Lukegrose.com | Tough Guy 2012

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Tough Guy 2012

Jan 07, 2012

UPDATE 22 January: Less than a week to go until we head to Mouse Manor in South Perton to take on the world famous Tough Guy course.

A week of cold showers coming up in an attempt to prepare for the icy water obstacles and guaranteed muscle numbness that will ensue as we make our way around the Killing Fields.

The layer of ice that greeted us in 2011.

Why are we doing this again?

After our near hypothermic states and the cold induced pain of last year’s Tough Guy, I am still trying to work out why I want to put myself through the race that is described as the ‘safest most dangerous event in the world’, AGAIN.

The eight mile course, littered with over 75 challenging obstacles, steep hill climbs, icy mud-filled swamps and some good old cross-country running, is the brainchild of Mr. Mouse, a former Grenadier Guards trained soldier in the British Army.

Tough Guy 2011, with Henry Topham and Rob McKenzie, was my first experience of the punishing course and we loved it. Shorts and vest was definitely the wrong choice of kit, but other Tough Guy ‘wannabe’s’ wearing gorilla costumes and thongs were definitely made to suffer more. As Tough Guy novices we were Ghoon squad members positioned towards the back of the 8000 or so other competitors, which ensured that getting round in a quick time and more importantly keeping moving was practically impossible as we waded through the icy water and obstacles of the Killing Fields, dragged ourselves through the Vietcong Torture Chamber Tunnels, launched ourselves like lemmings from the Death Plunge and crawled under barb wire to complete the Stalag Escape before encountering the infamous Underwater Tunnels and the particularly painful Torture Chamber (a partially flooded, muddy tunnel complete with hanging electric cables to add to the fun).

After three hours of battling through the unique and crazy course in bracing conditions the three of us had survived and successfully claimed our status as 'Tough Guys'. Not everyone was so fortunate – around a third of entrants failed to complete the race; hypothermia and broken bones being the main culprits.

It was tough, it was painful and it was cold. My legs were cut, I had the mother of all brain freezes and my body was numb, BUT...it was so much fun and I can’t wait to do it all over again in a couple of weeks.

To sign up for this years race click here.

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