Tough Mudder SoCal 2012 will be held at Vail Lake Resort on February 25 & 26, 2012. You can check out pictures from this year’s Tough Mudder SoCal by clicking here.

Tough Mudder Vermont 2012 will be held at Mount Snow on May 5 & 6, 2012. You can check out photos from this year’s Tough Mudder Vermont by clicking here.

First Place:

Second Place:

These guys did lunges across the entire UPenn campus to prove their dedication:

Third Place:

If you’re a true Mudder you will have come in contact with all of this muck during a Tough Mudder:

Ankle Grabber

The clingy ex-boyfriend or girlfriend that just can’t let go, this mud gloms onto your shoes and will hold you back for the rest of the run. Like a Band-Aid, take it off quickly. Knock your shoes on the nearest large rock, big tree or spectator.

Wet Mud

Wet mud doesn’t seem so bad until you come out on the other side with shoes weighing four pounds more than when you started. Think of it as Earth’s leg weights. Feel the burn. The mud soaks your shoes and clothes, slowing you down. Wear lightweight and breathable shoes that will dry quickly as you make your way along the course. Ah, who are we kidding? You’re never going to get dry.

Snow Mud

Remember how frigid that unrequited high school crush was? Yeah, well, this mud is even colder. A killer combination of wintry precipitation and sopping wet dirt, this mud is so icy it penetrates to your very soul. Our advice? Grab a couple snow cones at the local fair, dump them in your shoes, and get yourself a funnel cake.

Red Clay

A Southern specialty. Mudder aficionados are familiar with red clay and how it never comes out of anything, including your skin. Red clay is just about the slipperiest surface around and proves quite challenging on steep inclines. Naturally, we try to include as many red clay hills in our courses as possible. Shoes with good traction will help prevent slipping. Maybe.

Deep Mud

This unsuspecting pit possesses the maximum suck of a Hoover vacuum. Think it’s plain, everyday mud? Stride into it, and you’ll end up digging around in search of those $100 sneakers. Tie your laces tight, double- or triple-knot your shoes, SuperGlue — whatever works — to prevent deep mud from swallowing you and your footwear.

NorCal Sticks and Stones Mud

Just like those that live in it, this mud seems cool and collected on the outside, but be careful: it has an edge to it. Countless Mudders have fallen face first into this mud only to wind up with a stick in their eye or a mouthful of gravel. Just think back on your childhood trips to the gem mine. Except this time your only souvenir will be pain and flesh wounds, not gold specs and amethysts.

Florida ’Gator Mud

As much sand mixed with water as dirt, this mud bites. A murky mess with ties to the swamps of the Everglades, you’ll want to keep one eye peeled for what lies below. If you go under, you just may not come back up.

Jersey Slime Mud

And you thought the boardwalk couldn’t get any dirtier? Jersey Slime is some of the most detested mud around. The smell seeps into your nostrils and sets up shop in your sinuses, and it’s nastier than an episode of “Jersey Shore.” Step into this and you’ll really be in a situation.

Got other favorite types of mud? Any certified Tough Mudder mud experiences to share? Let us know!

Corinne Kohlen

Why did you first sign up for Tough Mudder? Which event did you participate in?

My first Tough Mudder was Tough Mudder SoCal May 28th 2011. My friend Jessica told me she was forming a team of girls and asked me if I wanted to do it.Jessica had gotten married the weekend before, and I am getting married in a month so our friends wanted to throw us a joint bacholerette party that weekend. I insisted on doing Tough Mudder and told them to do it with us or come cheer us on, and then we would go bachelorette party. In the spirit of being bachelorette’s and Tough Mudder we had to have costumes. We wore bride’s veils, headbands with flowers, and colorful tutus and a lot of people thought we were marrying one another when we told them it was our bachelorette party. After Saturday’s event , we put on our dry Tough Mudder T-shirts, hopped in the car sore and dirty and drove to Palm Springs where we were met by 8 of our best friends and cold Jack and Cokes. We sat by the pool, bruised, scraped, and with dirt stuck to our scalp and loved every minute of it. I couldn’t have wished for a better bachelorette weekend and was instantly hooked on Tough Mudder

What was your favorite part of Tough Mudder SoCal? What was the toughest?

My favorite part was the monkey bars because I rocked them and made it all the way across. The toughest part for me was the water obstacles. I haven’t really swam for years and the altitude combined with my lack of swimming skills caused some panic in the water. I think I barely made it across the last lake

How will you train for World’s Toughest Mudder?

