your hands and that you figure some way to get yourself over the top. people were dropping like flies on this one, not making it over. the smaller people were letting the people on top just pull them up and over. the girl in front of me said she was scared and did i want to go ahead. SURE.

first attempt, failed. slid back down.
second attempt, caught their hands but couldn’t pull myself up. slid back down.
third attempt, caught their hands, got a leg over the top, was straining to pull myself up using my leg and…rip…i felt my left hamstring go. big time ripping sensation and searing pain. at this point i’m kinda horizontal with two big guys holding my hands and my leg is over the edge. i let out a scream, let go their hands thinking i’m just going to slide down the quarter pipe into a safe little ball at the bottom. but my head snaps back and slams against the surface. i could hear a collective gasp. the medics came over, i told them i’d torn my hamstring, but they were worried about my head.
the video is here: MVI_1516_zpsb5b4cc01
i get up slowly, they walk me to the side, and i sit on a hay bale. they start looking at my eyes, ask me my name (nailed it), ask me where i am (nailed it), and then ask me what the date was. now most days i have absolutely no idea of what day it is or what i did the previous day. but i nailed it. she was really impressed and i saw the first smile out of her. i told her i wanted to try to stand. after a few seconds i started to black out (or really white out…everything was fading to a snowy white) and sat down. they called the cart over. IMG_1179_zpsea88b443at that point, i saw i was only a few hundred yards from the finish line. it was up a steep hill. there two more obstacles…the funky monkey (monkey bars) and the electroshock therapy. so i asked to sit awhile and after about 5 min i got up, felt better, and then i asked dan if he would walk to the finish with me. david gives me some dried fruit and some water.
so like in the 1992 olympics when the sprinter pulled his hamstring and his dad came out of the stands to help him to the finish line, i spent the next 30-45 min limping up the hill leaning on dan. my son, dan, who broke his foot a few weeks earlier and shouldn’t have been walking on it. teammates later said the funky monkey was impossible. not only were the bars wet and muddy but alex thought they were greased. i walked by that one. then we got to the electroshock and i left dan, limped past it, and over the line. got a lot of cheers. i must have looked like crap. i certainly felt that way.
so i got my orange headband, my shirt, and then i asked for a medic. i was freezing (probably in shock from the muscle tear and exposure on the cold day) and then my legs started cramping up. it was EXCRUTIATING. the worst was when the torn muscle started to cramp.

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