“God damnit.”

“Fuck, I suck.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Didn’t I just finish the last one?”

“Come the fuck on. This has got to be the mutherfucking last one, right?”

Among the things I remember vividly from my first Warrior Dash, these words throughout every part of the race after about the one-mile mark are near the top. And the strange thing is that it wasn’t even that tough.

Seriously, I was expecting a lot worse. And I was expecting I’d do a lot worse. Strangely, neither came to be.

We got up to Twin Lakes, Wis., about zero-9:dark, or at least about an hour before we really should have. It was fine. Cliffy had to have his neurosis taken care of, so, since Dave wasn’t with us to make us late, we got there plenty early. It was all good.

Until we came around the corner.

Still in the car, driving up to the fields where we knew we were close, we came around a bend and there to the left was what appeared to be a track of some sort. There were some plastic lines in place of ropes to show people where to run and there were people of all ages, sizes and speeds bi-pedding along the path. Then they came to a stop. And looked at the wall and the rope that they needed to pull themselves up.

Yeah, at that point I started to have some misgivings about this little physical fitness fantasy.

But we persisted. Once we were in costume, it was way easier to know that 1) we weren’t winning any medals and 2) this was just for the fuck of it.

Dwin and Penelope in their day-glow glory, RJ and Cliffy ready to sing at the church social on a moments’ notice, Chuck and Philly being, well, Chuck and Philly — it all really helped ease any nerves there might have been about what lie ahead. Oh and there was me and my hetro-life partner — as Fred and Barney along with Pebbles — in our costumes conceived less than 30 hours before.

The whole picture made sense actually.

The thoughts of getting over — or not getting over — the obstacles eventually subsided and it became just about doing it.

Well, so I thought. Then the race started.

We had gotten there early enough that we went ahead and jumped into a wave that was 30 minutes before we were supposed to start. No sense in holding off at that point.

We even got fairly far up in the start line and after the horn sounded, it wasn’t long before we were through the gate and our time chip activated.

It’s strange. I’ve only run three competitive races in my life.

I did a 5k about five years ago when I first started losing weight, and I felt so much more alive during the race then at any point ever training for it. It was like I was fishing in a barrel with dynamite. I picked runners off left and right and passed them at will almost. Granted, I was still slow as fuck, but in my world, few people passed me.

When I ran a half-marathon in 2010 before we left Lincoln, it was kinda the same. The first 10k was unbelievable. I had no idea I could run that far that fast, using ‘fast’ as a relative term here. The last two miles were excruciatingly difficult, but I clodded through and finished. The only pisser was that I wanted to break two hours and instead I came up short as I went 2:06.58.

I should have learned my lesson from that race. My 10k split was 54:39 and I was in 1,601st place out of 6,116 runners that day. My last seven miles were so bad that I dropped to 2,712th overall. Pacing myself has never been something I’m good at, whether running, drinking or whatever.

I feel like I probably could have done better in this Warrior Dash if I had a better pace in the middle. I kept trying to go too fast like at the start. I can handle the early pace, but that middle part gets me. I’m not complaining though, as I did finish nearly six minutes better than my goal. I came across this 5k course in 27:34 to finish 1,732nd out of 12,141 Dashers.

I’ll take that.

But I keep going back to the fact that it wasn’t hard. There was little difficulty to it at all. The distance was easy. The majority of the obstacles were simple, although took a little time. And even the one or two that you could say was tough wasn’t much to slow me down. I’m never going to run much faster than that time with or without obstacles, so really, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

The best part was partying and just doing the race with friends.

Yet, I kind of want more.

Part of me really wants to be challenged. Something down inside wants to prove something. I don’t know what or why, but guessing my SMS (no, not PMS, thank you very much sugar-mama) just needs to kick in every once in a while and rear it’s ugly head. Many of you know what I’m talking of as my SMS (Short-Man Syndrome, if you are unaware) has gotten more than a few of you in tangles before, whether you liked it or not.

So, because of that, because of my SMS, I’m making a lifestyle change at least for the next five months. On Monday, I’m starting online Weight Watchers again, rejoining my gym and getting a personal trainer for a weekly workout, plus whatever I do on my own. After next weekend in Wisconsin, I’m going to cut out alcohol through January. I’m setting up my half-marathon training regiment again and going to start a new blog dedicated to just the facts of my training. Some of it will be normal run and lift shit, and I’m going to have to figure out some different stuff too as I try to accomplish my crazy-ass goal.

What?

Oh, you want to know my goal? Watch this:

That, my friends, was the 2011 version of the Tough Mudder. As of 1:05 p.m. ET today, I have signed up to do the 2012 Tough Mudder in Washington, Ga., on Saturday, Feb. 11.

My one and only goal is to finish it and at least attempt, to my fullest, every obstacle. It’s more than 11 miles. I can handle that running. There’s a lot of mud, and water, and smoke, and shitty obstacles too. A couple of them, I will tell you right now I don’t know that I can physically do. And half this battle is getting my mind right that I actually can do it.

But, you know what?

Fuck it. Why not try?

Worse thing it says — at least in the waiver I had to sign — that could happen is I die, unless of course the race is canceled ahead of time because of insurrection (yes, literally that’s in the waiver too).

So, any prayers from our Islamic buddy Offsuiters and anyone else are welcomed. Encouragement is requested. And a physically fit body double would be gladly accepted.

But, fuck. I’m doing this shit, and I’m going to do it right. And if I’m lucky, I’ll have another sweet postrace picture like this one from Warrior Dash (although I will not be smoking a tractor trailer worth of Camel Lights before and after this coming race, I guaran-fucking-tee you that).