Ben Greenfield's World's Toughest Mudder Race Report (And Big News For 2016)

Hey, it's Ben Greenfield here. And I did not, just, as my voice may imply, come down with a bout of pneumonia or bronchitis, get hit by a bus or run over by a train. I actually just did the world's toughest mudder, which is 24 hours of a five mile obstacle course consisting of everything from heavy carries to rope climbs to an ungodly amount of dips into cold water for swims and leaps over giant chasms on ropes. Everything that could possibly be thrown at 1 during 24 hours was thrown at my body during those 24 hours. So I will admit that I am a bit sore, but I wanted to give you a little bit of a taste of how this went and how it all worked out for me. In case you ever want to go out and do some epic endurance feat, hopefully you'll come away with a few takeaways from this event. Now, you should know that that over@YouTube.com BenGreenfieldFitness that's YouTube.com BenGreenfieldFitness I did release a world's toughest Mudder packing video. And if you go there and do a search for toughest mudder, you'll see everything from the gear to the nutrition to the clothing to the footwear to pretty much everything that I use for this particular event. Should you ever go slightly insane and decide that you too want to compete in a masochistic feat of endurance. Anyways, back to the race. So the race started with five miles of one loop of the world's toughest mudder course without any obstacles. I felt great during those five miles. I got geared up in my shorts and my T shirt, ran like the wind, and made it through that first loop feeling quite great. I had my wife, my Sherpa, waiting there for me right in the pitting area, which is the area where folks are able to hand you nutrition or to where you can go into your tent and change clothes, freshen up your feet, drink copious amounts of caffeine, whatever you would like. Anyways, I had my wife standing there ready to hand me a hydration pack, a waist belt called a fuel belt crush, that is simply a waist belt that carries a water bottle and a few other cruc pieces of gear. Now, my plan was to simply wear this water bottle gear during the entire race and what was in that particular pack. And I had two of them. One that my wife would be able to work on filling while I was on the course, and one that I would be, of course, wearing with me. What was in that pack was 10 Nature Aminos Amino Acid Capsules, one bar and I use the oatmega bar from Onnit and, and then one water bottle full of a mix of chia seeds and coconut aminos and beet powder and a bunch of other goodies. I use something called the Natty stack from Natural Force Endurance. So my wife handed me that after I completed that first loop and off I went onto the second loop. Now the second loop, you simply do as much of that as you can until the hour is up. So if the race starts at 2pm at 3pm the obstacles officially open. So ideally my plan was to get through another half loop or so of that five mile course before I had to start tackling obstacles. Put as much time into that course as possible without having the, the obstacles which obviously slow one down considerably. So that was about how I did it. About mile seven, seven and a half or so, I heard the big air horn go off and the obstacles began. Now, the very first obstacle that I tackled lost my water bottle full of fuel and realized that I would need to have an alternate plan of attack because I realized that water bottles were not going to stay in a fuel pack very well when rolling around in the mud and sliding down plastic tunnels, et cetera. And so once I made it through that first obstacle, about, I believe around 21 minutes or so ahead of my anticipated time, I told my wife that I would simply be drinking the water bottles right there in the pitting area as I came through and then going out in the course still with that waist belt attached, but with just my amino acids and my bar on me. So that was my fueling plan. And for the most part, most of the race I really stuck to that fueling plan. The only time I strayed from it was I had one carrot. On the end of the stick was a Snickers bar that I had a couple of Snickers bars during the race. One around midnight, another one around 10am or so. And I also had a few handfuls of salted palm oil infused plantain chips that I picked up at Sprouts Market. And those were great for a little crunch, a little bit of added salt, a little bit of oil, a little bit of that junk food effect without being too nasty for the body. So that was what I really relied upon for fuel most of the race. Didn't really get too bored with flavor fatigue or anything like that. Just kind of charged on through. Now once I got to about 20 miles, I was feeling fantastic. I was actually in the top 10, I believe. one point I was in the top three, right behind Chad Trammell and and Robert Killian, a couple of other obstacle racers. Once I got to about mile 20, running began to be a little bit difficult. Now I haven't been putting in much volume. I'm kind of a low volume guy just due to the fact that I'm running corporations and taking care of my family and doing a lot. I'm not a full time pro athlete. I