Tough Mudder Whistler 2012 || Vancouver Sports Photographer

Holy crap Tough Mudder is no joke, and there’s no way I’ll ever compete, I’ll just stick to taking photos!! We’ve only had a random five months of rain so when Shannon {my video girl} and I dressed for “winter weather” we were both shocked and ready to burst into flames a few hours in when that giant ball of fire was shining in the sky. Proof that I’ll never participate: the walk up from the shuttle to the entrance to the race almost killed me. Seriously my foot still hurts!

Okay so the people that did participate you are all beasts. I shot four of the obstacles and I was so happy to see every age, every size, both men and women participating. One of the guys after he was done the race said the Arctic Enema was the worst. I believe it, when we were there at 8am there was so much steam coming off of the huge vat of ice cold coloured water it just looked torturous. This wasn’t something you could just jump in and out of, you had to swim under a wooden plank to get to the exit. Plus fun for photographers and for anyone wearing white the water was coloured pink, yellow or green. Just imagine a lot of screaming like girls…And you couldn’t tell if the screaming was coming from men or women!

Next up: The 12′ Berlin Walls x 2. This obstacle really shows what team work is all about. After the Mudders have run up to this point they have to get themselves up and over not one wall but two. I could have watched them for hours doing this, the amount of people who didn’t know each other but stayed to help them over the wall. It might have been a boost, or a foot on their shoulder {the guy in the blue body storm shirt was there for like 10 minutes helping people} or once they got up on the wall, straddling it and pulling people up over and down.

Also a great place to see some of the rad costumes. Kilts, TMNT {if you don’t know what that means you’re not from the 80s}, pirates, the suits, I loved the honey badger shirts, bees, the guy in very florescent gear, fluorescent hair and a banana down his pants kudos. Pretty much anything goes. When we got to the hotel on Friday I like how the Tough Mudder info said don’t wear sneakers that you just purchased. Tough Mudder is where sneakers go to die.

So I knew a bunch of people who were participating on Saturday along with 14,000 other competitors. Yeah I wrote that right 14,000 people! I was really looking forward to seeing everyone but it was so hard to spot them all there were A LOT of racers! Next year y’all will have to race on Sunday when it’s a little quieter! But I did get Aimee Laing just out of the Arctic Enema, Shannon Dowbiggin was my videographer for the day, Quinten Laing Aimee’s husband and Captain of the Abbotsford Heat, Sean Daly who still looks the same from way back Kits days, Shannon showing her rifle marksmanship {5/5}, Bal Rizzmama, Chris Daly and Sean running to the second set of Berlin Walls and Shannon’s friend and Conn O’Ruairc.

Okay watching the Devils Beard it looks like if you had to go through by yourself and just a few people it would be difficult but with a hoard of people easy. The thing we found funny were the racers that would jump down to the mud then run around the side so their shoes wouldn’t get dirty. The spectators were getting quite snippy and vocal about it too, mind you they knew most of them but still it was entertaining!

Go on now, Kiss the Mud. This obstacle was on our way out of Tough Mudder and one of the last ones before the finish line. If it had rained it would have been a lot messier but they had sprinklers going when we first arrived so there was plenty of muck for everyone to dive into. Some people made it look easy and others looked so happy for that helping hand waiting for them at the end of the barbed wire. So if you weren’t dirty before this is where you were going to get a stain or two.

All this and we found Waldo too? And to the guy in the gorilla suit, I hope it wasn’t a rental!!

This was an amazing experience, even for a photog like me, but more for everyone who participated I’m sure! I’m thinking of going down to Seattle to shoot those Mudders and then I’m looking forward to next year in Vancouver. Please leave me your experience in the comments I’d love to hear it. I’ll have video up soon on You Tube and photos to buy this week too. Congrats to all of you, bragging rights for life.

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