I decided that I fancied doing a German Tough Mudder event this year and found the easiest one to get to was NRW near to Neheim Hüsten so I booked my tickets.
The first of my troubles with trains came when the first one was delayed, so I managed to miss my connecting train to Stansted airport. I finally got there and through security and there was a delay on the flight out, which was fine as, I had to stay at the airport until my train which was leaving at ten to five in the morning.
After trying to get some sleep I was woken by security for sleeping somewhere I shouldn't. So I had a wander round and eventually went downstairs to the station. After a long wait the train was finally here and I boarded, because I was so focused on not missing my stop I didn't get off at the right stop, so ended up missing my connection, I did find another train going the same route and jumped onto that. I was hoping that this train would have no one checking tickets like the first, unfortunately they did but thankfully they were cool about it and me travel without paying any more money.
I found my next connection but the board only listed the destination, so I couldn't tell if it was the right train, so I crossed my fingers and waited to see if it would stop at my station, it did, which gave me such a feeling of relief. Then I had to find the event site, as my power bank hadn't charged my phone had almost no power, so I had to conserve it, and after setting off in foot I had to use maps to discover I was walking in the wrong direction, once I was in the right direction I made note of the time, so I could see how long it takes to get back to the station.
The walk there was steep, which started to tire me out, although walking back would be easy. It only took about 20 mins, which was good.
I picked up my number and got changed, discovering the bag wasn't quite big enough for all my stuff, I managed to get it all in and into the bag drop, I met Christian and Tina from TMHQ, Christian, suggested it was the toughest course in Europe, which sounded like it wouldn't be fun, especially the incline on the course. I said I would report back on how I found it.
I didn't bother with the warm up and just got into the start, where the wall was higher than usual, which added to the toughest course vibe. I think they did the checking on legionnaire status but I couldn't tell.
We set off running through a wheat field which was nice and different, someone said something and I understood Gladiator and it did look like the field from the film. Kiss of mud was slightly different in that it had a muddy hump to crawl over and a deep water pit, so that was a nice variant on the usual version.
Liberator had notches in the side like back stabber but I felt more secure climbing up, it felt safer than liberator usually does, probably due to not having the tiny lat which doesn't feel safe.
Christian wasn't kidding about the incline, killer gorilla was impressively hard, long sections to run or rather walk up, before sliding down and heading back up another long steep incline.
I eventually came upon pyramid scheme, which was enormous, instead of the usual stand on someone and get pulled up, thus has a section in the middle with a bar that you can rest on or hold on and get yourself to the middle before getting help to get over the top, this is a true challenge and very much about teamwork.
There was a swamp stomp part that had people crawling through and then a 45° hill that was very muddy, I got part way up before slipping and heading back down to land on some rocks, thankfully they had a layer of mud on them, so it didn't do any permanent damage, it did hurt and I had people asking if I was alright but that could have been much worse, I found a way up and was very wary near the edges.
It started to rain and I suddenly realised that the changing area wasn't a tent but harris panels with scrim attached, so if I finished there was nowhere relatively dry to change, this brought my mood down a little but by the time I finished it was clear. I bypassed everest as I didn't want a repeat of the last time and felt too tired to climb high flyers club, I had though about doing electro shock for my 30th but decided to keep it for my 50th, also I was clean and wanted to stay that way.
This was the hardest course I've done in terms of the landscape, it was also so much fun, I really enjoyed it, I would recommend it to anyone who's done a UK event and thinks they aren't challenging.
I made it back to the station and got my trains, then had a long tiring wait at the airport before flying into Stansted, this time I noticed that people were sleeping on the seats and decided to sleep, which I needed. I bought an open return thinking I might get home a bit sooner but Sunday service means it took much longer. If I can find a better way of travelling I'm going to do NRW next year, hopefully bringing friends.
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