WATCH: One participant in Whistler’s Tough Mudder can say he faces a tougher battle every day and this weekend he went the extra mile. Linda Aylesworth explains.
VANCOUVER, B.C. — All it takes is a little help from your friends. And a lot of personal determination.
Forty-year-old Rand Surbey has been living with cerebral palsy for his entire life, but that didn’t stop him from living out one of his dreams this weekend. He completed the Tough Mudder competition in Whistler, a grueling 18-kilometre military style obstacle course that includes crawling through mud, running through electrical shocks and diving off platforms into icy water.
“He wants to be able to show people like him that it’s possible to do stuff like Tough Mudder…the only limits that people have are the ones they put on themselves,” said Jason Cole, who designed a wheelchair for Surbey that could withstand the harsh conditions of the course.
The duo created Symbiathletics in 2012, “as a way to bring together dedicated athletes of all abilities,” reads the Facebook page. They envisioned a “team of “drivers” and “engines” training together as a team.”
After fundraising for the wheelchair, Cole and Surbey got a group of twelve people together – their name, “The Tut-Mudders.” Cole was King Tutankhamun on his chariot.
But he didn’t stay there the whole time. At one point, he crawled through a thirty foot pipe, using only his arms. When he reached the other end, over 1,000 people were standing there and applauding him, the pair told Global News.
Instead of relaxing the next day, Cole and Surbey ran the Scotiabank Half-Marathon. They came 195 and 196 out of thousands of participants and plan to do it all again next year.
– With Files from Linda Aylesworth
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