Tough Mudder 23 - North West

Woke early so John and I could be in an early wave, we were meeting up with a friend of Stuart's but sadly couldn't find them. We got into the warm up area and danced about for a bit before heading for the start area and the pledging. Had a quick chat with Gil before heading off, another course another slight bottleneck at the start. Bale bonds was only two bales high which was a little disappointing, then another bottleneck as we went under a bridge and on. Mudmile was early on and it was energy sapping, so by the time we hit skidmarked, I needed to get a hand to get over and I knocked my chest differently to I usually do on that one.

Not having the strength to get over skidmarked should have clued me into what kind of day this was going to be.  Sewer rat had water in the pipes, which was really unpleasant smelling but once out of the pipe I got my feet on the ground so I wasn't swimming in it, then straight after the ground was thick mud that we were almost crawling through, very similar to 2014. There were a lot of different surfaces to run on, mud, loose dirt, sand but the worst was the drainage road made of brick. We waded through the infamous lake that had underwater tunnels and almost freezing water in 2012 and it was quite pleasant.

Swamp stomp was exactly as you'd expect, crawling though mud that was thick and hard going, with a nice pool of thick mud to almost swim through, I got to the other side and decided I would have a bomb into the mud, several times, which was great fun but not so much fun was trying to get rid of the mud from up my nose, John gave the volunteer with the mic a lovely muddy hug.

Hero walls was fine but I slipped down the support and fell off needing a helping hand to get over, we got back to shawshanked and decided to have another go, then cry baby. It was a thick fog of menthol, the thickest I've seen this year, Scotland had been the worst one I'd been through but this was so bad, we needed to wash our mouths out before having a drink if water, it then caused me to lose all my body heat like the Sunday at Cirencester, which made the lovely day we were having into a cold unpleasant one. We both decided that we would try Everest three times before passing. Not sure if the shoes were an issue or the people trying to get hold of people, I just couldn't get a good enough grip so kept slipping and landing heavily on the surface of Everest decided that I would give electroshock a miss before crossing the finish line cold and tired but happy to have finished another event.