I love the smile on your face when you read the back of my T-Shirt. Yes we were pretty in mud!
Looking at the picture above, this is the muddiest picture I’ve got! But we were crawling and wading though mud. I promise! At the end of the race it was washed off. I guess I have to do it again with more muddy pics! Oh yes, I’d love that!
What to wear?
For an obstacle race where you know you going to be in and out of water and might be wet during the whole time I recommend fitness clothing that has a quick dry fabric. I personally like leggings that prevent any scratching but that’s my personal liking. My team and I decided on a team name “PRETTY IN MUD” and I had our T-shirts printed on a quick dry shirt I bought at Decathlon. The most important are the shoes with grip. Without any grip on your running shoes I think it’s dangerous to attend a muddy obstacle race. It’s too slippery and the risk of injury is high. There are plenty of brands, I was given a Merrel shoe. It was a snug fit with good grip.
What do I need for Tough Mudder?
The night before I packed my bag including:
- set of cloth to change incl. underwear and socks (easy to forget)
- pair of shoes
- towel
- baby wipes to clean your face and body
- a plastic back for the dirty cloth (otherwise your bag is muddy and wet)
- drinks and snacks
From London it took about 1.5h to get to the London West event. At High Wycombe train station we shared a taxi as we were 4. I had a last minute fun idea was to wear glitter combat stripes. Maybe setting a new trend here?
Team: Mary, Lara, Anika and Sabine with glitter combat stripes.
In the last few years I attended a few obstacle races but never a Tough Mudder before. Earlier in the year I was invited to be an ambassador for #mudderwoman campaign and thought it’s a perfect match. I love obstacle races and I enjoy to motivate and inspire other woman with my fitness challenges. My friend Mary managed her first Half Marathon with my support and now she ran already 3 on her own. On the right in the picture is Anika, I met her on the blogger event. At first she was planning to run on her own, so I invited her to join our team.
Official Tough Mudder Race Map 2018
Tough Mudder Half are 5 miles with 13 obstacles. It is key to help each other over each obstacle while the time doesn’t matter. “You are stronger together.” One of the best quotes I read during the race was “There are no strangers out there, only teammates you haven’t met.” So true. I met so many new people during the race. One guy pulled me up on the last obstacle and he was so strong I was nearly flying over it. I was chatting to a group of TM fans who arrived from Germany to attend the race. There are communities out there I had no idea of. Brilliant, love it!
The race was fun! We were crawling underneath wires called “Kiss of Mud” at the 2nd obstacle and throughout the race jumping into several muddy water filled trenches, all mud was washed away. The pic above shows me before I had to jump into the “Mud Mile”. It wasn’t that deep. I just jumped in. The weather was so hot that day that we all found it refreshing. Between the obstacles we were mostly running. Not everyone liked running so we also arranged for those in the team that enjoyed it more, to run and wait at the next obstacle. It was hilly and I felt my ankle and knee around 5km. It slowed me down, I walked much more. This showed me how important the strengthening is for runners. But it wasn’t a race and we all managed to help each other over all obstacles. All 13 done! No drop out! I was so proud of my team! All 1st timers but fearless. Well done!
Attending OCR events before I have to admit I expected it to be more challenging. I trained a lot of upper body, which was good to climb over and pull up, but I missed the typical monkey bars. They were in the FULL Tough Mudder. I was worried how tough it would be but it wasn’t. I can’t believe I’m saying this. The toughest bit was the up hill running in the heat. Maybe we all trained well and we were prepared. We all managed it so well. Of cause were were nervous and so excited but it was manageable and mainly so much fun. You can do it too. If you ever had doubts about it, all I can say is, train regularly. If you need suggestions you can find tips on TM website or please leave a comment below.
Proud finisher with the Tough Mudder Half Headband.
Happy faces! I was very grateful to get a spot and was able to experience the event as an Mudder Woman ambassador. The team spirit was amazing. There was music during the course and afterwards we had food and beer. All felt nearly like a festival. It was absolutely a fun day out. We are all hocked and like to do the FULL this year.
Have you ever tried an obstacle course race?
IF you decide on running any Tough Mudder Half Event in the UK this year 2018, use my promo code to get 25% OFF
PROMO CODE: SABINE25
Sabine xx
Check out my other race reports on this blog under RACE REPORTS – OCR
This post was in cooperation with Tough Mudder. All text and opinion were my own.