The Muckfest is kind of like a Tough Mudder watered down by about 1000%. It's still a physical workout, but there's no electrocution, no giant walls, no special ops training level stuff. And it raises money for Multiple Sclerosis funding and research, which is a cause near and dear to my heart. Two of the people I love most in the world battle with MS every day. Thankfully, it's fairly mild for both of them, but it's still a struggle, and I would love to live in a world where they didn't have to struggle any more, so I am all for helping to raise funds that help work toward that world.
After the event last year, I wrote the little piece I've posted below here. I want to share it again now. I know there are only a small handful of people reading this, but if anyone is interested in participating in or volunteering at a Muckfest MS event, they'd love to have you. And if you're Boston-adjacent and would like to volunteer on April 25 or 26, let me know. I'd love to have some company on the course!
Muckfest 2014 Reflections
A few people have asked me about my
Saturday, about seven hours of which I spent volunteering at the Muckfest MS Boston. Although there’s no physical way I could have been a part of
yesterday as a participant, it was certainly within my power to be there as a
volunteer, so I drove the hour out to Devens, MA at the crack of dawn to stand
in the rain with a bunch of crazy people, helping even crazier people
successfully complete the 20 obstacles spread across 5k of muddy trail that
comprised the Muckfest course.
Shortly after arriving, I was assigned to obstacle #12, the
Tunnel of Love, with my partner-in-crime for the day, Matt. From 7-9 a.m., we waited, listened to
instructions, ventured through the Devens woods, and checked out the
course. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., I
clapped, cheered, and directed people to get on their hands and knees and climb
through the two giant sewer-type pipes set in the ground and secured at our
station.
Ours was a fairly easy obstacle. The ground leading up to it, though very muddy,
was fairly flat, and there was no water in the tunnel. There wasn’t even as much mud as we thought
there might be, later in the day, after the first half of the 5,000
participants had climbed on through.
The two obstacles
before us were the zig-zag pits, which involved running zig-zag through
trenches that were mid-calf deep with muddy, mucky, cold water, and something
called Natural, which involved climbing in and out of a very steep, very mucky
ravine. I’m still not sure what was at
the bottom of it; my knee said no when I contemplated going in.
Going through the obstacle after us, the Thunderstorm,
involved climbing under a tent top that was just above ground level, under
which was a pool of muddy, mucky, cold water to wade/swim/survive through to
the other side. Through the whole day,
ACDC’s Thunderstruck played at full blast there, while the tent made
thunder-like sounds while people soldiered through. I was happy to learn that the noise was the
tent, not the rainstorm that stalled out over us and kept us soaked through
from start to finish.
Yes, comparatively, we were a fairly mild stop. In fact, I encouraged many muckers through
the tunnels over the course of the day by promising that it was warm-ish and
dry-ish in the tunnels, or at least not actively raining in there. The best news I shared, though, over and over
with every group that went past me, was that just on the other side of the
tunnel was the two-mile mark, so completing the Tunnel of Love meant you were
about two-thirds of the way to the finish line.
For several years a couple decades ago, I volunteered along
the route at the Boston AIDS Walk, part direction-giver, part cheerleader. At the volunteer orientation we were all
required to attend, the course coordinator told us, “I don’t care if you have
cheered the same cheer thirty seven thousand times already and you’re sick of
hearing your own voice. The walker in
front of you didn’t hear it the first thirty seven thousand times. He’s only going to walk by you once, and it
is your job to encourage him past your spot and on to the end. Your cheering voice may be the thing that
propels him to finish the course, so you better make damn sure he hears it!”
I thought about that yesterday, as I was standing in the
muck, drenched through five clothing layers so that even my bra could be wrung
out, cold and and tired, with feet I couldn’t really even feel any more and
hands that were red and numb from the combination of the water and almost five
straight hours of clapping. I wanted to
stop and find a dry spot and curl up with a cup of tea and curse the moment I
ever decided to sign up for an outdoor rain-or-shine event in Massachusetts in
April.
But then, one mucker would come around the corner. Maybe she was wearing a shirt that matched a
team that passed through 20 minutes before that, or maybe he was in clothes
that matched no one else we’d seen all day, just running for his own private
reasons.
Participants had to climb a slight hill, maybe 10 yards or
so ahead of the Tunnel of Love sign, to get to us. These single muckers, without a team to
bolster them up, almost always slowed just short of the hill. Some of them stopped. That spot was a sticking point, over and over
again, all day long.
When I saw the muckers come to that spot, I cheered harder,
yelling and clapping them up the hill.
Every single one of them, all day long, picked up their pace and crowned
the hill, hands above their heads in victory as they ran, walked, stumbled, and
slid toward my voice.
“Welcome to the Tunnel of Love—come on through!” I yelled to the three thousand muckers who
passed me when the reached the top.
“Just past the tunnel is the two-mile mark! That means when you get through the tunnel,
you are two-thirds of the way to the finish line!”
Over and over, I watched that news penetrate. I heard cheers and happy exclamations and a
few, Oh, thank God!s. And maybe, once or
twice, I got to be the thing that propelled them to the end of the course. I know I was the thing that propelled them to
the top of the hill. And for that
opportunity, I am eternally grateful!
Many of the muckers thanked me for volunteering as they
passed. A whole bunch thanked me for my
enthusiasm. One told me I was a “breath
of fresh air” in the middle of the course.
Every single one of those comments was a gift to me and was WAY more
important than my numb toes and sore hands.
That was why I was there.
I desperately, desperately hope that some of those dollars
raised yesterday will lead to some discovery that eventually makes this evil
disease a thing of the past. But for
that money to be donated, the fundraiser had to be held. And for the fundraiser to be successful, people
have to be there to do all the myriad of things needed to move people and their
donations from Point A to Point B to Point X, Y, and Z, especially if there’s a
Tunnel of Love situated somewhere between those points. Being one of those people—that’s something I
can do to help. And I’m so glad to have
the opportunity to do so.
To all the muckers who passed me on their way between
Natural and Thunderstorm yesterday, thank you.
Thank you for being just crazy enough to strap on those now-ruined shoes
and team shirts and tutus and duck suits and whatever else you donned to
complete five kilometers of craziness (I’m looking at you, guy in the
Speedo!). Thank you for your time and
your dedication and your blisters and your red, chafed skin. Thank you for making your donations and
maybe, just maybe, getting us one step closer to a cure.
My Saturday was great.
Thanks for asking!
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