I am starting my training by working on my biggest weakness: swimming. I moved to a place with a pool and have been practicing swimming with my clothes and shoes on. I am also trying to run longer distances and will work on my upper body strength. I love rock climbing so that will be a given part of my training. I think when the weather gets cooler I will train myself to be comfortable being uncomfortable–there are some early morning, cold, rainy, and dark trail runs in my future. I found a spare tire in my work parking lot a few weeks ago and put it in my car with intentions to run with it. It hasn’t happened yet but it will soon. My neighbors will think I’m crazy but that’s just fine.

What do people say when you tell them you are participating in World’s Toughest Mudder?

People can’t understand the excitement and draw to the event. They wonder why I would pay a good amount of money to freeze, get dirty, and get electrocuted. My fiance offered to electrocute me for free with our dog’s shock collar and save me some money and a plane ticket to Jersey.

Why do you want to participate in World’s Toughest Mudder?

I think it is an amazing opportunity for me to push my body and mind to its limits and become a stronger person. I love the process of training for the event. I love the camaraderie associated with the event and I love an event when adults are encouraged to dress up and get dirty!

What are you most looking forward to at World’s Toughest Mudder?
I am looking forward to any obstacle that involves climbing or using upper body strength. I am also looking forward to crawling on my belly in the mud because it is so fun and such an opportunity. I am nervous about the weather and temperature in December and hope I don’t get frostbite or hypothermia!

What has been your toughest life moment so far?

I went to Hawaii last summer with my fiance and like any other couple, we wanted to go snorkeling. We thought we would splurge and go on a catamaran around the island which also included a snorkel tour. The boat ride was awesome and we saw all sorts of dolphins and turtles. We stopped at a very calm looking bay on the east side of the island and this was supposed to be a great snorkeling spot where all the boats stop. We got outfitted in our gear and hopped in. There was a “lifeguard” which was really just a boat boy on a stand up paddle board who instructed us to put our arm in the air if we needed any help. Of course I wasn’t worried at all. We had fins on and a life jacket so what else did we need?

Jeff and I swam around the bay for about 5 minutes and really didn’t see very many fish. The water was deep for snorkeling – about 15 or 20 feet and kind of dark for Hawaii. I was following Jeff and I suddenly felt fire on my face. I was in shock because I hadn’t seen anything at all. No jelly fish or sting rays or sharks or even kelp. I thought I was crazy and I swam a few more feet. More FIRE. Now my face really began to hurt and I felt my neck and shoulder burning too. Something wasn’t right but I still couldn’t figure it out. I popped my head out of the water and ripped off my snorkel mask. I was still on fire. My lips were burning and I touched them with my hand. A tiny thin blue string came off on my fingers and now my hand was on fire too. I stuck my arm up in the air and started towards the “lifeguard” board. When I got close enough to him for him to see me the smile on his face sunk and he looked at me in horror. Now I was really scared. I asked him, what’s on my face? Is there something on my face? He told me it was a Portuguese Man-O-War and I thought I was going to die because I had watched shows on the Discovery Channel about people dying from their stings and tentacles. I asked him if he was serious, and I knew he was when he started using his paddle to scrape the tentacles off my shoulder and neck. He wouldn’t even touch me with his hands and now his feet were out of the water and curled indian style on the paddle board. By this time I was pretty panicked and in a lot of pain. Jeff heard the commotion and swam over to help. He pulled off tentacles from my upper lip, my cheek, and my ear. I had to hold on to the paddle board to get back to the boat. When I got back to the boat I was scared, red, and swollen. I had swam into some tiny tentacles of the jelly fish and not even realized it. The boat was slim pickens in the first aid department. The captain gave me a small packet of gel that looked like neosporin and a bag of ice from the bar to hold on my face and shoulder. They assured me that I was not going to die and that the pain would go away within a few hours. Thanks a lot…

We ended up going snorkeling the next day just outside our hotel and saw much better fish with no jellies!
All in all I would take the Tough Mudder electrocution any day over the Portuguese Man-O-War. At least in Mudder the pain only lasts seconds!

Tell us a little bit more about yourself:
I was born in England, I am an only child, I have 5 hound dogs, and I was shot by my neighbor in 4th grade.

My dad passed away almost 5 years ago but he would have loved to see me do the World’s Toughest Mudder and would have been happy to been my pit man. He is the only person that I think wouldn’t think I am crazy.

Most training regimens focus exclusively on aerobic training designed to prepare your body to run 26 miles, 385 yards. Okay, that’s understandable. But your training program can benefit greatly from anaerobic exercise just as much as committing feet to asphalt.

