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How a Mud Run Helped Me Clean Up My Health

It’s an FBG blog takeover! For Fit Bottomed Dudes’ Week each of the FBG’s husbands are taking over his wife’s blog for a post on, well, anything they’d like. Today, Alan takes over Erin’s blog with his take on their Tough Mudder — and how he’s managed to stay fit and lose weight without a scary 10-mile goal to work toward. 

It was a perfect fall day. The sky was clear, the leaves had begun changing and there was a crispness to the air. As I stood in a large field taking it all in while waiting for my three-hour “marathon” of pain to begin, I was naively feeling pretty good about myself. About two months earlier, I had begun a rigorous (in my estimation) strength and cardio training regime in preparation for the Tough Mudder. So now the moment was upon me, and as I briskly took off toward my first obstacle, full of adrenaline and potential energy, I was riding high on my anticipated accomplishment that lay just a mere 10 to 12 obstacle-riddled miles ahead of me.

Flash forward 3½ hours. I found myself standing, shivering in a mass of people who, like me, were covered more in mud than clothes, waiting for a 60-second shot of cold water. The water would soon reveal limbs scraped, bloodied and bruised by the excesses of an unrelenting course. Dried, clothed and a little less muddy, I relaxed and enjoyed a couple of well-earned beers. With my easily induced tipsiness slightly offsetting the pain and stiffness that had begun to set in, I woozily reveled in my accomplishment with Erin.

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The Tough Mudder was a great and fulfilling goal that sent me on a journey back to a level of fitness that I hadn’t seen in years. Prior to the event, I had become quite out of shape. Forget scaling walls, I could barely scale a few flights of stairs. So my return to relative fitness was a welcome change. But how to sustain these gains in the absence of a huge goal?

Click on to read how I’m staying motivated now that I don’t have a Tough Mudder looming — and the unexpected benefits that have made me commit to fitness for the long term. —Alan

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