12 miles, 10,000 volts, mud, even more mud, ice, more ice… you get the picture. If there's anything I’ve learned from Tough Mudder it’s that they didn’t hold back when naming the event ‘Tough Mudder’. It's tough. Yet I still decided it would be a great idea to join in on Saturday 13^th September 2014,  here's how I got on. The event starts off with some traditional product placement. A few bottles of water from the Volvic tent, a picture or two in front of the Tough Mudder Jeep, some funky coloured hairspray from the folks at Bic, along with a load of freebie protein bars from the kind people at MET-Rx. All concluded with an Under Armour workout and warm up to get ready for the start line. In fact- the further you got along the track the more Volvic and MET-Rx ‘refuel stations’ there were. Volvic's a no brainer. Everyone buys it, everyone is going to keep on buying it. But I had never heard of MET-Rx before but after having some of their freebie protein bars I will definitely be getting hold of some more! A good spot of product placement from those guys! Even Network Marketing had a spot of guerrilla marketing going on!

Anyway where was I… oh yeah covered in mud about to test out the much feared ‘Arctic Enema’. Would I recommend it? Absolutely not. But to anyone like myself who was running up to this particular obstacle and thinking ‘it can’t really be that cold’ then yes, I recommend it. Submerged in an industrial skip full of ice and water from one side to the other before the quote of the day ‘That’s so cold it just hurts’ left my mouth in between shivers. Definitely a test of grit and one of the more challenging obstacles!

The dread of the whole day however wasn’t jumping in ice or crawling through mud, it was knowing that the ‘Electro-Shock Therapy’ was waiting for me at the finish line- surrounded with spectators. This wouldn’t have played on my mind that much but the mistake I made was having a wander over whilst waiting for the event to start and witnessing well.. what it was. 10,000V of electricity with hundreds of live wires hanging from above- and there’s no getting past them. During my spectating I witnessed 3 types of Tough Mudders: Mudder 1: Is amusing to watch, but not quite amusing to be I imagine. This specific Mudder tries to put brains over bravery and actually tries to creep in and out of the wires, much to everyone else’s amusement as even he knows it’s just not going to work and you see the sparks and hear the ‘*******’ as he gets zapped, but he’s already in- there’s no way out. Mudder2: Is the Mudder I chose to be- the real brains. You just pump yourself up, cover your face and go for goal (did I mention on the other side they have your prize.. and your prize is a pint?). Absorbing all the shocks hurts very much but nevertheless you’re through in seconds (unless you trip over the piles of mud, hay and failed Mudder 1’s!) Mudder 3: Mudder 3 walks around. He isn’t stupid. Nevertheless I was happy with my effort throughout, over £700 raised for Scope and not skipping any obstacles helped me enjoy my GINGER GROUSE beer and UNDER ARMOUR shirt even more at the end (no they didn’t pay me to say that!)

I strongly recommend anyone thinking about taking part in one of these events to do so, it's an amazing experience and a great way to raise money for charity.