Note: video isn't from the Toronto Mudder, but it gives you an idea
Shortly after passing the previous obstacle, we were able to hit another water station, this time with a banana available to get some potassium back into us. We’d brought along our own energy gel packs (blueberry pomegranate and they weren’t bad tasting for a change), but the bananas always help. This time I was so much smarter and drank a LOT OF WATER. Seriously, I know I can go without rehydrating for a long while, but I needed to remember to drink more often than I was. So I made up for it by drinking so much I started to slosh. That’s a fun feeling, especially since it was already wet and muddy on the outside.
We were on the far side of the mountain now, there were no spectators and the need to show off had died a long time ago. This is where the mental grit takes over; doing it because you are there to prove something to yourself and not because there are those watching. I’ve never had trouble doing things for myself because it’s what I want to do, but you could spot some of the people that were starting to run low on energy and feeling a wee bit sorry for themselves. This was about 7 kilometers in I figure and the realization that we were not even half way yet hit some people HARD.
My trio however, were still moving along at a good clip. And then we encountered the Devil’s Beard. This obstacle is a giant cargo net pinned to the ground, over a stretch of mud and you have to climb under the net. It’s not hard per se, but the next does it’s very best to catch you up and slow you down. And this was where I was so grateful my husband is a tall man. He crawled ahead of me and I just stuck close behind, letting the net skim over me because he was holding it up higher than I was. Actually, there were 3 girls, myself included, all tucked close to him on the sides and behind taking advantage of this. It was a lot of fun because everyone is very cheerfully flirtatious, but never in an awkward or creepy way. More like a ‘Hi, I’m going to cuddle in close beside you so my hair stops getting caught in the net’ kind of way, with the occasional ‘I’m going to have to grab your butt to help boost you up, sorry’, and everyone indulged in a little ‘I’m seeing nothing but butts as I crawl along behind you people” “You’re welcome”.
However, I should have paid attention to the fact that the backpack I had on was starting to get snagged on things. This would become very important, much sooner than I ever wanted.
