View Full Version : Tough Mudder - Team BD
As some of you know (and others may not) a few of us here are running a Tough Mudder course on the 12th May.....not long to go now :shocked:
Myself, Belmit and Jingo are being joined by three other friends for a team assault on the 12 mile assault coarse where we will be taking on mud, water, barbed wire, fire, stinging nettles, tunnels, lakes, cargo nets, electric shocks and more :evil:
Here's a link to the event itself...
http://toughmudder.co.uk/events/south-eastmidlands/south-east-midlands-2012-course-map/
And if you want to come along to support, pre-order tickets are £10 (I believe a fair chunk of this goes to a charity)
http://toughmudder.co.uk/spectator-tickets/
All of us are hoping to raise money for our chosen charity so please, if you can, pop a little in the pot. I know times are tough for everyone out there right now but even a pound or two helps. Thank you.
Desmo - http://www.justgiving.com/martinmudder
Belmit - http://www.justgiving.com/beaumudder
Jingo - http://www.justgiving.com/mudderbrown
I know a few of you have already sponsored us so a huge thank you for that :)
Psymonkee
18-04-2012, 14:42
Payday this Friday, spectator ticket and donations incoming :D
Why hello there!
I'm absolutely delighted to announce that with less than four days to go Desmo, Belmit, Joe & I have raised over £1500 to be spread amongst our 3 different charities!
Even after various fees etc that is over £1800 including Gift Aid! :D
Really looking forward to the challenges of this weekend now - the 5 mystery obstacles are due to be revealed prior to the event, so it's quite exciting waiting for the last snippets of the course to be revealed in all their painful glory! ;D
Once again, a big thank you for everybody's generous support - all of our charities provide invaluable support and it is great that we're getting to undertake such an exciting challenge in aid of them.
I'm sure there will be some photographic evidence coming soon ;)
Payday this Friday, spectator ticket and donations incoming :D
A shame you can't make it down any more Senor Monkee, but thank you for your donations :)
Well done! Best of luck to you all! Would love to come and watch but we are racing.
Good luck chaps! Alas I'm working :(
Good luck peoples :) Sad we canny make it as at a charity event this weekend! Super looking forward to piccies :D
Can't wait to hear how you all get on! Am thoroughly in awe of you! x
:D That's really sweet - thank you and good luck to you too! :)
I have a sneaking suspicion there will be some HORRIBLE photos of us all sometime soon ;)
Justsomebloke
11-05-2012, 18:07
I'll just wish you good luck & wait to see the aftermath pics. ;D
Psymonkee
12-05-2012, 18:16
Survivors! :D
Think I'll make it next year!
A full written walkthrough is needed I think so we can empathise with your pain!?
BB x
What was the final timing? :) Well done all of you (loons ;) )
I pressed a wrong button somewhere, I am the mystery donor on Jims page :D
Well done lads
Thanks for the donation Z man :)
My Tough Mudder UK
So it's about time I got this experience in to a few words :)
We had an early start....5am to be precise. One hour to get some food down our necks, get ready and hit the road. As it happens we got there with plenty of time to spare and could have had another hour in bed but it was great to be there and soak up some of the atmosphere.
When you arrive it's time to grab your signed death waiver and head to the signing in tent where you're given your number, wristband and bag tag. You also get your number written on your head in permanent marker (presumably incase it become detached from your body). We dumped our bags in the bag tent and then waited for our start time to be called for 10am.
They called us out..."Wave 7....come to the stage for warm up". We're sent out in groups of 600 people at a time. We do a little warm up session and then head over to the starting pen where everybody is held for the start. Being a pen, you have to get in and because this is Tough Mudder, you climb over a berlin wall....obviously :evil: There's lots of "hoo-raah's", shouting, cheering and best of all for me, the national anthem. We countdown from 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...
And we're off, having a nice trot down the hill where you can see the course head back up and off to the right. What you can't see is that in the dip is a river (I'll use the term river in most of these as although they're not huge flowing rivers, to call them streams would be an understatment). You're in up to your shoulders in to cold water and swim to the other side where you scramble out. What a start. It's then on to many more obstacles, many of which I can't even remember doing at the time. We were under barbed wire crawling up a mud slope, next in to the freezing cold skip full of ice where you are fully submerged to dive under a bar. Coming out of that, I couldn't feel anything below my waist but you carry on running up the next hill.
From here on in my memory is sktechy as to the order of obstacles but we come across more Berlin walls that get higher and higher, mud tracks that try to rip your shoe from your foot, nets to crawl under, logs to jump over and dive under, hay bails to climb, hills to slide down and logs to carry.
