In this week’s issue of the magazine, Lizzie Widdicombe writes about Tough Mudder, an untimed run through a ten-to-twelve-mile military-style obstacle course. “In Cold Mud” describes Widdicombe’s participation in a Tough Mudder near Lake Tahoe last summer. She writes that participants “endure events that force them to overcome their fears: jumping through fire pits, slithering through enclosed spaces, leaping from intimidating heights.” Among the obstacles are the Arctic Enema, in which participants plunge themselves into dumpsters of frigid slush and mud, and Electroshock Therapy, in which a dangling field of live wires delivers ten-thousand-volt shocks.
Emiliano Granado shot the photograph that accompanies Widdicombe’s article at a Tough Mudder last fall, in New Jersey. He described it as a hybrid of a “huge pep rally crossed with a Halloween parade.” Like Widdicombe, who writes that Tough Mudder is, at heart, “a group-bonding exercise,” Granado was impressed by the participants’ camaraderie. This spirit seems to drive the event’s popularity: though it can cost a hundred and fifty dollars to register for a Tough Mudder, obstacle racing has become one of the country’s fastest-growing and most profitable athletic activities.
