Tough Enough to Get Muddy?

Tough Mudder New England 2012
Mount Snow, West Dover
May 5 and 6

Tough Mudder New England #2 2012
Mount Snow, West Dover
July 14 and 15

Registration: $90–$200 depending on how early. For teams of six or more, refunds from $5 to $20 are issued to each team member depending on the size of the team.

Spectators: $20 in advance, $40 day of event (includes post-party).

Tough Mudder was started two years ago by Harvard business school student Will Dean. From his perspective, marathons and triathlons were way too serious, boring and for “endurance geeks with more time and money than sense.” (One could debate whether jumping into ice cold water, running through live electric wires, and crawling through submerged culverts takes more sense than running 26 miles, but never mind…) Dean set out to create an event that would be challenging but would not take itself too seriously. Tough Mudder goes out of its way to tell participants that they are in a challenge not a race and asks them to recite a pledge to that effect before each event.

A separate wave of participants who want to compete has been begrudgingly created. Here’s how it’s explained on the Tough Mudder website: “Ultimately, we decided that if we put all these guys together in one separate group away from everyone else, they could have the competition they want, and everyone else can focus on enjoying the Tough Mudder with their buddies instead of having a bunch of guys trying to push past them in a mad dash to get to the finish.”

Despite it’s reluctance to use the “R” word, awards are given for the top three men and women finishers. Awards are also given for costumes including worst costume (most dumb ass) and least clothing (most ass).