I have a thigh bruise the size of an eggplant from climbing over walls. I wake up at night shivering from the ice bath I had to jump into. I learned I’m terrible at monkey bars. Midway through I slipped and fell into a murky pit of muddy water. I ran the Tough Mudder in Central Florida last weekend. I was part of a team from Flagler College that braved the 10-mile course with its 18 military-style obstacles — electrified wires you crawl through, a quarter-mile creek hike, 12-foot-tall walls you scale. It was brutal and grueling, and strangely, pretty fun. By the fact that I still have a pulse, I would call it a success. Well, that’s not entirely true. “You left a dirt ring on your pillow!” said my horrified wife the next day. I had no idea the mud would leach into my skin, cake my hair and plague me for days, no matter how hard I scrubbed. (I used half a box of cotton swabs just cleaning out my ears.) For a guy who hates dirt, that may have been the toughest part. That, and an obstacle at the end called “Everest.” It was a 15-foot-tall quarter-pipe covered in mud and grease. The objective was to run up it, leap at the last moment, and grab someone’s outstretched hand. If you missed, you landed with a flop and slid back to the mud. Onlookers would shudder and whisper, “Dude’s gonna’ be missing teeth!” It was intimidating … Continue reading Conquering the Tough Mudder