Strength training on recovery days greatly increases your flexibility and functional fitness. Exercises such as squats, jerks, and cleans strengthen your legs and core, lowering the risk of injury by increasing limberness and ligament strength. Body weight exercises such as pull-ups, dips, and push-ups decrease fat and increase lean muscle mass without putting on bulky, stride-altering muscle while improving your overall physical fitness, athletic ability, and strength.

Additionally, interval training can be used to supplement traditional long runs. Interval training consists of periods of “work”, or exercise, interspersed with periods of rest. High school athletes running sprints during practice are simply performing interval training. By elevating and slowing your heart rate multiple times, you can achieve the cardiovascular benefits of a long run in the time it takes to complete a 20-minute workout. Interval training builds muscle and explosiveness more effectively than straight cardio, boosting your metabolism and making you a better athlete.

Incorporate other types of training into your regimen besides straight cardio. You’ll be prepared for any athletic event — including that marathon. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be able to handle the slogging, crawling, climbing, carrying and true endurance challenge that comes with a Tough Mudder event.

If you have visited the Tough Mudder Training page recently, there is a great video of Moustache man and his journey towards getting ready for Tough Mudder, with lots of crazy exercises you can do. They also have a 16 step circuit workout that includes running, pushups, rows, pull-ups, dips and other intense exercises to be performed in a gym. Notes on each exercise explain how to perform the exercise and which obstacle it prepares you for. They recommend that you be able to do this circuit twice without stopping in preparation for the event, as well as to be able to run comfortably for five miles.

Half the fun of training for Tough Mudder is figuring out how to train for Tough Mudder. Of course, you have to go to the gym, do the weights, do the cardio. You can also try out Tough Mudder’s circuit plan and decide whether to incorporate it into your routine. (For some people, it is their routine.) You also should run 3 or more times weekly in order to improve your running base. But in my opinion, these sessions alone are not enough to guarantee you will wear the Orange headband to the office on Monday morning; if they were, I probably wouldn’t be as excited (read: obsessed) about Tough Mudder. In order to truly prepare for Tough Mudder, you have to get out of the gym.

To that end, this past Saturday the Georgia Boys, my team and training group, had a field day. Literally. Several times a month, one of us is in charge of taking our Tough Mudder training regime out of the gym and into a setting more like what we will face in the actual event. This allows us to put our efforts in the gym and on the track to the test. Simon set up our first one, a 7+ mile course along the Chattahoochee River Park in Roswell, GA. He had scouted the area early in the week and designed an obstacle course that resembled some of the obstacles we would face, and invited me to join him Saturday AM.

The course was extremely tough and taught me a few things, humility being the major lesson of the day. There were walls to scale, park benches to hurdle, rows of logs to traverse, mud banks to climb,rocks to carry and fields to bear crawl through. And, of course, miles of trails to run. Then we got to the playground, and I found myself face to face with a set of monkey bars for the first time in over 30 years.

I made it exactly 5 rungs the first time, not quite halfway. The bars were thin, and slick; I couldn’t hold on. Despite the pull-ups and pushups I was so proud of (I can do 50 pushups in 2 minutes), my grip failed on the fifth rung, and I fell, amid a growing crowd of munchkins and not a few adult gawkers.My grip strength and timing certainly left a lot to be desired. The munchkins were clearly unimpressed.

Endurance was also on the list of things to I needed to improve. We ran the 7+ mile course in an hour and 42 minutes, including about 20 obstacles, with minimal rest. The obstacles were easy to begin with, but got progressively harder as we went on. We hit most obstacles on the way back, and weren’t able to do nearly as much as we did on the way in. On the last pullup station I had to break up the prescribed 20 reps into 4 sets of 5. I was barely jogging as we finished up the day. I was glad I was able to finish the course still jogging, but knew I need to be able to do more. 7 Miles is great, but its not quite 12 miles, is it?

“If this were Tough Mudder,” I wheezed to Simon as we walked back to his car, “we’d only be a little over half finished.” That certainly put it into perspective. We have a long way to go, but today showed us how to get there.

Probably the Toughest Bosses in the World

How could you not trust this company. Even if you have no idea what they even do, the number of orange headbands cannot be ignored.

Mud Scientist (Yeah, we made that joke):

And don’t forget, tomorrow is “Wear Your Orange Headband to Work Day.” We want to see photos of you rocking the headband at work, so send them to us at info@toughmudder.com.

“We had a different team name, but we’re basically just a couple of cocks,” they clucked. “… we’re really surprised the tail feathers stuck.”

These chickens used a super-strong spray adhesive to glue on their feathers. Ripping them off their chests later tonight should qualify as an honorary obstacle.