Tough Mudder London West Weekend 2 – What a difference a week makes

This post is a follow on from my recent Tough Mudder London West review which you can find here. Take a read of that, to get a fuller overview of the course layout and my thoughts in general about the race.

Last week, I had the following criticisms about the course:

• Loops were too similar with joining the “Blue route” (Loop 1) on Skidmarked, Lumberjacked and Hero Walls leading to queuing
• The route on Orange route (Loop 2) by-passed the more “fun” obstacles, whilst having more running
• Funky Monkey’s wheels first meant that shorter people like me couldn’t get real momentum to start leading to high failure rate

Tough Mudder listened to the feedback from the community and had worked hard all week to improve the course. This is what they did:

• Skidmarked and Lumberjacked were by passed on the Orange loop, but an additional obstacle – The Liberator was included
• Hero Walls was modified on the Orange loop and made into “T Boned” (think Irish Table)
• They modified the route to include Mud Mile in the Orange Loop
• Modified Funky Monkey to start with a couple of monkey bars before the wheels. This helped me (and I am sure many others) to gain the valuable momentum needed to traverse the wheels
• “Tougher Mudder” fast lanes (for the competitive racers) ensuring they didn’t get backed up by the following waves on lap 2 whilst running for time
• On the Sunday, an additional water station was created due to the seriously hot weather

Additionally, Samsung brought their “Super Slo Mo” water slide to the village, replacing their 360 Camera from last year. A bit of fun for all.

I mentioned in my review that the weather played a big part – last week was around 6C and overcast, whilst this week was 24C without a cloud in the sky. Everyone was smiling, grip strength was on point and the crowds were out on course improving the atmosphere no end.