Tough Mudder has gained a reputation in recent years for being one of the most challenging, fun and unbelievably messy endurance tests you can take part in. And, we can say from experience that this is a reputation it is well and truly worthy of.
In July 2014, The Floor Shop put together a team of 14 intrepid – and slightly naïve – champions to take part in this most crazy of assault courses. They came from sales and the workshop, installation and management to see what they were made of, to stretch their own personal limits, and mostly to ignore them, and to raise money for a good cause. Of course none of us really knew what to expect, maybe a few would have thought twice about it if they had!
What seemed like a good idea at the time very rapidly descended into questions of what on earth were we doing there when we saw what was ahead of us and who we were sharing the experience with – all champing at the bit to get things started.
Our band of merry men and women, picking up on the energy of the event, started to get the same mildly crazed look in their eyes as everyone else, forgetting their earlier trepidation, adrenalin flowing, and then, before we had time to observe any further the time for people-watching was over and the claxon announced the start of one of the most amazing races of our lives.
12 miles later every one of our team made it across the line, some in a better state than others, some requiring a little additional encouragement from their team-mates. We were covered from head to foot in mud, sweat and tears. We were utterly exhausted, battered and mildly broken. But, we had faced the Tough Mudder challenge and won – all of us crossing the line, all of us contributing to the charity pot of funds, and all of us in desperate need of a drink!
Radiomarathon was our charity of choice, it was for them that we had put ourselves through the endurance ringer. Radiomarathon is a local charity that does some great work helping those with special needs to learn new practical skills and creative talents, to have fun and to support those who care for them. We’re passionate about our involvement with them, but we’ll write more about Radiomarathon and why we have chosen to support them, and continue to do so, in our next article. For now, we wanted to say a massive thank you to all the team who helped us to raise the £12,000 or more by completing the Tough Mudder challenge. Now, where’s that drink… we could sleep for a week!