Sport is my lifelong love, especially hockey (field hockey for you internationals). I started playing when I was 7 years old, and have played ever since, minus a couple years I had to take off due to injury. About 5 years ago I started playing netball once a week, which then grew to twice a week. I loved it so much, that I was eventually playing 4+ games a week. All you netballers out there will know how bad it is for your knees and ankles, which I found out the hard way - 4 times (twice each foot) I rolled my ankle tearing all the ligaments badly. You may know from previous posts that I am quite injury prone ...
It's been brought to my attention that I have not really introduced myself to you readers properly, and I thought what better way to do so, then with an Athlete Profile of myself. Other members of the Tough Mudder Tour 2014 have or will have their Athlete Profile uploaded soon (check out Laura's here). So here is just a little something about myself. So, my name is Michael Fraser, and I am a 26 year old Melbournian. I currently work as a gardener, and part time as an event planner. I found out about Tough Mudder through a friend at the beginning of 2013, and completed my first Mudder in March 2013 in Melbourne. In September 2013, my Tafe classmates and I traveled down to Phillip Island to volunteer and work at Tough Mudder on the Saturday, and we then ran the course on Sunday (my second event). From there my love for obstacle courses and Tough Mudder just exploded.
Sport is my lifelong love, especially hockey (field hockey for you internationals). I started playing when I was 7 years old, and have played ever since, minus a couple years I had to take off due to injury. About 5 years ago I started playing netball once a week, which then grew to twice a week. I loved it so much, that I was eventually playing 4+ games a week. All you netballers out there will know how bad it is for your knees and ankles, which I found out the hard way - 4 times (twice each foot) I rolled my ankle tearing all the ligaments badly. You may know from previous posts that I am quite injury prone ...
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Usually, this one comes pretty early on in a Tough Mudder course. You’re still full of nerves and pumped up from the start line. You’ve run your first couple of kilometres (and hopefully aren’t exhausted yet) and you’re probably still pretty clean. Well, Kiss of Mud will put an end to that! Obstacle: Kiss of Mud
Objective: Crawl commando-style through 20 metres of mud, with barbed wire just inches above your head and body. You’ll be forced to get down and dirty, belly-crawling through the mud in order to avoid getting caught on the barbed wire. The worst thing in the world? Getting your ponytail caught on the barb wire, not realising, and continuing to crawl forward. Not pleasant! Difficulty: Physical - 6/10 | Mental - 2/10 This one can be hard on the forearms, hands and the knees, and you will need some decent core and leg strength if you’re going to get through this quickly. Mentally it’s not overly challenging, unless you’re scared of the barbed wire - but this is Tough Mudder. Fear is not an option! ‘GLORY Blades? Isn’t that just the easy Berlin Walls?’ people say. This obstacle might not be as tall as its more famous counterpart and it might appear easier to tackle when you first look at it, but it is deceptively tricky – particularly if you do it right. Obstacle: Glory Blades
Objective: Climb over the 2.5m walls that are slanted towards you. Difficulty: Physical - 8/10 | Mental - 4/10 This one isn’t mentally demanding, once you get over any doubts you might have about your ability to finish it. If you’re scared of heights, it may be a little daunting – but not compared to many of the other obstacles you’d tackle (looking at you Walk the Plank) It is physically demanding, though. According to the Tough Mudder website, 50 per cent of people need help getting over this. So comradery is crucial here, particularly if you’re short (meaning you have trouble reaching the top of the 2.5m wall in the first place) or lacking in upper body strength. Recently, the Tough Mudder Tour 2014 has been getting a lot of publicity, and are on the verge of becoming famous. Just prior to the Sunshine Coast Tough Mudder (check out the review), TMtour2014 and myself were featured on the front page of the local The Whitehorse Leader newspaper. Apparently my (crazy) idea of running in all 5 Australian and 1 New Zealand Tough Mudders this year is quite a story! The interview and photo shoot were taken in a park in my area (not on course of a Tough Mudder event unfortunately), on a very cold and rainy Friday afternoon.
