{"id":1450,"date":"2026-09-04T14:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T14:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2026-09-04T14:33:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T14:33:35","slug":"back-in-the-mud-tough-mudder-chicago-infinity-8-29-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/04\/back-in-the-mud-tough-mudder-chicago-infinity-8-29-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Back in the Mud (Tough Mudder Chicago Infinity) (8\/29\/26)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TMI.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TMI-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TMI-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TMI-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TMI-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TMI-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TMI.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Toughest Chicago in 2024, I was looking forward to racing Infinity last year. Then I lost two guides to broken feet race week and couldn&#8217;t find even a second guide. While I had a tremendous amount of fun volunteering and listening to Clinton&#8217;s EST banter for hours, I missed being out there last year. So I was looking forward to racing this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Shane and Mike joined the guide team, logistics were finalized and we all met up at the new venue. After making it on course, we were met with a lot of &#8220;crawling&#8221; obstacles at the start, including barbed wire, electrical, and gas. It also included some very deep mud mile pits and a confining tipping point (I was told it wasn&#8217;t being tipped enough at first). Later on we had walls and water obstacles (including a very deep &#8220;creek crossing&#8221;).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I was leaving for the race, I had felt a minor pain in my left knee. I think somewhere between the extra stretches to get out of the deep pits and over the inverted wall, I tweaked it. By about mile 5, I was limping a little and it just got worse. The last 3 &#8211; 4K was a real struggle. Even with all that, I still had the temporary thought of going out for a 5K loop to get the 3rd hex. But after coming to the more reasonable decision (for both short-term and long-term safety), I tapped out after the 15K loop. I really wish my knee hadn&#8217;t been an issue. We were doing a decent pace even with having to walk a lot (either because of lighting for safety or limping), and could have gotten at least 10K more in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even though I could only get in a single loop, it was still a lot of fun to be back out in the mud again. I am grateful to Scott, Shane, and Mike for all of their help, guiding, and keeping me safe. And I&#8217;m grateful to those who helped on the course, especially at the walls. Glad to see SundayFunday will be back for Chicago 2027. \ud83d\ude42 Here&#8217;s to hoping that re-addition for 2027 is a good step towards US Toughests returning in the near future! &lt;3 &lt;3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Toughest Chicago in 2024, I was looking forward to racing Infinity last year. Then I lost two guides to broken feet race week and couldn&#8217;t find even a second guide. While I had a tremendous amount of fun volunteering and listening to Clinton&#8217;s EST banter for hours, I missed being out there last year. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/04\/back-in-the-mud-tough-mudder-chicago-infinity-8-29-26\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Back in the Mud (Tough Mudder Chicago Infinity) (8\/29\/26)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1452,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions\/1452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}