This past November a friend asked me to help them participate in a 24 hour obstacle race. My job, push her to her limits and get her to reach her goal. I love challenges and my initial response was heck I want to do it with you. After delving into what the event really entailed I realized I just wasn’t brave enough to participate but I wanted to help my friend accomplish her lifelong goal.
Enter World’s Toughest Mudder Event in Lake Las Vegas November 2015 . This is a 24 hour endurance event set in the desert of Nevada. A 5 mile loop with 21 obstacles per lap. Objective is to do as many laps as you can in 24 hours. The event started at 2pm and with the warm sunshine the temperature was in the 70s. Once the sunset at 4 something the event changed. The temperature plummeted into the 40s and all the participants were now in wet suits to maintain body temperature. This only adds to the extreme element of this event. By shear grit and perseverance my friend accomplished her goal. 10 laps or 50 miles and 210 obstacles in 24 hours. She never came back to the PIT after changing into her wet suit. I brought the PIT to her. We walked and ran through the night. She did obstacle after obstacle as other competitors and I cheered her on. The event host has a quote, “you don’t finish at the finish line you finish somewhere out there and you make it to the finish line.” My friend was physically done during the end of her 9th lap. We both knew it would take some serious sacrifice and pain and grit to do one more lap. Failure at this point wasn’t an option. So she persevered. With the help of a few other Tough Mudder participants she reached her goal of 50 miles. Truly inspiring. She was so physically exhausted after the race it was hard just to walk to the car and get changed and cleaned up.
Then the pain set in. Foot pain. Well no surprise after that kind of punishment. The pain localized to one of her toes. A bad infection sidelined her from work and all activities for weeks. I knew this would not deter her from future events because this is such a big part of her. Today she shared her registration for next year’s event. Goals have been set again. May seem unattainable but as I saw first hand in Vegas a few months ago, anything is possible with determination, training, camaraderie, teamwork, and mental grit.
Hope you enjoy the video and find something that will challenge you and push you to your limits. It’s therapeutic!