Tough Mudder is a bit of a runners course...and I'm no runner. I was expecting half mile runs broken with various obstacles but the runs inbetween were often much, much further. I've only ever run 5km (3.1 miles) before so the longer distances really caught me out. To try and complete four times my normal distance and include obstacles wasn't an easy task and at times it got the better of me. Some of the runs turned in to walks as my calves started to cramp up. I managed to keep going but they were getting worse and funnily enough any obstacle I came across was a nice releif. It took constant pressure off my legs to keep performing in that same running pattern. The one obstacle that got me was the Electric Eel. Crawling across the floor with electric wires hanging down and some sod spraying you with water from a hose. The first shock I got was right where I didn't need it....my right calf. It didn't lock up but it didn't do me any good. I got zapped another 4 or 5 times through there.
After the final long run with small periods of walking, we finally came to the top of a hill and as we turned the corner we could see ourselves coming back to the main area with the final few obstacles. We queue to get on the balance beams and I take the time to try and stretch my calves and quads out, getting serious cramp issues by now and the cold water isn't helping. I get on to the balance beam and made really good progress until I near the middle where it starts wobbling a good two inches side to side and I'm in the drink. Cramp hits my left calf instantly but I manage to hold it out, swim to the edge and climb out. Next we're on to the monkey bars. I've never been great at these and this was no exception. With pitch roof climb and drop, these were going to be hard and with wet hands and wet and spinning bars I wasn't expecting much and made it out one bar and I was off :D
Once out of the water I made my way to Walk the Plank, a 15ft high jump in to the river again. At the botton, a course marshall was telling everybody to stretch out their calves which I'd already started to do. I waited a bit as my team members climbed the three high beams to make their way up. As I put my foot up to the first beam....bang, my left claf locks up in a cramp like I've never had before. The marshall runs over and starts to help and I'm now laying on my back at the foot of the climb up. Another Tough Mudder takes over the stretching before he makes his climb. I look back at the wall but it's not good, I've got no chance of getting up there so head down, I head off to the bridge and walk across heading over to Everest, the quarter pipe ramp. As I'm walking...bang, my right calf goes and it's like nothing I've ever seen before. It was indented right in the middle like it had a massive thump print in it and it was pulsing like a heart...my entire calf was just pulsing. Really strange and once that happend I knew there was no way I'd make the ramp. Gutted. When we stood there watching the queue had really built up and would have been a 15-20 wait anyway and I was starting to get cold as the wind picked up and was shivering as my body started to slow down. Only one of our team waited out long enough to give it one shot and then gave up when we then headed up the hill for the final obstacle and the finish line. This time the electric shock only got me a couple of times and we all crossed the line together.
Across the line we collected our headbands, t-shirt and a beer.
What an utterly amazing event. Seriously. Despite all the pain and effort, we're already talking about the next one. I'm sitting here now with major groin strain in both legs, I'm aching everywhere and covered in bruises and scrapes but I want to do it again. I'm gutted I didn't get to complete the course properly or fully but at the same time, considering my preparation, I'm pretty damn chuffed with myself :)
So, Tough Mudder UK next year.....WHO'S IN? :D
You're all crazy. But brave :) well done!
Sounds stupidly hard :p congrats on all who did it it - brilliant achievement :)
Matblack
13-05-2012, 22:39
Hmmmmm, maybe
:D
MB
Psymonkee
14-05-2012, 01:09
Sorely tempted and would give me a hell of a goal to aim for. ....
That is definitely crazier than running 26.2 miles :p so hell no!
In fact, it sounds like hell!
BB x
Super impressed!! Had we not been going away I'd be in!! When we get back though, deffo :)
Looking forward to plonking some sponsor moolah over :)
Thanks for all the monies and support people. :) Was an amazing day and I'd do it again this weekend if there was one on!
There's a survey to fill out and I'm going to complain about that quarter-pipe obstacle; due to its difficulty people were just crowded at the bottom, meaning long waits, dangerous behaviour and little chance of giving it a proper go. Other than that, pretty much awesome!
I did the questionnaire last night. My only complaint was that the first I knew about arriving 2 hours before our start time was in an email one week before the event. They could have let us know a lot sooner than that as it could have made some peoples travel plans a lot more difficult. I understand the potential need for the time but just let me know a bit sooner :) I'd also say the course was very much runner friendly. There were long distances to be run rather than the run a bit, do an obstacle, run a bit.... that I thought it might be. I'd also like some slightly more technical obstacles but I'm just picking hairs here. Overall, the day was utterly awesome.