Welcome to the official Sunshine Coast Tough Mudder review, by TMtour2014. As you know, we are running every single event in Australia and New Zealand this year, and reviewing each one for you. If you want, you can check out the Melbourne and New Zealand reviews too. I have decided to give two reviews for Sunshine Coast this time around, one a more personal review including the day’s pre and post event, and which was more about my time up on the Sunshine Coast doing Tough Mudder, and then this Official Review, which will be going into detail only about the event itself. You can have a read of my personal review here. This Tough Mudder was marketed a lot more than previous Mudders in Australia. I feel this is because it was 111 days since New Zealand Mudder and Sunshine Coast, or 146 days between Australian Mudders Melbourne and Sunshine Coast. There was a long time between events, so obviously they marketed it a lot more than usual. Also, This Mudder weekend there was 5 events across 4 countries, on 3 continents for 2 days. 1 Mudder Nation. A lot of effort went into making this weekend huge across the Tough Mudder world, and it paid off, with over 60,000 participants globally. But enough about how good a business Tough Mudder is, let’s get into what you want to know – how the actual event went.
This is my personal review of the Tough Mudder weekend, including my thoughts, how I went and everything else that happened (including the non Mudder related) on the weekend. You may be more interested in reading my review of the actual event, rather than my weekend. That can be found here. That focuses more on the event, how it went, what was good and what was bad.
As you all know, the Tough Mudder Tour 2014 is traveling a fair bit this year, to attend all 6 Tough Mudders in Australia and New Zealand. With Sunshine Coast Mudder happening this weekend, and our flights leaving in a few days to head up to sunny Queensland, I thought I would put together a little picture, and work out exactly how far we will have traveled this year total.
In this weeks “How To” series, we will be enlightening you with your event day preparation for your next Tough Mudder conquest. This will be invaluable information for all first time Mudders, but Legionnaires will also benefit from reading this and using it as a small refresher course pre-Mudder! So your Tough Mudder event is coming up this weekend. You’ve done all the training, you’ve begun you carb loading, and you are as prepared as you possible can be … or so you think. As Tough Mudder veterans, TMtour2014 know exactly what to bring to make the weekend a much smoother experience. Here is a list of some of the necessary items that you should bring to your event:
As obstacle course racers, the Tough Mudder Tour 2014 crew have gone through a fair bit of OCR gear and training aids. One such training aid that has proven to be an absolute winner, is the Training Mask 2.0. A high altitude simulating mask, this piece of training gear has really turned training and workouts on their heads. Here is TMTour2014’s first Product Review featuring the Training Mask 2.0! Altitude training. We’ve all heard this term, but not many people know much, if anything, about this new phenomenon. Some footy teams travel overseas for a few weeks during preseason to train at higher altitude, come back and kill it during the start of the season. Professional endurance athletes swear by altitude training. It can’t all be hype - there is definitely a whisper of truth to altitude training.
That being said. there has always been the problem of affording such luxuries as traveling overseas to train in Arizona or somewhere well above sea level. Normal working people, the weekend warriors, just can’t afford such things. That is until now. Let me introduce you to the Training Mask 2.0 For this edition of the Obstacle Series, we have a special guest writer. You may remember her from running with the Tough Mudder Tour 2014 in New Zealand - Laura Jolly. You can read her credentials and all about her here. Over to you Lauren! As the old superstition goes, it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder – so you better make sure you don’t skip this obstacle! Ladder to Hell is a relative newcomer to the Tough Mudder circuit, and it’s one I tried for the first (and only) time in Auckland this year. This five metre ladder is a challenge for anyone with a fear of heights, but everyone will need to hang on tight as they try to negotiate the slippery wooden rungs of this oversized ladder. Just don’t look down!
Obstacle: Ladder To Hell Objective: Climb up a five metre oversized ladder, over the top, and back down the other side. Difficulty: Physical - 5/10 | Mental - 8/10 This task is not as physically tough as many others, but it does require a fair amount of agility – especially if you’re on the vertically challenged side like me. You also need a strong grip, especially if many people have climbed the ladder before you and the rungs are wet and slippery. It has a very simple objective – climb up one side of the ladder, straddle the top, and climb back down the other side. |