Tough Mudder South West 2019 returns to the Badminton Estate (yes, the same as the Horse Trials). At the height of summer, I really look forward to this one. Camping is nice and relaxed, course is relatively flat and the Solomudders (a group I run with) always meet up for dinner on the Saturday night.
Watch the video below to see all the obstacles and the amount of fun we had at Tough Mudder South West!
The Obstacle List
- Hero Walls – 3 sets of walls (5ft, 8ft & 10ft)
- Hero Carry – Piggy back your partner and switch at the half way point
- Trench Warfare – a long crawl through the trenches
- Overtired – A climb over a large a frame using ropes and tires
- Hold Your Wood – Get your team to carry a telegraph pole around a course
- Everest – Quarter pipe ramp – three different levels
- Arctic Enema – Full submersion into a tank of ice and water
- Cage Crawl – Pull yourself along a pool of water
- Devil’s Beard – Cargo net crawl
- Boa Constrictor – Crawl down a pipe down to a pit of water before a crawl back up
- Kiss of Mud – Barbed wire mud crawl
- Blockness Monster – Spinning blocks in water where it takes a team to get across
- Mud Mile – Very muddy trenches
- Entrapment – Crawl underneath electric ribbons
- Agustus Gloop – Climb up a tube with water showering down
- Spread Eagle – Pull yourself across slack lines
- Black Widow – Traverse across a entwined slack lines
- Funky Monkey – Monkey bars across a pool of water
- Leap of Faith – Leap across a trench of water whilst grabbing on to a cargo net
- Mud Mile 2
- Alpha Test – Climbing wall traverse
- Texas Hold ‘Em – Grab a friend to crab walk across a triangular balance beam
- Hydrophobia – Full water submersion under three pipes
- Creek Crusade (bonus) – Walking through a muddy stream
- Pyramid Scheme
- The Whopper – 3 obstacles in one including monkey bars, bar hop and
- Mudderhorn – 14m tall A frame with great views at the top
- Electroshock Therapy – Run the gauntlet through hundreds of wires holding 10,000 volts of electricity
My final thoughts
In truth, Tough Mudder South West is my least favourite Tough Mudder course. The route is very flat (who knew I wanted a few hills?!) and is basically an “out and back” – very long and thin. To make up for the lack of elevation, Tough Mudder made the course the longest so far. I’m ok with running, but some of the loops around the field seemed a little pointless (one loop pretty much started and exited at the same point) just to make up some distance. Generally however, the obstacles were spaced out pretty well so there felt like less running between obstacles. Water obstacles and upper body strength obstacles were kept apart to give people the best possible chance of completion.
Mud Mile was certainly one of the muddiest of the year, whilst it was great to see Devil’s beard getting constantly up-graded and leap of Faith’s trench becoming wider.
All in all, it was a Tough Mudder, so of course, pretty great. As a season pass holder I am quite spoiled from running all the courses so it is my least favourite course (there has to be one!). But if you’re not in to hills, or you want to try running a “tougher mudder” for the first time, this is the perfect course for you!
