Ross had niavely assumed the water obstacles might be toward the end of the 10km because of the issues running 10km in wet shoes and clothes.
The “serious/laugh meter” took a knock toward serious as Ross and Barb drove into the venue. A little golf cart drove across the track in front of us with a woman obviously in distress wrapped in a thermo blanket. As we continued on we could see the muddy fatigued faces of the runners following the trails, and the larger obstacles off in the distance in each direction we looked.
The team all managed to find each other, and we were all nervously excited about the complete lack of a clue for what we were in for.
A slight miscalculation on Ross’ s end if run water theory; the water started in the first 100mtrs, along with by 400mtrs of deep mud, a mud/water crawl under netting, waist deep ice trough and multiple electric shock frame …. all this in the first kilometre.
The second biggest shock was the crowd …. thousands were lined up, music pumping and a great atmosphere.
The first obstacle of freezing cold waist deep muddy water took everyone by surprise and set the tone for what was to follow.
The electric shock frame was horrendous. The team was lined up tentatively sizing it up.
Ross thought a few tingles for a laugh, and off he ran. Christ, it was full on cattle prod jolts; the kind that lock your muscles. Ross copped one in the knee and went down like a bag of shit to the amusement of the spectators. Although this video is from Tough Mudda, you’ll get the picture.
There was 30 obstacles in all, and none of these included the relentless mud which varied from waist deep and thick to slimy. All of it made it almost impossible to stay upright.
About 4km into the event was a very long and steep ‘slip n slide’ on a hill, finishing in a brown muddy water pit at the bottom. Everyone hit the water fast and hard, and when Ross was crawling out he laughed at someones runner sole floating on the water ….. stepping on a stick he realised it was his runner sole. Whoops … and shit, 6km to go with only one sole. That was short lived, the other sole fell off a fews km’s later.
The somewhat ill conceived plan the use his old runners backfired horribly, Ross basically running the last 5 or 6km bare foot.
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