About a year ago, a group of us started looking into and talking about the Tough Mudder New England team endurance challenge at Mount Snow in Vermont, and that we should do one. As time went by, a few of us finally decided to sign up. From there, as word passed on, our team grew from a team of five to a team of eight. At that time, we decided to start getting in shape in order to be ready for this grueling task.

On May 31, at 4 AM, it was time to head to Mount Snow. When we arrived, pre-game jitters settled in. After check-in, we attached our numbers to our jerseys and headed to the start line. In order to get in, you have to climb up over a six foot wall.

Once you’re in, they have a Master of Ceremonies who travels from event to event to get the crowd pumped up for their race. This was awesome. He had us all sing the National Anthem and observe a moment of silence for all of our military members who have fallen and those who are still with us. It was a very touching and awe-inspiring moment.

Now that our adrenaline is through the roof, they send us off to tackle the obstacle course: 10.2 miles up and down the mountain. The course had us battling not only the mountain but also mud, electricity, barbed wire, frigid waters, and other military-inspired obstacles.

From beginning to end, you can constantly hear people cheering each other on. The camaraderie was absolutely unbelievable; complete strangers all became friends.

We ended up completing the event, earning our orange Tough Mudder headbands, and getting our hard-earned cup of Dos Equis beer. We started as a team and finished as a team, which is pretty much the motto of the event: Teamwork.

If you have never seen this event, watch some videos at AndoverBeacon.com/Tough_Mudder_NE_2014 and you will get an idea of what we did.