Mudding and Scumbags

Scumbag Steve and Good Guy Greg - Tough Mudder Style

Get me with my "memes". Totally down with the kids, that's me.

I suppose this is kind of the sequel to "Running and Sine Waves" from back in October. I wrote about how I'm happy to live through short sharp bursts of effort, interspaced with periods of indulgent lethargy to recharge. I also spoke of the wonders of lycra running trousers, but that's beside the point.

Last Saturday was absolutely one of the bursts - me and three mates took on (and kicked the backside of) the innaugral Tough Mudder UK held in Kettering. Sadly, this time, the man-giant to lycra ratio was far from optimal...

Over the years I've learnt that a large proportion of people are, for want of a better term, assholes¹. This applies in particular to large groups of blokes and particularly in particular to large groups of blokes attempting to show off in front of their peers and / or act like "the big man".

As I awoke on Saturday morning at 7.45am (Yes, that's SEVEN FORTY FIVE AM. On a SATURDAY) I began my physical and mental preparations for the 12 mile, obstacle filled death run that lay ahead of me. Physical preparation was 2 bananas, bottle of lucozade and a lot of stretching. Then came the mental side:

"Just remember. People are assholes. Assholes make you angry. Angry people get injured or hit things. Neither of those are good outcomes. Practice zen like calm. Ignore the assholes"

I repeated this to myself. Over and over and over again. Then. And only then. Was I ready.

After I arrived and signed in, I was certainly not disappointed by the Mudder population. There were more team T-Shirts than a Ryanair flight to Magaluf. The equivalent of the "Wigan Wife-Beating Club", "Thames Valley University Bukkake Society" and "Liverpool FC Supporters Club" (the worst of the lot) were everywhere I looked; equalled in number by the shirtless, bodypainted or "more tattoo than man" brigades.

But the potent combination of my steely mental preparation, the group warm-up and the amusing middle aged man in the start pen (intent on pushing his own - terrible yet brilliant - brand of americanised "hoo-rah" motivational rubbish) combined in a perfect storm of ridiculosity that cause my brain chemistry to flip.

The assholes didn't annoy me, they were quite simply hilarious. More than that, they were my team mates, my comrades and we were all after the same goal.

Then, the countdown began and before I knew it I was swept along in a sea of testostorised beefcake (with just a sprinkling of lady spartan) towards the first obstacle...

Tough Mudder 2012 - UK

Incidentally (although clearly not thinking about this at the time) the Tough Mudder inventors have come up with a ridiculously good business model. Take 10,000 people paying somewhere betwen £70 and £100 to take part (all paid 6 months before the event - not a bad working capital cycle). Add to that another couple of thousand spectators at £10 or £20 a pop. Throw in parking at £5 a car and a couple of lucratvie sponsorship deals and bam - you get some rich Mudders Funders.

Anways, back to the running. From the very first sprint, a number of my co-combatants lived fully up to expectations. Play fighting, swearing, pushing and barging past me - I even heard two guys discussing the most subtle way of ditching their slightly larger compatriot so they could finish in a faster time (this is not the aim of Tough Mudder).

This lack of team spirit was absolutely tipified by the actions of many on the biggest (12ft high) Berlin Walls. A true Scumbag Steve moment. These walls need teamwork to get over - if you're only 5' 10'' like me anyway. You need one or two men to boost you up and someone on top of the wall to grab your arm and help you to the top. Once you're up, grab the next guy (always grab the next guy!) and away you go. The number of people flipping over the top without even a cursory "thanks mate" was ridiculous.

Not our race - same walls

But then, on the second of these walls, something incredible happened. One Steve transformed right in front of my eyes into a Greg...

The second person of a two man team found that his "team-mate" had already flipped over the top and sprinted off. He tried desparately to run and jump up the wall - again and again. The look of genuine shock on his face when we got to the wall and offered him a leg up was astounding - as if he had never even considered this was a possibility.

He reached the top of the wall, every fibre of his being aching to be on his chavvy little way, but he stopped. He reached down and helped the first of our team up. This was the second greatest moment of the day.

I said before that "a number of my co-combatants lived fully up to expectations". This was true, but the number that did was completely overshadowed by those that didn't. The Timmy Mallet lookalike's chants in the start pen genuinely seemed to be taken to heart by at least 80% of the people on the course - "leave no mudder behind".

I was pulled out of rivers, pushed up mud-filled plastic tubes, applauded when running past groups of people waiting for their more portly compadres to catch up and high-fived for my technique down the slip 'n' slide. This made the whole experience more "fun" than "tough" (though don't let the organisers hear you saying that...).

Just as the wall tipified the bad, the giant half-pipe - a 16ft, slippery slope after 11.9 of the 12 miles had been completed - tipified the camaraderie and teamwork involved.

The Halfpipe

You stand at the bottom of this thing - watching people run up, slip and promptly faceplant into the plastic and slide limply back down - and think it looks impossible. It does.

You take a deep breath (you've just got out of freezing cold water following "walking the plank"), brace yourself, then sprint, sprint a bit harder, keep sprinting and hold out your arms (don't jump for gods sake). Then, if you're lucky (Really lucky as I was) The Rock's more athletic stunt double will catch you and haul you up to the top of the halfpipe.

It was then it dawned on me. It's not the people trying and failing to run up the halfpipe that makes this a spectacle. It's the tens of people lying on the top, having just run 12 miles and completed 20 obstacles, that stick around grabbing other people and flinging them up to join them that make this the best obstacle of the lot. There were shed loads of Good Guy Greg's up there.

And so came the best moment of the day. After about 10 minutes, the two of our team who had got lucky managed to catch and haul up the third. There was just one teammate left. Just him and his completely gripless trainers. To be honest, after 15 minutes I was starting to think he wasn't going to make it, but he gave it one more go. I'll never know how, but this time he ran a little bit harder. We caught him, dragged him up and the feeling was immense.

But that wasn't it. We looked at each other and it was clear we were all thinking the same thing - "just one more". Thankfully the next guy must've weighed around 8 stone. We almost threw him over the back of the halfpipe. Job done.

Just a swift jog through a forest of 10,000 volt (apparently) live wires and we were done. Knackered, freezing cold and feeling a little bit guilty. Guilty because I'd assumed everyone would be like the 20% that actually were Steves. They weren't. I know full well without at least a couple of Gregs (other than my teammates) the whole thing wouldv'e been a whole lot tougher, and a whole lot less fun.

¹I in no way exclude me and my friends from this generalisation of people being assholes, in some circumstances I certainly fall into categorisation.