Times were when riding your bike through the woods to clear your head out was enough. But these days it appears that if you aren’t getting shocked with a cattle prod as you exercise, you just aren’t extreme enough.
I do understand the need to take yourself out of yourself and enter into a “flow state.” That’s part of what I like about long road rides and challenging MTB rides. But fire, barbed wire, and electric shocks? That’s some masochistic shit.
From marathons to mud running
By Lucy Townsend BBC News Magazine
Then there are those who go a stage further. By day Lloyd Smith is a clean-cut professional, but come the weekend and he can be found covered in mud, cycling down mountains and running through barbed wire and broken glass. While some go to the gym, Smith takes part in Tough Guy, dubbed “the safest most dangerous event in the world”.
“There’s underwater tunnelling where you have to completely submerge yourself in muddy water to swim through a small, dark tunnel,” says the 32-year-old from Stratford-upon-Avon. “Then there’s the suspended electric wires so you get electric shocks as you run. Then it’s the broken glass, mud pools and fire to run through.”
All this is done in the middle of winter, with this year’s event taking place at the end of January.
“When you work hard and do long hours time becomes very precious, ” adds Smith. “When you go out and do exercise you really try to get the most from it.”
Will Dean echoes this view. Two years ago he launched his Tough Mudder event, another gruelling assault course with the strapline, “probably the toughest event on the planet”. It includes jumping into a skip filled with fluorescent green ice, dragging a log through mud and again, the electric shocks.
Full article here.