don't have a lot of time to train. And so that amount of time on the feet is a little bit difficult for me to achieve. Granted, I use a standing workstation. I put a lot of time on my feet. But ultimately, once I got close to that marathon mark, somewhere between 20 and 25 miles, it started to become a little bit difficult to run. The obstacles felt fine, my grip strength felt fine, my hands felt great, my strength was all there. But just running, running in general became a little bit difficult. Now the other thing that became quite difficult, and this was the first real mistake that I think I made that affected my performance in this race was I spend a lot of time standing at a standing workstation. I spend a lot of time when I'm doing consult calls and things like that, walking on a walking treadmill next to my workstation. But I do almost all that barefoot or wearing socks. And in this race I was wearing shoes and even wearing some relatively built up shoes that I don't wear all that often, but that I knew I need to protect my feet. I was using the Brooks Ghosts, which are a great shoe for running and for protecting the feet. But unfortunately I should have spent more time running in those shoes, standing around in those shoes, walking in those shoes, because every single tiny ligament, bone and area of my foot began to feel as though it was going to explode at about the marathon mark or so. And that was simply because I did not do enough training or spend enough time in this specific shoe that I was wearing during the event. So that's one thing to bear in mind is that if you're going to be going for long periods of time, make sure that leading up to the event, even if you're not running for long periods of time in the footwear you plan on using, at least have them on if you are going to be spending a lot of time on your feet. So that was the first mistake that I made and it ultimately got to the point where I was unable to run and had to break into a brisk walk right around the fifth lap, right around mile 25, I simply had to start walking. Rather than running. I would do mostly walking on the flats and the uphills and kind of a light jog on the downhills. So, granted, most folks walk the entire 24 hours, you know, and just the fact that I was able to run the first 25 miles, I was always okay with. But still, the feet were a little bit underprepared, specifically when it came to the shoes that I was wearing. Now, the feet themselves were completely bulletproof the whole time. No blistering, no chafing, anything. And that's simply because I did copious amounts of run on the feet. Check instagram.com BenGreenfieldFitness for a photo of what I mean by copious amounts, because it really is copious amounts. Like, you can't see skin followed by polypropylene liner followed by a wool sock. So those three layers really make the skin relatively bulletproof during a long event like this. So it wasn't the blistering or the shaping. It was more just using new muscles in the feet that I hadn't been using. Now, the other issue that really, really caught up to me closer to mile 40, that I was afraid might happen, and that ultimately did happen, was two weeks prior to the world's toughest mudder, I began to get some Achilles pain. And the Achilles pain was likely just due to a long season of racing. Lots of time on the feet, and, you know, I use a standing workstation. I had a few workouts that I did on the treadmill, barefoot. Just a lot of stress on the Achilles tendon. I began to develop Achilles tendonitis about two weeks prior to this race. And, and so I. I laid off much running, did a lot of kind of strength training and cycling and hypoxic swimming and all those kind of like passive forms of cross training that don't involve running leading up to this race, but didn't do a lot of running and just kind of kept my fingers crossed that the Achilles tendon would not rear its ugly head. Now, around mile 40, it did indeed rear its ugly head. And at that point, I knew it was going to be very difficult to keep going. This would have been at about, oh, 1:00am or so that this began to set in. The Achilles issues, the foot pain I knew I could deal with. I could simply keep putting one foot in front of the other. The Achilles pain was a little bit distressing to me because it literally was feeling more and more with each step as though my Achilles was going to tear to rupture and that's something that can take months and months to heal from. So as a matter of fact, here we are two days out from the race when I am recording this and I can barely walk. And it's. Most of my body feels good except that Achilles tendon and it's on the right foot. So that really was probably the thing that affected me most. And it got so bad that I simply, I had to go so slow that by 2am I was unable to keep my body warm. I was unable to run or even do a brisk walk. So I got extremely, extremely cold around 2am Another issue related to the cold is that I wore the Blu 70 Helix wetsuit. Fantastic wetsuit. Awesome flexibility. It's known in the triathlon industry for its flexibility, for the fact that it's got varying amounts of thickness in the panels and the shoulders and the arms