Once we crossed the finish line of Tough Mudder, all I wanted was to immediately sit down.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sit down for about two hours after we finished.

We were ushered over to a side table where we grabbed space blankets which saved my life and I kept on forever! Even though the rain had stopped right around the Funky Monkey obstacle, all of the girls on our team were freezing afterward. The boys were just fine – weird.

The MC crowned us with our orange Tough Mudder sweatbands and I grabbed another banana to nosh on. (I definitely need a banana break for awhile!)

We got our well deserved “free” beer – though I could only take about two sips of it before handing it over to a teammate to finish. I was too thirsty for water to drink anything alcoholic.

Once the beers were downed we headed off for the hike back to the car, waiting for a few teammates to shower off. There was no way in hell I was going to rinse off in the cold hosewater when I was finally warming up a little.

Since we parked so far away in the cornfields where we weren’t supposed to, we had our work cut out for us to get back to the car. Just how we hiked about a mile or so on our way in, we had to hoof it a mile or so back.

Not to mention we were all hobbling along at approximately 2 mph. We looked like we had just been thrown into a rodeo and kicked around. I really think it took us about an hour to get back to the car. It was quite miserable.

******

I woke up the next morning to some battle scars.

Damn Mud Kisses! At least the cuts were pretty shallow, so I hardcore neosporined them up and they were mostly better in a few days. I might have some scars though – we’ll see. I also discovered many a bruise.

Is it bad that I kind of liked trying to figure out which bruise came from which obstacle?

It was finally time to go through the dreaded trash bag of muddy attire.

My cheap-ass self wanted to save whatever I could. Workout clothes are expensive! I threw everything except the shoes into the tub with some laundry detergent.

And I let everything soak for a few hours. Nothing really happened until I started moving the clothes around with the detachable stick from the vacuum cleaner like I was washing clothes in olden times. Ridic.

Ew.

I kept draining and refilling the tub until the clothes started looking like their normal colors again – and then I tossed them in the washing machine – twice (and cleaned my tub really well!) My shirt, sports bra, and shorts turned out OK! But I had to throw out the underwear and socks.

I decided the shoes couldn’t be saved.

When I showered on Monday morning I found two new discoveries:

1. I still had mud in my ears

2. Poison ivy on my legs

Noooooooo! When I saw the poison ivy, I knew I was doomed.

I am super allergic to poison ivy. I’ve gotten it 10+ times in my life: on a cruise (WTF?), a ridiculous time at pole vault camp where I continued to pole vault with my entire body mummified in pink pre-wrap, and once I was hospitalized because it got so bad!

Mal actually got a bit of poison ivy too. My theory is that we got it when we were being smart and running high up on the path through the brush of the trees  to try and run on the firmer mud when it was pouring and really muddy. Or we might have gotten it from the hike home?

Plus, on Monday my throat started hurting along with a runny nose and a cough. The Tough Mudder effed me up, man.

By Wednesday I couldn’t take the itching anymore and headed to the doctor, where he prescribed me steroid cream and prednisone. I tried to hold off on taking the prednisone, but once the poison ivy spread to my back I was all for it.

I had an interesting time explaining my cold, cuts, bruises, and rash to the doctor!

A week later I’m feeling better – I’m still getting over the cold and my poison ivy is slowly healing.

Though my body sure took a beating from the Tough Mudder, I’m still in awe at how much our bodies can take and still function while physically and mentally battling obstacles and the elements.  I found that our bodies are capable of much more than I ever thought possible, and realized how important it is to take care of them.

The Tough Mudder inspired me to treat my body like it deserves to be treated – so that’s what I’m going to do.