Tough Mudders......

[tstowater]

I am almost getting the disease. I was scrolling through MonsterMuleys and checked out Brian's HAC thread. He has a video of his Colorado Tough Mudder. Looked like fun. Went to the Tough Mudder site to check if any more close to me (Iowa) before the end of August. No such luck. Took the questionaire on whether I was ready and it said I was readier than I feel. I think they are just trying to get people hooked. Anyway, thinking this might be something to do next year and another reason to keep in condition. Based on what I saw, it looks like a team event, but can be done individually.

Any thoughts??

 

[Tookeymonster]

Its a lot of fun and the one here in CO will test you for the mountains as last year the first 5 miles was a climb. Its a team thing too need 4 or more people. Do it you will be glad you did.

 

[diggerson]

I highly recommend it! Did my first one last week in CO, and will be doing more in the future. While hunting is my primary motivator for staying in shape, I found I needed a little extra kick in the tail to keep it going all year long, so started looking for other challenges to do throughout the year. training for and doing a Tough
Mudder is as good as it gets for mountain hunting training. The combination of distance/endurance, the more physical challenges of the obstacles, and the mental grit needed to grind it out have me feeling pretty prepared for September, and we're not even into July yet. I was quite pleased with the way my legs and lungs carried me up Death March!

TM is billed as a teamwork/camaraderie event, where finishing as a team is more important than course time. However, there is nothing that says you can't sign up and do it as an idividual. The amount of people, both from other teams and individuals, willing to lend a hand will not leave you feeling lonely on the trail. In fact, based on your fitness level, you'll likely settle into a pace with others on the same level, and end up running the course with these familiar faces all day long.

One suggestion from my experience - I focused a bit too much on running during my training, and not enough on upper body strength. I was running 20-25 miles/week and I reached the point where long runs on weekends were 10-12 miles, longest was 14. If I had to do it over again (and I will) I would back down on the running and commit more time to strength training.

 

[HellsCanyon]

Check out the Spartan Race as well... same kind of deal and maybe you'll have one coming to you soon! We are planning on doing one next summer...

http://www.spartanrace.com/

Mike

 

[tstowater]

I ran across the Spartan races also. Boy, I must live in a small cave and need to get out more. Is there something else out there besides the TM's and Spartan races that would be a good training/preparation tool?

 

[diggerson]

There are lots of 5K mud runs, Google "mud run" and you should get hits on the various events around the country. Warrior Dash seems to be the biggest of this variety. I did Warror Dash last year, but honestly, at that distance it is over before you know it. It won't really challenge you if you are looking for something that tests your endurance a bit. I'm doing it again this year, but only to see how much I can improve my time over last year. Yuo get a "free" beer at the end of this one too. : )

TM and Spartan seem to be the biggest of these types of events. I haven't done a Spartan yet, but looks like they some variations in their event types/distances also.

 

[dcestnik]

Last years warrior dash took more time to get registered than to run but it was a good one to test the waters with. CO spartan race and CO tough mudder were quite a bit more challenging but are finishable by most anyone. Tough mudder had more distance and climb but spartan races burpee penalties were just as taxing.

On a side note someone needs to educate whoever makes the spears for spartan race on why FOC is important.