Massive massive thanks to everyone who donated. We raised a huge amount of money for various charities :)
Despite a favourable and positive response overall, I let them have it with this, regarding layout/obstacles:
Wasn't so happy with the number of water obstacles at the end, and having to wait around for each whilst cold and wet from the last one. Having had no trouble with fitness, heat, cold etc. until that point it was disappointing that I reached a point where I felt I might struggle simply because of waiting around. Most disappointing of all was Everest, which was a complete bottleneck due to difficulty. Having been in and out of the water three times on the previous obstacles the entire team was drained of body heat and joining a crowd of people in the hundreds at the bottom of it. When we arrived one girl was already seriously injured from the sheer number of people falling down on each other and there was only room for a few people at a time to have a go at it (and mostly failing because there wasn't a big enough run-up thanks to the crowd). If the obstacle had been twice as wide it may have faired better. As it was, I waited ten minutes to have one go while the rest of the team went around. After my one failed attempt I decided it was no longer worth getting colder waiting for a second go and followed them. A real shame as it was the only obstacle we skipped. This obstacle in particular needs much better wardening and safety professionals on hand. It was a good five minutes before anyone turned up to attend to the fallen girl (despite a number of Mudders calling for aid), who was shaking and couldn't move while people were throwing themselves up the ramp around her. I'd certainly be interested to know if she was OK. (This was around 1:30pm)
I think Jingo read somewhere that she was OK and released from hospital later that day :)
Ah, good to know. :) Must be gutting what with that being the last 200m of the entire course. Maybe they carried her over the finish line, on a stretcher, through the electrical wires?!
warriordash.com
Actually this looks tame in comparison to yours :p coming to London though.
BB x
You can see me and Tubbs in the big starting group this video, to the left of the shot :grin:
I think Jingo appears a few seconds later too.
jUmiIVWdMQ4&feature
LeperousDust
14-05-2012, 23:22
That video looks truly immense. ;D:D Want!
leowyatt
15-05-2012, 10:37
I'm certainly interesting is joining in :)
Would be great to have a bigger BD team next time :D
Some guys at the gym did it too. They were talking about it - and it just made me want to do it even less! No appeal for me whatsoever! :p
leowyatt
15-05-2012, 14:34
and it just made me want to do it even less! No appeal for me whatsoever! :p
Why is that Will?
Team pigmo are going to sign up for a 5km spartan sprint in a couple of months :D
Why is that Will?
It's just not the sort of endurance event that appeals to me.
I have a huge amount of respect for people that do it and have done it. But running 12miles with some nasty sounding obstacles just isn't my idea of fun. Which makes my respect even more elevated as a result.
Put me in a field of England A team rugby players with the chance of them beating me to a pulp is far more pleasant to me!
Maybe I'm just a wimp. Hiking to the top of mnt Kilimanjaro appeals, trekking across the north/south pole appeals... taking part in strongman competitions appeals. Just not that. If it was just an assault course then I'd be up for it, or a team event, but I've done enough of that sort of **** in military training and survival training to know that unless I have no choice I wouldn't do it :p
I just wouldn't actively CHOOSE to do that as an event. Maybe it's irrational?! :p
Piggymon
15-05-2012, 18:52
SPAAAARTAAAAAAA !!!!
LeperousDust
16-05-2012, 00:45
Come up north! :p
Up north. Freezing cold river. Skip full of ice. No thanks :D
http://www.hellrunner.co.uk/hell-down-south/
No assault course but plenty of mud :p
Unless I'm being stupid, I can't see how far it is. Besides, where's the fun with no obstacles? Might as well just run through my local fields ;D
Its a 10-12 mile one. Bit of an arty farty start but here is a promo vid: http://bcove.me/ful8e881
Can't do Spartan on the 22nd, got a show to go to :/
How about the 29th near Cambridge instead? :D
http://www.spartanrace.com/cambridge-obstacle-racing-spartan-sprint-2012.html
Belmit, WHEN you sign up for this use "10peaks" for discount ;)
Piggymon
16-05-2012, 21:54
Pigmo is BOOKED!
I'm bartending/cocktail mixing at my parents' wedding anniversary party that weekend. Looks like I'll have to give it a miss. :(
Piggymon
17-05-2012, 07:02
Arse :(
Can't they change their anniversary date?
You are all crazy!!!
(plus I feel like a running snob now lol)
BB x
I was wrong... this is the one that you should all be doing: :p http://www.zombieevacuation.com/
lol
BB x
Zombie evacuation sounds so cool in theory, but I couldn't be a runner in that I'd end up in the foetal position rocking somewhere because I hate being chased.
We should get together a group of volunteers to be zombies though, that would be cool!
Del Lardo
17-05-2012, 20:18
Can't do Spartan on the 22nd, got a show to go to :/
How about the 29th near Cambridge instead? :D
http://www.spartanrace.com/cambridge-obstacle-racing-spartan-sprint-2012.html
That popped up randomly on my Facebook adverts yesterday, took a quick look and thought hell no :o
Piggymon
17-05-2012, 20:22
Wuss :p
Del Lardo
17-05-2012, 20:33
Wuss :p
As it happens I'm out the country :p
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