Verona Cop Proves He's One Tough Mudder

Try to remember the coldest you've ever been. Now imagine that feeling stretched out over 24 hours. Now picture yourself, still freezing, completely soaked in water. Now, if you can, imagine running a grueling 12-mile obstacle course under those conditions.

That's just a taste of the trials endured by Verona Police Officer Page Parsels, who spoke to Patch this week, still reeling from completing the endurance test to end all endurance tests, "The Toughest Mudder."

"I'm very proud to have participated in the event. It was a true test of my personal worth, and it really pushed me to my limit and asked me to go further," Parsels said this week in a phone interview.

The Toughest Mudder was held on Saturday, Dec. 17 in Englishtown at Raceway Park. The invitation-only event was attended by the top 5 percent of finishers at the annual "Tough Mudder," which was held in April in Allentown, Penn. The Tough Mudder, in its own right an endurance contest for the ages, consisted of an 11-mile course of mud, snow, freezing water, fire and smoke. However, the British Special Forces that designed the course took things a few steps further for the Toughest Mudder.

In the Toughest Mudder, although the course is roughly the same length, the obstacles are steeper, higher and longer. And this time, the challenge is to complete the course as many times as possible in 24 hours.

As a nine-year veteran of the Verona Police Department and a former member of the Navy who served in the Persian Gulf, Parsels has had his share of scrapes, but nothing that prepared him for the unforgiving chill of a 30-degree December evening, trudging through knee-deep mud and chin-deep water over three-quarters of a mile

"The cold was unbelievably torturous. When I finished the first lap, I went into my tent to try and spend some time getting warm. When I came out I noticed tons of people packing up their tents and throwing in the towel. A lot of people were getting hurt, my family said there were lots of ambulances carting people off during that first lap," he said.

Parsels said his gameplan was to complete the course at a slow and steady pace, and preserve his strength for key moments. The plan was thrown somewhat off course during the first event of the Toughest Mudder, known as the muddy mile, a three-quarters of a mile trudge through freezing water and knee-deep mud, which left the competitors soaked and freezing from the start.

"If you decide from the get-go, I'm going to walk this course, the problem was you froze. So I had to run. If I wanted to back off and take my time, I would have froze and I think the cold would have beaten me. At the end of the course, the last few obstacles were all water obstacles where you'd be in the water for 10-15 minutes at a time. Toward the end the cold was snatching the life right out of me.

Parsels said he did not sleep during the 24 hours of the event, despite his best efforts.

"After the first lap my teeth were chattering so hard I thought they were going to crack. I remember thinking I wish I had a mouthpiece or a piece of gum. I struggled to get my wet gear off and dove in my tent, got in warm clothes and zipped my sleeping bag over my head and laid there."

Parsels said forcing himself to get back out in the cold was perhaps the biggest challenge of all.

"That was the war," he said.

When he finally emerged, exhausted and freezing, Parsels completed another two thirds of the 12-mile course before the cold finally got the better of him.

"The cold was on me and I couldn't get it off," he said.

The Toughest Mudder raises money for the Wounded Warrior Project, a non-profit organization that helps American servicemen and servicewomen who have been severely injured. In 2010, participants around the country raised more than $600,000 for the Project.

Parsels, himself a veteran, said during the darkest moments of the course, his thoughts were with the troops serving overseas, and that he drew strength from imagining their hardships.

"They're out there making the ultimate sacrifice for us, it's nice to go out there and be able to do something like that and give back to them," he said.

Parsels thanked his fellow Verona P.B.A. Local 72 members for their moral support as well as material support, and for helping donate gear for him to complete the race, as well as Sheila LaVecchia from Hardbodyz Fitness in Verona, who helped Parsels prepare for the Toughest Mudder with an intense regime of cross-fit training.

"Everybody has been really great and supportive about me taking this thing on. It's certainly a big undertaking and I was glad to be a part of it and represent the Township of Verona and the P.B.A. in something like this."

To see photos of Parsels and other Verona Police officers in action at April's Tough Mudder, .

To see video of the Toughest Mudder and the description-defying obstacle course, visit muddernation.com.