and the feet and the legs, but it's also about 0.5 to a maximum of just under 5 millimeters. And a true warm wetsuit for a lean, skinny guy like me should have been 6 plus millimeters. So my wetsuit was not thick enough to be, to be wearing a wetsuit during this race. And I put on a wetsuit after the third lap, which is when it started to get cold. And most folks after that point will just wear a wetsuit most of the race. But my wetsuit was not thick enough. And I literally got to the point where I had a splitting headache in addition to the Achilles pain. In addition to being completely unable to stop shivering at about 2am I went into the medical tent for about 30 minutes, then tried to go back out on the course, got a mile onto the course and had to turn around and go back to the pitting area because I literally could not see straight due to the splitting headache from the shivering and the cold. So at that point I took off the wetsuit, took a warm shower in the pitting area, sat in the medical tent for a little while, and then curled up with my wife in our tent until the sun came up. And at that point I headed back out on the course. But my goal had severely diminished. I initially wanted to get 90 miles, knew with a combination of the Achilles and all the time that I lost not being able to be out in the course during the wee hours of the morning, that 50 miles would be good enough. Still a good 25 miles longer than I've ever run, but that was my goal. So basically I went back out in the morning once it warmed up, got my wetsuit back on. Now One thing that I should have done while in the pitting area was more stretching and more foam rolling because I was incredibly stiff when I went back out there on the course. If I could go back and do this race again, I would do far more stretching, specifically of the hip flexors, the IT band and the Achilles. Literally I would use like a Jeff Galloway esque run walk approach where you stretch about every two and a half to five miles or so. That has always been a little bit of my approach during Ironman. It's kept me going relatively fast during the Ironman marathons. I just, I didn't do it. I felt like the obstacles were perhaps stretching me out a little bit and I didn't take time to stretch the hip flexors, the IT band, etc. So that would be another mistake I made. In addition to not enough time spent in the shoes that I wound up wearing for the event, racing with a little bit of a messed up Achilles, not using a thick enough wetsuit, I also should have brought a foam roller or a muscle stick or something like that, or perhaps a professional masseuse from Vegas and done more stretching. So in retrospect, those are four things I should have done. There's one other thing that I should have done that I'll get into in a second here, but long story short, I went back on the course and over the course of that morning put in another 13 miles or so. So I wound up having about 53 miles on the day and at that point just literally couldn't take a single next step without my Achilles literally almost falling off. Felt super strong on all the obstacles. It was just the inability to be able to make the right foot touch the ground without the Achilles feeling as though it was going to explode. That ultimately was my biggest bane. Now, I did mention there was one other thing that I wish I would have done, and that is my hands were extremely, extremely cold. I tend to get cold hands. Anyways, I brought three different pairs of gloves and none of the gloves turned out to be the right pair of gloves. Even, even when I put hand warmers into them, they were still not working well because they would get extremely wet, extremely cold, and extremely slippery on the obstacles. Towards the end of the race, I realized that many of the competitors who were wearing gloves were wearing these kind of like thick neoprene rubber gloves that actually have like a tacky grip on them. If I could go back and do this race over again, I definitely would have brought gloves like that. But, but you know, 2020 hindsight. So gloves were another biggie. So ultimately the five things I wish I would have done differently would be a thicker wetsuit, a little bit more TLC for the Achilles going into the race, more stretching or foam rolling during the race at more frequent intervals, better gloves, and more time spent in the specific set of shoes that I was wearing during the race. So what were the pros? My nutrition was just perfect. No gas, no bloating, no gut distress, anything. Again, I use this thing called the natty stack from Natural Force. You can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com NaturalForce to check that out. Another pro. My grip strength was just unstoppable. My hands never got tired during the race. I felt like my grip was amazing. I did lots of pull ups, lots of dead hangs. My coach, Yancy Culp just basically had me doing everything from like hand grip strengtheners while I was driving around in my car using this captains of crush grip strength training device to long, copious amounts of time spent hanging from pull up bar. Grip strength felt fine. In addition, this was not hard for me mentally, it was hard