For an event that bills itself prominently as "Probably The Toughest Event On The Planet", ummmm... it wasn't. And this despite being at Northstar Ski Resort in lake Tahoe, with a starting elevation of around 6300, and going up near the top elevation of 8600. And despite the fact that neither me nor my sister in law actually really trained. (She trained more than I did. I decided to just suffer through it.)
I mean, it wasn't EASY, for sure. Jumping into a 20 foot long dumpster filled with icewater (the so-called Arctic Enema) and swimming through pitch darkness to go under the bar while getting kicked in the face isn't easy. Crawling under dangling electrical wires which are shocking you repeatedly isn't easy. Doing all this, in addition to 18 other obstacles over 10.5 miles, is surely not easy.
But toughest event on the planet? Not so much.
There were several irritations which I fully expect the company who runs this ultra successful, massive money making event to continue, and to fully ignore their survey results.
1) Tough Mudder soaks you for money at EVERY goddamn turn.
Okay, I knew it was going to be expensive. Fine -- it's not cheap to rent a ski resort, even off season, and construct a bunch of silly obstacles (most of which are staffed by volunteers.)
But after the $110 registration fee (we registered semi-early -- it went up to $200 cash only on the day of the event) we still had to pay a mandatory $10 "insurance" fee. Perhaps you've heard the phrase "Cadillac Health Insurance"? Well, due to J's job, I have Ferrari Health Insurance. Nothing in their sillyass one off excess coverage policy is going to do anything to help me.
Then you have to pay $20 for close-in parking (for which you still have to walk, and then take a gondola, or walk further, to the start line. Only want to pay $10 for parking? No problem: you can take a 45 minute shuttle bus each way.
Then you have to pay $5 for bag drop. WTF?!? Oh, but this is okay, because it is supposedly donated entirely to charity. Tough Mudder makes a big deal, throughout the day, about their support for the Wounded Warrior Project. How much do they actually donate to Wounded Warrior you ask? ZERO. They give reduced registration fees for people to raise money themselves for Tough Mudder, and the volunteer staffed bag drop area gives money to Tough Mudder. This has supposedly amounted to $6.5 million dollars and counting to date (they have a ticker on the front page of their website.) By their own figures, at a VERY low end estimate, Tough Mudder has taken in around $64 million in registration fees since 2010. And not given a single dollar directly to charity.
And this isn't counting gas, housing, etc., but that's what you get for doing events that are 100 miles away from where you live.
2) It was ridiculously organized in several ways.
Despite the challenging elevation, Northstar was, logistically, a horrific venue for this. Parking was absurd, and no, there is no other way to get there. You have to take a ~10 minute gondola to get to the base of the event. They stopped running the gondolas which took spectators up the hill (my brother had to walk back down.) There was ZERO signage indicating where the shuttle buses back to the parking at Boreal was (which was not in the same place as my brother was dropped off) so we wasted about 30 minutes taking the gondola down, asking of the kind but mystified 16 year old working the parking lot, and going back up. And we weren't the only ones.
Their volunteers on the Off Road Vehicles need to quit driving like coke addled former teenage pop stars. The assholes in the gigantic Northstar SUV (an Excursion, IIRC) need to have their fakie siren taken away from them. Neither need to be blasting by us on the dirt trails we're competing on.
They need more volunteers who actually monitor the speed at which people go in to the various obstacles, so people don't get bunched up in potentially dangerous obstacles like the Arctic Enema.
3) The One Banana policy.
At the three or so food stops along the entire 10.5 mile course, there were signs indicating the One Banana Per Person policy. Which was actually a single banana that had already been cut in to thirds. $110 AND I ONLY GET ONE THIRD OF A BANANA?!?! And plain water. No sports drinks, no additional electrolytes. (I'll confess I did skip the single gel-candy-energy option since the last time I ate one, it pulled a crown off of my tooth.)
Not to mention the finish chute, with the self-important rentacops at the end, where it was a One Cup Of Water Policy, a One Clif Bar Policy, and One Beer Policy. I Don't Always Drink Shitty Beer, But When I Do, I'm Limited To One.
And after you're out of the chute, don't you DARE dream of asking to go back inside to pick up your finisher T-shirt that you didn't see. You'll probably be bodily blocked by a rentacop, who literally yelled at me "YOU AREN'T GOING BACK IN THERE!" Fortunately a nice volunteer kindly went and got my shirt for me. Confidential to Rentacop: you suck, and take your job way too seriously.
Outside of the chute, everything costs money. Everything. I've run locally organized 5k fun runs with far better during- and after- event snacks and drinks. In fact, pretty much every single athletic event I've done in my adult life has had better and more snacks and drinks.
4) Repeat obstacles suck.
