Europe's Toughest Mudder 2021
As a 40th birthday present, I was entered into Europe's Toughest Mudder 2021. You may have heard of a Tough Mudder before, but this took it to a whole new level.
Starting at 8pm, when the rest of the world is settling down to a Netflix marathon binge, runners take a 5 mile Tough Mudder loop continuosly for the next 12 hours aiming to complete as many loops as possible within a 12 hour period. The race completes at 8am Sunday morning when the world is just putting on breakfast and ready for the day.
The obstacles constantly rotate to add variety to the loops, however, there was always electrocution, always mud, always murky water and always things to climb and scramble over.
I was unsure how to actually train for this event, so bought myself some weights as my upper body strength is that of a 6 year old and planned to get out running as much as possible to cover some serious distances. My (uneducated) expectations were to complete 8 laps giving me a 40 mile ultra marathon run.
And then the world stopped!
Upon returning from Florida after completing the Dopey Challenge, I started with serious respiratory problems and flu like symptoms. On numerous visits to the doctors it was concluded that due to this new virus "Covid-19" only existing in Wuhan, China it was not possible for me to have contracted the virus...even though I had been squeezed into corrales with 1000's of runners from all over the world only a few days earlier.
Once I had recovered from my "Non-Covid19" virus, I was back pounding the pavements....well, for one run and then I slipped on a brick and broke my foot. Another 6 weeks of no running.
It was only a week or so after the boot came off that Mr Boris Johnson annouced that the UK would be going into lockdown and no one was allowed outside for at least a couple of weeks....18 months later.....
I had put on a couple of pounds, well, more than a couple of pounds and my running had taken a real hit. All events were cancelled, Maderia, Bolton and Liverpool marathons were postponed, so took my foot off the pedal a little and my running diminished. There would be time to start training again after the little lock down ceased. It did not cease.....
With both the Bolton Marathon and the Liverpool Marathon postponed again, in my mind I thought, "ah well, that is a year of no events"....how wrong I was, Europe's Toughest Mudder proved that it was the Toughest and stuck two fingers up at the pandemic, this event was going ahead.
With only a matter of weeks left to go before the event it was time to crash course training and get my arse in gear!
So here I was again, standing in the group of like-minded individuals ready to embark on a true test of mental, physical and emotional resiliance.
The pep talk was given by the race director which consisted of lots of "hu-ha's" in a military marine style and pats on the backs of all runners. The race had started a little later than anticipated due to a cow infestation on the course and subsequently a re-design of the loop.
Lap 1 was the "easiest" lap as it was minimal obstacles. Grabbing a flaming torch and then holding it high as you followed a chest high watery path looping back to shore. If the flame went out, you had to redo the loop. Once completed, now with soggy socks and 90% of my body soaked it was a further 4 mile run before we had to wade across a very muddy and sludgy river. As this was the first loop the running pack had not split up enough so it was a very English queue through the cold mud to shore.
Out of the water and heading back to the end of the first loop, with hopes of being remotely dry for the next 12 hours completely diminshed I noticed that I had clocked more than 5 miles...the cows had made the loop longer! Coming in just under 6 miles and crossing the line in a respectable time there was no time to stop so it was straight back out into the wilds again.
The loops continued throughout the night with 2 electrocution points, walls of varying angles to climb, crazy tasks to undertake and The Gauntlet to endure. If you failed an obstacle you were given a forfeit, some definitely worse than others.
When I was informed that there were electrocution points along the course, in my mind I thought it would be a mild tickle....believe me when I warn you, this is a serious jolt. Going through "ElectroShock Therapy" for the first time I was shocked by one of the unavoidable dangling wires on the nape of my neck. My legs shot from underneath me and a fell to the floor in a crumpled heap completely in shock of what had just happened. It bloody well hurt!
The worst forfiet was for not completing the aforementioned Gauntlet. Failure resulted in having to complete the Mini Mudder course designed for crazy mudder kids. The downside was it took around 15 minutes to complete and was horrendous as well. This took a real toll on the engery but also the time on each loop.
Thankfully, once you had completed 4 laps you were granted an obstacle skip token to be used at any point of the loop. I knew exactly where to use this....or so I thought.
Plunging down the chute and into the icy depths in literally froze, I could not function, I was in absolute shock. Once in the water, the next part of the task was to completely submerge and swim under a platform to the other side but I couldn't think how to move never mind swim. The marshall's were all shouting "Don't Stop", "Keep Moving", "Go Go Go!" I just looked at them and smiled like an insane cheshire cat. Finally, my mind kicked back into gear and under I went launching myself out of the water on the other side. I lay on the floor in true shock at what I had just undertaken, was it game over? Could I continue?
After a couple of minutes and a chat with one of the marshalls to make sure I was ok, I stood up and pushed on clutching my skip pass with joy. Reaching The Gauntlet I gleefully passed my token to the marshall and skipped passed the dreaded obstacle with a big smile on my face. Now I just had to get electrocuted again, collect my skip pass and head back out again.
Lap 6, I could feel the pain surging through the whole of my body and the adrenaline slowly depleting. The sun had started to rise and the course was now visible again. I had 2 hours to complete the 6 mile loop with the obstacles, hills and forfiets. This was just under my average pace for the last 3 laps so I would have to pull something out of the bag.
Artic Enema had taken it's prisoners and been moved from rotation, by this point I was a master at mud mile hurtling over the mounds like a gazelle posessed, I had been electrocuted multiple times and I had tactics on some of the challenges that made them slightly easier. My skip pass in hand I endured the obstalces one last time and handed the token to the Gauntlet marshall. Climbing over the huge A-Frame called "The MudderHorn" and on to the ElectroShock Therapy I crossed the finish line with time to spare, but not enough time to complete another loop, I was done.
I went to check the live results and based on the number of loops I had completed and the time it took, I had ranked 4th in my age category. Not bad for a first timer.
Overall rank - 62nd out of 389
Gender Rank -57th out of 344
Age Cat Rank - 4th out of 42
As I stood taking all this in, my legs realised that we had stopped running, and then feeling started to return to my whole body....these were not nice feelings. The pain came flooding in and every muscle seized. My body questioned what it had endured for the last 12 hours.
I had just become an ultra runner, a Toughest Mudder and a true achiever in my mind, but also this would be the last time I would ever do something like this.
Days later, the bruising really started to come out and my core hurt more than I can explain. It took a good week for the aching to cease and a couple of weeks for the bruising to fade.
https://www.strava.com/activities/5794796720
Edit - I have signed up to complete this event again in 2023....will I ever learn?
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