for me physically. My mind kept wanting to go, go, go and my body, from my Achilles to the splitting headache, from the cold to the hands being unable to open and close, from the cold to the feet literally feeling like they were going to break with each step. My body was not wanting to keep up with what my mind wanted to do. But my nutrition, my grip strength, my mental tolerance, all of it felt just fantastic during this event. So there were just certain parts of me that did fall apart that my mind was or my body was unable to keep up with. My mind is basically what it came down to. So that's kind of like the short story of Tough Mudder. I mean, there's so much more I could go into. It was such an epic day. At some point I'll probably sit down and write something a little bit more comprehensive, but ultimately, if you want to see everything I use, you can go to YouTube.com BenGreenfieldFitness See all the gear and everything. But again, to sum things up, pretty good race. Some things I should have done differently. The gloves, Achilles tendon care, more time spent in the shoes that I was going to race in thicker wetsuit and then more stretching or rolling. Obviously if I could have put in the, you know, the 40 to 60 hours per week that I know some of the top guys were doing, that would have been great. But at this point I'm limited just based on my job to training 60 to 90 minutes a day. That's just, that's, that's where I'm at with my, with my training right now and what I'm able to do. And I, I have a lot of other differences I'm trying to make in the world and things I'm accomplishing in life. And so I think that for me to put in copious amounts of training, the appropriate amount of training to really be able to throw down 90 to 100 miles in an event like this is unrealistic for me in my situation. Now this leads me to the last thing that I wanted to mention, kind of a. Something I haven't ever shared before, but that I want to, I want to get right out there on this audio. And you know, I know my, my coach is going to listen to this. You know, my friends and my followers and my fans are going to listen to this. But you know, I've spent the best decade of my life doing, doing relatively long things, had some success in Ironman Spartan World Championships, you know, did the world stuff as Mutter, you know, done a lot of these, these long voluminous events. Despite my genetic testing showing that I'm actually more of a power animal than an endurance animal, more fast twitch than slow twitch. You know, I used to do tennis and bodybuilding and water polo and perhaps those are more appropriate sports for me. But ultimately I, I'm really thinking about stepping back and focusing hardcore on shorter events and shorter distances. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is I will probably. Aside from the Ultimate Athlete Challenge, which is an 8 to 12 mile race taking place in July of 2016 with 80 plus obstacles over those 8 to 12 miles. Tennis, golf, basketball obstacles, you name it. Aside from that, that will probably be my longest event of 2016. I don't plan on doing Spartan World Championships even though my initial goal had been to do very, very well at that. I am having to confront the reality that I simply do not have the time to train properly for an event like that. Will I do the event? Possibly. I can't say for sure that I'd be completely out of it. I'm going to focus on this Spartan Sprints, short intense events, the Stadium Sprint Series. I have podiumed at every stadium race I've done. I'll probably do almost purely Spartan Sprints and Spartan stadium races in 2016. I will also compete heavily in the Train to Hunt competitions, which are also short, intense events and also work more on my hunting skills and my sports skills. In that respect, I'll be playing more tennis, doing more short, powerful events and we'll really just be more going after the things that I think I'm better at and that I can be very good at with my amount of training, which is a sprint power speed. And that's really the plan for 2016. So the Spartan Stadium Sprint Series. More Spartan Sprints, possibly a couple of Spartan supers thrown in, maybe a few tough mudders or battle frogs thrown in, but mostly in the 3 to the maximum of 8 mile range. I really don't plan on doing anything much more than 90 minutes this year again, aside from that Ultimate Athlete Challenge in July of 2016. So basically I'm going to step back on the voluminous training and I'm going to focus more on what I think I can realistically succeed and do very well in. So that's both the world's toughest Mudder event and also my brain dump. I hope you have enjoyed listening. Wherever you hear this audio, you can leave your comments or your questions for me and I'll be happy to reply. But hopefully that that fills you in. That's helpful. And yeah, if you have any questions about any of this stuff, I'm happy to help you point you in the right direction. And now you know what I'm going to be up to for 2016. So no matter who you are, where you're at in life, enjoy life, pursue your dreams. Even if it is doing masochistic crazy things like World's Toughest Mudder and thanks for listening.