It's About That Time

The last pre-race blog, and the last daily blog. I woke up and took my morning doodie and I'm ready to do this.

I’m nervous. I have been for a couple days. The more I write about the Tough Mudder, the more I get scurred. I keep talking about it, and the more I talk about it, the more I doubt myself. That’s not a good sign.

The more I think about it, the more I - Oh, who am I kidding? I'm Austen Montero...

I rock the fuck out of everything I do.

Once I saw the course map and started mapping out my plan of attack for this morning, I got giddy. Nerves turned to excitement pretty quickly. As you're reading this, I'm either driving to the Tough Mudder, preparing for it, running it, or recovering from it.

The course map takes you through a winding and looping 12 miles that include 21 obstacles, most of which I expected because the website has ample description for them. Some of the harder ones are earlier in the race, hopefully making it easier to just get them out of the way. The Arctic Enema is the fourth obstacle, a little less than three miles in. It's just long enough to work up a good sweat climbing over the Berlin Walls and a couple of other obstacles before freezing our balls off.

The other obstacle that I was most worried about, the Mud Mile, comes as number six, and just past the third mile marker. This is perfect because I'm going to still be freezing from the ice-cold colon cleanse, and then I'll warm up while I slog through the trenches.

Three of the obstacles are not explained on the website: the WWP Carry, Just the Tip (which is followed by Hold Your Wood, and this makes me laugh uncontrollably), and Dark Lightening. I can only assume what these mean.

- WWP Carry is a wild wet pig carry - you'd have to nab a crazy, greased up hog and soothe him to sleep before continuing. Bottles of milk will be provided, but that's more for the contestants than the pigs.

- Just the Tip is where you have to take your pants off and crawl on all fours through murky water, and just the tip of your weenie has to stay in the water. If it comes out, you get electrocuted. If it submerges too far, little snapping turtles will get a snack.

- And I really, really hope Dark Lightening is exactly like the Tough Mudder mainstay Electroshock Therapy. Except Dark Lightening is in a tarp and it's pitch black and hot and dusty and the only light you see is the spark of electricity being transferred from a live wire to someone's body. And it smells like fart.

I can say that the only obstacles that are missing that I am disappointed about are The Gauntlet and Greased Lightening. These seemed like the most fun, rather than painful.

OH MY GOD. What if Dark Lightening is pitch black Greased Lightening?! Ohhhh I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

I have no way to transition to the next part, so lets meet the SoCal Wussbags, shall we?

First, there's me, but you already know me.

Elly Montero, my sister.
Strengths: Works out a lot. Eats healthy. Incredible cardio. Thinks she's a cat.
Weaknesses: Lemon drops. Vegetarian. Thinks too much about her cat.

Sean Quinn, my sister's boyfriend.
Strengths: Freakishly strong. Looks like The Thing. Girlfriend makes him eat healthy.
Weaknesses: Low cardiovascular strength. Shitty rum and cokes. Ginger.

Sara Wilke (right), friend to everyone, bestie to my sister.
Strengths: Works out. Terrific hand hugger. Comedic relief.
Weaknesses: Cosmotinis. Men.

Eric "Yngwie" Chavez. Or just, Chavz, token shredder
Strengths: Gas man. Lays pipe for a living. Has multiple tattoos.
Weaknesses: Four Loko. Probably drunk. Lifts nothing but drumsticks.

Andy Halcom, the married guy.
Strengths: Built like a brick shithouse. Owns a cute dog. Also, shreds. Ridiculously charming.
Weaknesses: Unattended drinks at a bar. All brawn, no brains. Gets lost easily.

Thomas Catlin, aka TomCat. Lead singer extraordinaire
Strengths: Rocks out. Very much MAN. Scary growl.
Weaknesses: Bud Ice. Probably doesn't work out. Is pretty. Thinks he's James Hetfield. 

Will Lopez, aka Bill, the catalyst for every peak and trough of every trip.
Strengths: Beautiful beard. Athletic. Farts that propel him super fast.
Weaknesses: Every alcohol known to man. Jet fuel. Men. Vomits too easily.

Someone else is coming. I have my suspicions who it is. I know who I want it to be. Whoever it is, if he is coming with this group, his first weakness will be some sort of alcohol. Second is probably laziness. Hopefully his strength is counting cards.








And that's all folks. Stay tuned for a couple of videos later this week. As I said, I'll be filming the Tough Mudder with a Go Pro, and so too is Will. We are staying at Pechanga that night to celebrate. Videos for each instance to follow. Stay tuned! Wish us luck. God knows we'll need it.

Gyms: The Roided Out, Perfumed Discoteque

Part of my "training" for the Tough Mudder involved some weightlifting and resistance training.

