TORONTO – There may be a plethora of people with orange headbands walking around Toronto on Monday (it’s what mudders – people that finish a Tough Mudder race – do the Monday after an event).
According to Tough Mudder, a record-breaking 20,000 Torontonians proved their mental and physical fitness this past weekend. Team Global was among them – online producers Victoria Revay and James Armstrong were among those brave enough to complete the extreme obstacle course at the Mount St. Louis Moonstone resort north of Toronto.
Tough Mudder Toronto was the most successful event to date in North America according to mountain representatives. There were with more than 16,000 registered participants on Saturday, while on Sunday about 4,500 people crossed the finish line.
With the exception of one obstacle that was removed during Sunday’s race, the other 19 obstacles lived up to the fear factor.
In heats of 600, mudders started the event by crawling under barbed wires in a muddy pit at the ‘Kiss of Mud’ obstacle.
It was a cake-walk compared to the obstacles that came next: the ‘Arctic Enema’ was an industrial-sized bathtub filled with ice that participants dove in to before scaling the ‘Berlin Walls’,12-foot wooden walls placed strategically at the point in the event when your body is the weakest.
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Running (or walking) up a giant hill about one or two kilometres long, and then ‘Walking the Plank,’ a jump off of a 15-foot high wooden board into freezing cold water also tested endurance, muscles and a fear of heights.
Fears of being electrocuted were faced as well – mudders could get ‘Electroshock Therapy’ by running or crawling through live wires twice in the event. Hearing others screech with pain added to the difficulty of the obstacle.
The ‘Greased Lightning,’ which is an adult-version of a slip n’ slide, was removed Saturday night after safety concerns.
Team Global finished strong and relatively unscathed.
The number of injuries to participants couldn’t be confirmed to Global News because of privacy issues, according to Sarah Huter, Director of Marketing and Promotions for Mount St. Louis, but she said there were a few serious injuries.
A few people got hypothermia and had cardiac troubles at ‘Arctic Enema,’ Huter said. One man was knocked unconscious underwater at the ‘Walk the Plank’ obstacle when another person jumped on him.
He suffered memory loss at the event and was later treated in hospital. Another woman was also taken out on a stretcher with concerns of spinal injury after she fell from ‘Spider’s Web,’ a cargo net suspended between two trees. The Canadian Ski Patrol and the Simcoe County Paramedics were on hand to help.
Despite the injuries, the event seems to have resonated with Canadians – according to Tough Mudder, due to the successful launch of the Vancouver and Toronto markets there are tentative plans to expand the franchise to Calgary and Montreal.
Huter says she’s hoping to host the event next year.
Currently Tough Mudder operates 35 events across the U.S., Australia, Canada and the U.K. and is now one of the fastest growing events companies in the world.
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