I did training for my upcoming Tough Mudder in a couple ways this weekend.  Obviously covering 12 miles by foot requires a certain amount of running endurance.  I tried to cover that by putting in over 10 miles on the local track.

Normally I would not choose to do that far of a distance on a track, I have never done it before.  The reason is, running that long on a short track gets mentally grueling, my plan was to circle 40 times.  However that is exactly why I decided to do it, mental torture is part of the Mudder.

I actually fuzzed out and missed lap 35 somehow so I wound up only running 39.  Even so my total distance was over 10 miles so I felt ready to go.

On Sunday I followed up with some work in my bar park, much of it humorous in nature.

I also caught on tape the worst bar over ever.

Finally I put up a lackluster attempt at hard mode of this month’s challenge. I wasn’t surprised my numbers weren’t great.  Because of my painful left wrist I have not been working dips hardly at all in the last month.

Speaking of this month’s BB challenge….

For quite awhile, participation in the monthly challenges has been steadily declining, despite both my and Iron Lou’s efforts to come up with different/challenging/interesting ideas each month.  I knew that despite our efforts to make each challenge fun there was something crucial missing, participation from any of the actual Bar-barians.

This month I made an effort to address that.

First the challenge was based on an idea pitched by Fletch whom just recently qualified to be a Bar-barian.  I also named it after him, “Fletch’s Fun”.

Second I contacted Lee and forwarded an email I got from one of our forum members, repeating what I already knew, that lack of BB participation really hurts the forum.   I told Lee that I thought for a Bar-barian to spend 5-10 minutes a month shooting an attempt at the challenge was a worthwhile investment and only helps the group in the big picture.  He agreed.

Lee wasted no time sending out an email to all of the Bar-barians, encouraging them to get involved.  He took it a step further, throwing down the gauntlet to his long time challenge nemesis, Jaz to step up to the plate and see who is left standing.

The response from the group has been in a word, overwhelming.  So far Lee, Jay, Mark and Fletch have posted attempts.  I am pretty sure we will also see attempts from at least Sai, Jaz and Hunt as well.

It is going to be a GREAT month on the forums.  🙂