Before I decided to do the race, I didn't run too often. I would mostly head to the gym, do some lifting, get a gnarly swoll on, and call it a night. But so much of the Mudder relies on cardiovascular endurance rather than brute strength. I don't mean to brag, but sometimes I don't even need to make two trips when I bring the groceries into the house. That's how much I teetered toward brute.

I started working out at a pretty early age...

(A buff baby is a tough baby.)

So you can imagine that I was more bulky than I was sleek, considering that, despite not actually working out since I was a toddler, I have always concentrated on size. Get bigger! Get buffer! Get stronger! BE A MAN!

I knew that I could complete most, if not all, of the obstacles in this race - some might be more cumbersome than others, but I could git 'er dun.

The solution was simple: I needed to run more, but we've already discussed that. But if that's all I did, wouldn't that end up counter productive to the obstacles and things that do require strength? I had to still mildly work out so I could still throw my body weight around. I created a workout circuit type thing that would concentrate on pushing and pulling while maintaining balance, all while concentrating on using my body weight, or something of similar mass to create resistance.

Here are the results...

(Photos are in no way altered in post production. 

Model has been not been retouched. 

Photos taken four months apart.*)

I didn't always follow the regimen I had set for myself, only because I realized where I needed to improve most was in running. And this is a good thing. I don't always have to be working out to be "buff."

I used to go to the gym because I wanted to be so yolked that I could take my shirt off at the beach, pool, or supermarket and have women flock to me to continue my disrobing, right there in the frozen food aisle. Shortly after graduating high school, I realized this was never going to happen. So, I stopped working out, got fat once I moved to college, and then I started lifting again.

Lifting weights is actually very therapeutic, for me, at least. I really enjoyed it when I first got back into it, and then I started working out just because it was one of the few things I liked that was healthy for me. It feels great to be sore, and the fatigue is indicative of being one step closer to a Greek God...or as life would turn out, a Costa Rican court jester. However, because I always tried to lift heavy, I never had that lean muscle this race requires. So I tried to get it in three short months, because that was feasible.

Before moving to Santa Monica, I went to the gym during off hours, so I didn't see all it had to offer in terms of eccentricity. While spending time at the LA Fitness in Santa Monica (the capital of narcissism, apparently), I grew to hate, or at least develop a strong distaste for, some people at the gym.

There's the guy pumping his ass full of steroids, HGH, and some sort of equine estrogen. The sort of mutant that spawned from the blood and semen of a locker room shower. After a nuclear spill. And eating paint chips. He flexes at his reflection constantly, only putting his Starbucks mochachino-soy-latte-nonfat-double-extra-shot-two-pumps-vanilla-with-whipped-cream trenta to curl 200 pounds about 19 times. Then he walks around for 30 minutes chatting with his simian homies before leg pressing a dump truck.

 (I wanted to censor him, and show a Starbucks cup. This is the 

best of both worlds. This man is scary. You could see his penis.)

Then there's the guy that works out in every bit of Ed Hardy gear he owns, sparkling like a sleeping limb, and overpowering everyone within a 20-foot radius because he used three cans of Axe. Please, sir, do not wear this. It looks like Ke$ha shit on you. And you'd probably smell better. If you insist on wearing this stuff, don't do it at the gym. Wear your shitty clothes... oh, YOU ARE (who didn't see that joke coming? So cheap). You paid for that? You paid upwards of $90 for that? And now you're sweating in it? STAAAAHHHP. I keep stepping on your stupid rhinestones. 

I guess I can see the point if they wear it now. Our buddy Eddie made some pretty expensive clothing, but now even some of the top-notch disco balls on his website are selling for less than 20 bucks. Including tax and shipping. That's cheaper than other workout clothes.

(You might think this is blood/semen mutant. You'd be on the 

right track, but the difference usually comes in the subtle form 

of blinding light radiating from his "Swarovski crystals." 

These guys also bulk up with Target-brand protein shakes 

and live chickens because they spent all their extra cash on 

visually offensive outerwear instead of high-quality steroids.)

Of course, there are the people that have NO clue what they are doing. I don't really hate these people. It's the wandering aimlessly that gets to me. If you know you're a bit lost, which you clearly are, and you clearly understand because you keep reading all of the directions, get out of the way or ask a question. Asking things: good. Spinning in circles and struggling so hard you fart and nearly blow out your o-ring: bad.

I will give them credit, though. Oft uncoordinated, lumpy, unfortunate looking, and definitely out of shape, they are doing something to benefit themselves and improve their quality of life. It's just so hard to watch them struggle and putter around the gym floor. The worst part seeing someone turn red, with veins popping out all over their neck and head, all while using the wrong form (which is, incidentally, why I can't work out in front of a mirror).

Ah, but after all the complaining, weightlifting will always be my favorite form of exercise. There's something so awesome about pushing hunks of metal around douche bags and geriatrics until you sweat and cramp and you smell like a sweatsock in an Armani Exchange. Gyms, a little slice of heaven.

*Total fuckin' lie.