(Submitted photo)
The rain and cold weather didn’t stop the Tough Mudders from participating on the course and taking on the various obstacles brought to the Drumheller Stampede Grounds this weekend.
Spectators dressed warm and trudged through the muddy conditions to watch and cheer on their favourite mudder while they took on the various obstacles and ran through the mud.
Participants crossed the finish line with smiles and cheers of joy after having completed the event.
Many residents from the Drumheller area participated in, some as repeat Mudders and others as first time participants.
Kim Masson and her son Kyle participated for the first time this year. Masson said she volunteered during the 2014 Tough Mudder event and decided then that she wanted to be a participant this year.
“I decided (to participate) last year when I was volunteering. Now I didn’t know it was going to be the weather that it was… mind you I think it would be hard to do in the heat too. I think you would be more apt to do things because it is warm opposed to cold,” she said.
Masson explained that there were several sick people with what looked to be hypothermia but still continued to complete the course.
“I enjoyed it,” she said. “I am glad I did it. For me it was more of a mental challenge. I am glad that my son did it too. It was a good experience for sure. I wouldn’t say anything negative about it at all, I think it is something everybody should try.”
“The one thing I enjoyed the most was how people help people. You don’t get through stuff like that without the help of people. It is people that you don’t know. We had a team from Calgary helping us out, we had a team from Edmonton helping us out going up the hills because people were losing their shoes and their feet were coming out, we saw a couple girls crying, it is just really hard,” she told The Mail, continuing by saying, “There were lots of comments like ‘what is this stuff?’ and I would say that is called bentonite, because people have never seen, or heard of that. When you add rain to it, it is just not easy, but again we did it and that is just the main thing, you get through it.”
“That’s what I like about it, and that is what it is supposed to be about, is everybody will kick in where they are supposed to,” she said.
“Nobody leaves anybody there, everyone just helps everyone through it, and I think that is awesome.”
Dave Hanik, another local participant, said his team did well at the event. Hanik participated last year, but his other team members were first time Tough Mudder participants.
“We made it through. Nobody really got hurt or anything like that. It took a little longer than we thought, the mud slowed us down quite a bit, but we did good,” he said.
Hanik said the comparison between last year’s and this year’s event was the amount of mud.
“With all the rain and the heavy mud and stuff like that I guess it was a big deterrent. Last year when we ran it, the only mud that you hit was the obstacles, this year everywhere you went there was mud, water, and cold,” he explained.
“We saw so many people on the verge of hypothermia, pneumonia, twisted ankles, knees. A lot more people were getting hurt this year I think just with going up and down the hills and stuff like that," he said.
"There wasn’t a dry spot anywhere on the track, you could never get out of the mud,” he said.
