Event preview: Tough Mudder - World's toughest endurance challenge comes to the UK
It has been announced that Tough Mudder, the endurance phenomenon that has swept across America, will arrive in the UK in 2012, with a series of events promising to push body and mind to the limit.
Tough Mudder’s 10-12 mile obstacle courses are designed by Special Forces to test fitness, stamina, mental strength and camaraderie.
Run by Englishmen Will Dean and Guy Livingstone, Tough Mudder has already established itself in America, with between 5,000 and 20,000 Mudders taking part in each event. By the end of 2011 fourteen events will have taken place in the States, with a combined total of over 150,000 entrants.
In the ultimate test of team work, participants are challenged mentally and physically as they navigate their way over 12 foot high Berlin Walls, across muddy trenches, through 4 foot flames and into ice cold water.
The event is not about finishing times or winning a first past the post medal; simply completing a Tough Mudder is a badge of honour. A far cry from your average endurance run, on average only 78% of participants finish the event, and with a course designed to be all but impossible to complete individually, the vast majority of participants register as a team. Tough Mudder aims to ignite the spirit of camaraderie, with participants adhering to the principle that no man, or woman, should ever get left behind.
Events in the UK kick off in Northampton in May, followed by one in Scotland in July and one in the North West in November. The Northampton event in May will be a baptism of fire for competitors, who will have to negotiate pits of stinging nettles, waist high swamps, claustrophobic tunnels, not to mention the 10,000 volts of electroshock therapy they will receive before they drag their weary limbs over the finishing line for a well-deserved pint of beer. That initial pint is then followed by a Tough Mudder post party where Mudders can swap stories of their experiences over some food, drink and live music.
Those who think they are tough enough to meet the challenge can preregister now at:
