There was an eerie stillness of nerves and anticipation as smoke bellowed across the field below. Then, with an ear shattering Boom! the cannon fired. The cries of hundreds of combatants in the air as we stormed downhill toward the enemy ahead. Was I on an 18th century battlefield? No, I was in Wolverhampton on a cold January morning and this was Tough Guy 2016!

The quest began 6 months earlier on a warm summer morning. A ‘fun challenge’ I’d thought, to run a mud race with a group of mates. A quick google search led me to the ‘Tough Guy’ website. I glanced briefly over the material and decided to take action. Sending invite messages to friends, gathering responses, and making a booking for a small team of us in double-quick time. 

It was only a few weeks later when cheerfully introducing our challenge to a work colleague that the alarm bells started ringing. Suddenly looking concerned he responded:

‘I did that race 2 years ago, utterly brutal, never again!’ 

That evening, my research hat was on. The event covered 15 km sprinkled with all manner of fearsome-looking obstacles. It wasn’t going to be a turn-up and ‘wing-it’ type deal I’d expected. Turns out I'd committed us to one of the toughest mud race events on the circuit. An initial response of anxiety was cooled by a deep breath and realisation that the event wasn’t tomorrow. We had time on our side but to get through this we had to have a plan!

Getting through the event required fitness to cover the 15km distance and strength to get over and under the many obstacles. Leading with this objective I contacted my personal trainer and together we co-designed a number of hybrid gym sessions combining sharp bursts of cardio with sets of bodyweight strength training. I then planned out the sessions in my diary for the next 3 months.

I then organised some group training sessions with the gents who’d signed up with me. Bouldering (indoor climbing with no ropes) was both sociable and prove decent training for the obstacle sections. I coordinated a Saturday morning session for us at the ‘The Arch Climbing wall’ centre in South London -  www.archclimbingwall.com

Getting outdoors was also important, so for the second session, we met in a local park to run through some circuits. Not quite as much fun, especially when attempting pull-ups on a bar that still had ice on it from the night before! 

At the start of the new year, I began to feel some anxiety about the event. First of all, I’d noted a Tough Guy mud race statistic:

‘A third of those who start…fail to finish.’

Second, we had a cold-weather blast where for a few days it dropped below zero degrees centigrade. The prospect of attempting to complete the course in these kinds of icy conditions had me mentally unsettled.

The response was an Amazon ordering frenzy. In the coming days some neoprene gloves, socks, and a hat arrived. Quickly followed by a pair of lycra running leggings, along sleeve compression sports top, and pair of trail running trainers. Kitted out training I was amazed at just how well the neoprene gloves and socks responded to the wintry conditions. Great news, although I did now look a little like a running deep-sea diver :-)

With the last few training sessions under the belt, I and fellow ‘Team TG’ members Darren and Ray were our way to Wolverhampton. We’d decided to drive up the evening before and stay overnight in a hotel which proved a great idea. We weren’t going to be confronted with any sudden travel problems and the choice left us free to relax for the evening and on the morning before. Our long-suffering partners were also along with us, their support very much welcomed given the challenge ahead.

After a huge breakfast, on route to the course, I was experiencing

‘Conflicting feelings of fear and confidence’

Thankfully the weather forecast somewhat cooled my anxiety. It was cold and going to rain first thing, but we weren’t going to be experiencing any sub-zero temperatures. 

Arriving on-site the setup was rustic with wooden huts, and a huge barn. An initial walk past a St John’s ambulance vehicle was a chilling reminder of the realities of the situation. There might be ‘pain’, there could be blood! There were to be 4500 competitors with a further army of supporters and course organisers taking attendance up to nearing 10000. The place had a festival-like feel, a hum of anticipation and buzz in the air. Below a video I shot at the scene, capturing the emotion:

We were to be starting near the back which meant we got to stand with our nerves a little longer. Shuffling towards the start line felt like moving towards an abyss. Biological chemistry - anticipation, anxiousness, and endorphins all firing at once. A flavor of what it must have been like to go into battle. I say a flavor, as I do remember sharing a joke with a gentleman dressed as a woman with a short skirt and long pink pigtails. I’d invested my outfit money on weather combating lycra, he’d clearly chosen to focus more on his looks. 

A few minutes later we were there, the start line! Things suddenly happened very quickly - after a countdown, the cannon fired and we were off. A bum slide down a grassless hill, we were up and into a light jog, the cheer of supporters helping us on our way. After all of the build-up, it felt good to finally be moving and underway. 

*Note - There is a video of the start of the race taken by one of our partners at the beginning of the blog article.

The first half of the course is a country run with obstacles spread out including a lot of over and under cargo nets. The first really challenging section required us to run up and down a 50m hill, brutal on the legs. At one stage we were jogging behind a crazed middle-aged gentleman who’d decided to complete the course wearing very little clothing but carrying a trumpet. Every now and again he would play a few notes and get people laughing or shouting along with him.

Shortly after followed a volume of waist-high ponds we were required to go through, working both legs and arms hard. The repetitive nature of this task made it brutal, not even lycra can protect you from an ice-cold soaking

‘For a moment in time strangers became teammates’

Working together to help one another in and out of the water.

10 minutes after this section we experienced one of the scarier moments. A man slipped and went head first over one of the wall obstacles in front. Thankfully he turned in the air just before hitting the floor, avoiding serious injury.  With all this going on, I was glad to be completing the course with friends. Looking out for one other and staying verbally checked-in along the way.

With regards to the course, the second half was where the majority of the structured obstacles were situated. I felt a wave of anxiety pass through my body as we approached. We were going to be pushed hard. One of the obstacles was a shuttle run through some hanging electrical wiring. When legging it through I took one for the team - a 'zap' on the shoulder scaring the living crap out of me and making others laugh. A more dramatic section of the course concerned a run and then jump over a flaming fire pit. This completed thankfully with personnel on hand with fire extinguishers should someone fall a little short on their leap. 

Then there were the lake sections. Here I felt for my team member Darren. Wearing contact lenses,  he’d been carrying some goggles around his wrist the whole way for this very section, however, climbing into the water, when removing them, the elastic snapped!! We looked at him, he stared back for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and kept moving forward as we soldiered on.

I tried as best I could to block out the sight of a number of people dealing with St John’s ambulance personnel in the background. One woman had dropped out with a severe foot injury, another man was wrapped in tin-foil toweling, shivering, struggling with Hyperthermia. Our sluggish jogging was now slower than a walking pace. Eventually, we made it to the final lake and could see the finish line up a hill on the other side. Time for one more moment of drama. Once through the lake, the rope was snapping up between our legs as up as we pulled ourselves up the final hill. One miscalculation here and we might've fallen at the last stand due to a fatal hit to the nether regions! 

Thankfully we all managed to survived this last challenge. Fears replaced with relief as we hauled each other over the finish line. We’d made it! Knackered, dirty, cold, but gifted by a warm sense of achievement. 

Moving into the formal race finish area a different kind of madness ensued. Caked in mud we grabbed our gear and were ushered into a heaving barn that had been converted into a communal shower. Getting clean and into fresh clothes in these conditions proved to be quite the challenge itself.

Back in the car and a quick health check. A bruised knee from a slip on one of the climbing obstacle, cuts on the other leg from a crawling section and muscles naturally beginning to ache. I’d made it through in one piece. Looking out of the window I cracked a smile of achievement satisfaction and within seconds fell asleep in the passenger seat as my wife Jen began our late afternoon drive home…

To complement the article below is some ‘take it or leave it’ advice for anyone considering one of these types of challenges:

• Do some homework before making the commitment. Although on the surface it may look like fun and games many of these events are serious undertakings with risks associated. If there are any health doubts speak to a medical professional before signing up.

• Get booked in well in advance to give you time to plan, train and manage logistics. Ticket prices are also sometimes cheaper when booked earlier :-)

• Research and invest in some appropriate gear for the challenge ahead. (Or take an off piste approach run it in your underwear as a few entrants did!)

• Recruit others to do it with you. The camaraderie and support of doing it as a group really helps and you’ll have the experience to share together for the rest of your lives.

• Fear in the build up to and during these events is a natural emotion. Being organised, well trained and having the support are the ingredients that will allow you to move past this emotion and get you over the line:

‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’

Links to four of the most popular mud races as well as a community website.

1. Tough Guy - http://www.toughguy.co.uk

2. Tough Mudder - https://www.toughmudder.co.uk

3. Spartan Race - https://www.spartanrace.uk

4. Nuclear Races - http://www.nuclear-races.co.uk

Community website ‘The Muddy Race’ hosts online community, related information and has details concerning a huge number of related events all in one place. 

 Muddy Race - https://www.muddyrace.co.uk

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