Days Out...

Tough Mudder!

On Saturday I completed the special forces created obstacle course called Tough Mudder with my friend Laura. We entered into it quite spontaneously, and it was only after forking out £96 and looked at the overview that I actually realised the extent of my commitment!

It is basically an 11.2 mile track which can be taken at your own pace, it is heavily repeated that Tough Mudder is NOT a race. Throughout the route, there are 26 obstacles, of varying difficulty both in physical skill and mental grit. A map is released a week before detailing all of the obstacles, as they vary from site to site. Our event was at Cholmondeley Estate in Malpas, Cheshire, about an hour away from home in Manchester.

We set off from home at 10am, and luckily the weather was on our side. We had been recommended to arrive an hour before our start time (which was 12pm) but due to traffic, we actually signed in at 11.40am, however this wasn't a problem - in fact nobody seemed to be bothered about checking the start times anyway.Parking was £10 per car on the day, and as there was only two of us doing it, plus Mo spectating, we only had to take the one. We were told to draw our participant numbers on our foreheads and either an arm or a leg, and were also given a paper version to pin on, though mine fell off on the first obstacle!

After a quick warm-up and some motivational banter, we set off, jogging to begin with. The first obstacle we encountered was wading through a river upto our chests (Creek Crusade). Luckily as it was warm the cool water was actually quite refreshing, and nobody seemed to have any problems with it. As there were so many obstacles it would take me forever to list them all, but others included wriggling through mud trenches on our bellies (Trench Warfare), swimming underneath a tyre in a shipping container filled with ice (Arctic Enema), jumping Takeshi's Castle style across floating 'islands' on a river (Island Hoppin'), climbing (or being pulled) over 8ft wooden walls (Hero Walls) and having to run up a vertical wall to the top (Everest). The course was completed by going through a section where 100 volt electric cables were dangling for you to be hit by - and they packed quite a punch!

I kept catching my microdermal piercings, and Laura injured her knee, so we had to stop at First Aid a few times, and eventually ended up walking the majority of the course, taking us an incredible 5.5 hours in total! I felt pretty sorry for Mo having to wait around for us, especially as he had no idea whereabouts we were so didn't even manage to see us do much, but he got a great video of me doing Arctic Enema which was cool.

We were rewarded with our prestigious orange headband and 'Finisher' T shirt at the finish line, and a much deserved pint of Grouse ginger beer, which was so tasty, we bought another. We headed home at around 6.30pm, so I was glad I hadn't arranged to do anything else that evening!