Dear Somewhat Tough Mudder: you have 40 or so obstacles to choose 20 from, and you repeat the Kiss of Mud? Why?
Okay. [/rant]
In summary, I'll do other mud run type events, but Tough Mudder is lame.
I mean, it wasn't EASY, for sure. Jumping into a 20 foot long dumpster filled with icewater (the so-called Arctic Enema) and swimming through pitch darkness to go under the bar while getting kicked in the face isn't easy. Crawling under dangling electrical wires which are shocking you repeatedly isn't easy. Doing all this, in addition to 18 other obstacles over 10.5 miles, is surely not easy.
But toughest event on the planet? Not so much.
There were several irritations which I fully expect the company who runs this ultra successful, massive money making event to continue, and to fully ignore their survey results.
1) Tough Mudder soaks you for money at EVERY goddamn turn.
Okay, I knew it was going to be expensive. Fine -- it's not cheap to rent a ski resort, even off season, and construct a bunch of silly obstacles (most of which are staffed by volunteers.)
But after the $110 registration fee (we registered semi-early -- it went up to $200 cash only on the day of the event) we still had to pay a mandatory $10 "insurance" fee. Perhaps you've heard the phrase "Cadillac Health Insurance"? Well, due to J's job, I have Ferrari Health Insurance. Nothing in their sillyass one off excess coverage policy is going to do anything to help me.
Then you have to pay $20 for close-in parking (for which you still have to walk, and then take a gondola, or walk further, to the start line. Only want to pay $10 for parking? No problem: you can take a 45 minute shuttle bus each way.
Then you have to pay $5 for bag drop. WTF?!? Oh, but this is okay, because it is supposedly donated entirely to charity. Tough Mudder makes a big deal, throughout the day, about their support for the Wounded Warrior Project. How much do they actually donate to Wounded Warrior you ask? ZERO. They give reduced registration fees for people to raise money themselves for Tough Mudder, and the volunteer staffed bag drop area gives money to Tough Mudder. This has supposedly amounted to $6.5 million dollars and counting to date (they have a ticker on the front page of their website.) By their own figures, at a VERY low end estimate, Tough Mudder has taken in around $64 million in registration fees since 2010. And not given a single dollar directly to charity.
And this isn't counting gas, housing, etc., but that's what you get for doing events that are 100 miles away from where you live.
2) It was ridiculously organized in several ways.
Despite the challenging elevation, Northstar was, logistically, a horrific venue for this. Parking was absurd, and no, there is no other way to get there. You have to take a ~10 minute gondola to get to the base of the event. They stopped running the gondolas which took spectators up the hill (my brother had to walk back down.) There was ZERO signage indicating where the shuttle buses back to the parking at Boreal was (which was not in the same place as my brother was dropped off) so we wasted about 30 minutes taking the gondola down, asking of the kind but mystified 16 year old working the parking lot, and going back up. And we weren't the only ones.
Their volunteers on the Off Road Vehicles need to quit driving like coke addled former teenage pop stars. The assholes in the gigantic Northstar SUV (an Excursion, IIRC) need to have their fakie siren taken away from them. Neither need to be blasting by us on the dirt trails we're competing on.
They need more volunteers who actually monitor the speed at which people go in to the various obstacles, so people don't get bunched up in potentially dangerous obstacles like the Arctic Enema.
3) The One Banana policy.
At the three or so food stops along the entire 10.5 mile course, there were signs indicating the One Banana Per Person policy. Which was actually a single banana that had already been cut in to thirds. $110 AND I ONLY GET ONE THIRD OF A BANANA?!?! And plain water. No sports drinks, no additional electrolytes. (I'll confess I did skip the single gel-candy-energy option since the last time I ate one, it pulled a crown off of my tooth.)
Not to mention the finish chute, with the self-important rentacops at the end, where it was a One Cup Of Water Policy, a One Clif Bar Policy, and One Beer Policy. I Don't Always Drink Shitty Beer, But When I Do, I'm Limited To One.
And after you're out of the chute, don't you DARE dream of asking to go back inside to pick up your finisher T-shirt that you didn't see. You'll probably be bodily blocked by a rentacop, who literally yelled at me "YOU AREN'T GOING BACK IN THERE!" Fortunately a nice volunteer kindly went and got my shirt for me. Confidential to Rentacop: you suck, and take your job way too seriously.
Outside of the chute, everything costs money. Everything. I've run locally organized 5k fun runs with far better during- and after- event snacks and drinks. In fact, pretty much every single athletic event I've done in my adult life has had better and more snacks and drinks.
4) Repeat obstacles suck.
Dear Somewhat Tough Mudder: you have 40 or so obstacles to choose 20 from, and you repeat the Kiss of Mud? Why?
Okay. [/rant]
In summary, I'll do other mud run type events, but Tough Mudder is lame.
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