Tough Mudder, How Tough Is It

Im so pleased to finally get round to doing this race and getting back to blogging. I have been majorly busy starting up my own brand of health and fitness Stay Slim and Avoid the Gym which has been a major focal point and success in the last 18 months of my life. During this busy time I have managed to take time out to try out new exercises and challenges, one being the Tough Mudder.

Here we are all at the start (Im the one in the Yellow t-shirt). 

So on Saturday the 12th of July 2014 at 9.00 am I was in Kettering doing the Tough Mudder course with some friends I have made since I have started out on my adventure with Stay Slim and Avoid the Gym. In fact I think it was after a very short time of knowing them they had me signed up to this crazy and yet fun race. On completion we all agreed that it was not as tough as we though it would be. However we were all still very happy to complete a gruelling cross country run with some fun and sadistic obstacles along the way.



Here are my top 5 obstacles (In no particular order) during the course, along with some advice on how to tackle them.  


1) Glory Blades (climbing over 6-7ft wall slanted at bout 10-20 degrees) 

Picture Of Glory blades

I was not looking forward to these and my heart sank a little when I saw they were the first obstacle. To my amazement I completed them with little trouble. As it was the first obstacle of the run we had plenty of energy to throw our selves over. There were a few reasons why I was worried about this obstacle. During my training i found it hard to replicate this obstacle, I did some pull ups and a lot of upper body retraction work ( lateral rows and bent over rows) to help with being able to pull my body weight up.  I also  done some plymoteric training to help improve the power of my jumps. However finding a  slanted wall at around 6-7ft tall was not possible. Worse case scenario if you did struggle there are only 2 walls to clear and there are fellow mudders on hand to help you over.

2) Arctic Enema (diving into ice cold muddy water and swimming under a tyre barrier)

Freezing Fun

This obstacle took me by complete surprise, I have never really been one to worry about a bit of cold water being British. However I have never experienced anything like this. Despite it being ice cold the water is mixed with a lot of mud and god knows what else by the smells! (very farm like!). Anyway I jumped in and initially felt fine, then  started to hyperventilate. Which at the time was scary and I didn't think I was going to be able to swim under the tyres. It was a very hot day by British standards and we had been running for a few miles prior to reaching this obstacle. The rapid change in body temperature didn't react well with me so I had to find away to overcome it. I realised that my head was still really hot and the rest of my body is now cold and this was what was probably causing me to hyperventilate. So I had to start throwing the lovely cocktail of muddy ice water over my head to get my body to adapt to the cold. After about 10 seconds of doing this the hyperventilation passed by and i swam under the tyres with no trouble. Training wise I didn't feel there was much I could do for this one, apart from having a cold bath from time to time which i didn't do! If you were to take it very seriously then an ice bath right after your training session could help you with this one. Practising holding your breath under water may help but to be honest you are not under water for very long, 5 seconds at the most.

3) The Electric Eel. (army crawl through muddy water with electric wires hanging down)

It as painful as it looks

You sometimes here a lot in training "mind over matter" which I never really followed, but this really
was an instance when this applied. I said to my self " its probably only as strong as electric fence wire that they use to keep cows in a field which is unpleasant but its certainly not going to hurt you". How wrong was I to be. I took the sound advice of the marshals of just go through it as quickly as you can. So i just dived straight in and army crawled as quickly as possible and things were going well, I haven't got shocked yet. I bobbed my head from side to side to avoid getting hit in the face with any of the wires which worked really well. Anyway right at the last 2 metres (roughly 5-6 metres of crawling) I felt a shock go right through my body, I think my bum made contact with the wire. Then i got another 2 shocks, one on my hip ,then one my shoulder right at the end. The shocks just seem to freeze you for a split second. Oh yeah the shock is definitely worse than that you get from an electric fence keeping cows or horses enclosed  The only training you can do for this is get quick at doing army crawls. I practiced them in a field going up and down slopes and just working on my speed with these. There is no training that can help with the electric shocks unfortunately :-0.

4) Everest (running up a half pipe/big skating ramp).

Im the  One in the Middle being helped up

This one worked out ok for me, did it first time but did need a little help. I was not sure how to tackle this whether to try and make it up myself or get help. Looking back I think I could have done it ok with out anyone helping me. However when you do your run up there are a lot of people waiting up the top to give you a hand, so i opted for a little help as a appose to jumping on them.  There are 2 ways you can tackle it, either go slow and steady and try not to slip. The other is just to keep sprinting as fast as you can and don't think about stopping or slowing down, because when you change speed thats when people tend to slip and fall back down the half pipe. The good thing is that you can train for this. One is to go to your local skate park and run up the half pipe ramp. Second (the way I trained) was just to focus on hill sprints and jumping jacks. These type of exercises will help you develop explosive power to help accelerate at the half pipe.

5) Hero Walls (Climbing up a 9t wall)

The Hero Wall, Tough.

Unfortunately I was not much of a hero at this one, Steve in our group manage to clear them with
relative ease. He said his days in the Army helped with jumping over the walls, and he is very good at lifting his own body weight too, which unfortunately for me I am not. This was going to be a struggle, I opted to be helped over by my group and other mudders, which to be honest a lot of people did as its probably the safest thing to do this far into the race for your own safety. This is a tough one to train for, you will need to work on building your upper body pulling and retraction strength, so your pull ups, Australian pull ups and any Latisimuss Dorsi works outs are going to help. You also need to develop spring in your legs so the Pyometric training will be beneficial too. However it is very hard to replicate climbing over a 9ft wall. I did get chance to try out some 6-7 ft walls but those few extra feet make a big difference.

Would i do it all again?

Absolutely, i am currently planing my next exercise challenges. I would  like to do the Tough Guy race which is apparently more difficult, according to a friend of mine who use to run them back in 2008 and he actually won the tough guy race.  So I am currently recruiting a team to do that with me next year hopefully, any takers?  In the mean time I have recently purchased a road bike, which I am really enjoying and hope to enter a race in the near future. 

You do get a free pint at the end that goes down nicely!

Here I am preparing for take off to everest