Mudder season 2015

With the tagline Tough Mudder:Redefined on the website and the promise of big things to come, I eagerly awaited the reveal on Wednesday, there had been a couple of teaser videos to view showing the Mudder obstacle test day that I was invited to back in September last year, unfortunately it was in California, so all but impossible for me to get there. So they've unveiled a whole raft of new obstacles that they are rolling out for this year and some tweaks to current ones.

They seem to have retired some of the ones I quite enjoyed in the events that I've done in the past. It looks like they've retired: Dirty Ballerina, Electric Eel, Fire in your hole, Glory Blades, Hanging Tough, Ha Ha pit, Hero Carry, Just the tip, Sewer Rat, Trench warfare, Walk the plank, of these I'm most disappointed that Electric Eel, Fire in the Hole, Glory Blades and Walk the plank, they were so much fun to do especially Walk the plank.

The ones they're bringing back for this year are: Balls to the wall, Boa Constrictor, Cage Crawl,  Hanging Tough, Hero Walls, Island Hopping,  Pyramid Scheme, Underwater Tunnels, with a few alterations to Arctic Enema, Electroshock, Everest, Funky Monkey, Hold your wood, Kiss of mud, Mud mile. They've made a slip ramp into Arctic Enema with a partition to climb over and now hold your wood is more of a team event requiring 4 people to carry a large log and obstacles to climb over whilst carrying it.

Some of the new obstacles that are making an appearance this year are: Birth Canal, a water filled sheet pressing you to the ground, Cry Baby, tear gas! Greased Lightning, which is a large sheet of plastic you slide down, King of the Swingers, like walk the plank but you swing out and try and ring a bell, The Liberator, which requires you to use pegs of wood to climb a wall with notches in it, The Hangover, which seems to be the same as Hangover walls from the legionnaire loop last year.

They've included  Ring Of Fire, a fire pole through fire into a body of water, which is a Mudder village obstacle that Mudders and spectators can do.

A new legionnaire obstacle is Dead Ringer, which requires using rings to traverse a wooden frame. I'm already looking forward to tackling the improved core obstacles and if underwater tunnels are properly back I'll be pleased, of the new obstacles I'm not looking forward to the tear gas would be the top of the list, the other look like great fun and teamwork is an even higher priority.

I've also volunteered to help out this year, so I'll be helping pre-event in May, the improvements seem pretty good and I hope they add a couple of surprise obstacles for the legionnaires to do, I've already got my Dad and Brother signed up again and may have got a friend doing one so it should be a good year for getting muddy, I'm hoping to get a few double event weekends under my belt to get my total events done to at least 20, so only 15 weeks to go.

*looks closely* What's that *points*

When my Grandmother was pregnant with my Dad, she had a fall, this resulted in some damage to his ribcage, so he has an indentation in his chest, which causes his ribcage to jut out at the bottom. Whenever I've gone swimming recently, they have long mirrors in the toilets near the pool for some reason and I've noticed that since I lost quite a bit off my belly, my ribcage seems to protrude out slightly, this is damned annoying and I know there isn't anything that can be done aside from having my ribcage broken and reset but I don't think that's something that I'd ever consider having done.

I guess it just means there's a bit of me that won't lay completely flat but its just something else that's a bit different about me. I would have preferred a third nipple but you can't have everything can you. I suppose, I was being a bit unrealistic to expect it to be an easy journey, without any kind of bumps in the road, so I can still rejoice in the healthier slimmer me and I still have a decent enough head of hair, when my middle brother is losing his, so that's something I didn't get from my Dad.

It seems even the most rational person can have body issues, over some slight imperfection they feel that they have, be it their large feet, lop sided ears, or my ribcage, I suppose this is down to this idea we should all be perfect, with perfect hair, jobs, marriages, families and bodies. I lay the blame for this mostly at the doorstep of our media, who seem to relish showing and picking apart images of some female celebrity who has either gained a bunch of weight, commenting with an eurgh yuck, look at her attitude or incredibly proud 'you should look like this after a baby' attitude towards the images of one who has lost their pregnancy weight, always within a seemingly impossible timeframe, which would suggest that they didn't have that much to lose in the first place.

So it seems I've joined the ranks of the people who seem to have some ridiculous issue with a body part, that isn't such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, which I think means I need to give myself a damned good talking to.