About seven years ago I had a job where I drove several times a day past a dirt Motocross track built into the side of a hill. There were the usual Moto track rutted turns, low spots, steep banks, and abrupt mounds where the riders could catch air, and this track was built alongside a freeway. Every weekend in the summer riders would converge on this rural location and compete, which was entertainment for the bored freeway drivers, you bet.
But then early on one summer weekend day I saw something else. A horde of dirt-covered people were running along the motocross track! WTF? So I checked it out, later, on the internet. They were doing a thing called a 'Mudder'.
What a Mudder is is basically like signing up for a day of hardcore boot camp. With a bunch of other contestants you run an obstacle course and yes, some of the obstacles are the sort of thing you have to get through that will get you very muddy in the process. This is apparently great fun, becoming physically and mentally tormented for a day.
Right off I could see that this was only something that people that worked in offices would do, because believe me, the average Joe what holds a day job ain't no way gonna exert himself in no mud pit on the weekend. He'll be on the sofa watching the game(s) with a bowl of high calorie, high fat feed close by. In his hand will be a bottle of suds, and many more of those will be in the coolerator.
Gotta rest up for the week ahead!
But no, such is not the case for those that hold office jobs. These are the ones that you see getting in their early morning jogs, bicycling to work, hitting the gym after work, and competing in Mudders and marathons on weekends.
I've never ever held an office job, my constitution is totally incompatible with being confined in a building throughout the week, but there are plenty of people that gravitate to such environs so there is a huge market for these Mudder-type events.
“What are these people doing on my track?!”
Koen Van Ginkel- Unsplash.com
"Rah!" goes the Mudder cry, and they're off! Bounding up the muddy track, climbing up and over the rope/wall, dunking themselves in the ice pond, dodging their way through the maze of hanging wires that give them electric shocks, traversing the monkey bar obstacle, the bars slicked with butter and grease, trying to get up and over the similarly greased half pipe obstacle, etc., etc., all of this an improvement on boot camp!
Competing in a Mudder is also a teamwork event. The participants are encouraged to help each other along the way and so yes, doing that sort of thing is always boss-approved and so doing a Mudder may even be a company sponsored activity. A perk! (Just alla you come back to work on Monday in one piece, okay?)
Well, seems this Mudder idea has taken off and of course with that has emerged sponsorship, prize money, TV, and the inevitable stars of the 'sport', strapping lads and sinewy lasses making money by working the circuit.
Surviving a Mudder course is touted as being invigorating in the extreme. You really haven't lived until you've crossed this off your 'must do' list.
Okay. All right. Say what you will you ain't getting this hombre far away from the sofa on a Saturday (or on a Sunday). That's what weekends used to be about, before two guys, one a former counter-terrorism expert, the other a former corporate lawyer (think 'office job') came up with this crazy 'Let's sell agony (boot camp) as fun’ idea.
But I can't say it doesn’t look like extreme fun, I can't deny that. Running wild in the woods like a ten year old kind of fun. Were I in my twenties with energy to burn, and there were some hot babes around as fellow competitors, I might give participating in a Mudder a go one weekend- maybe.
What I do know for sure is this- if I had to sit at a desk all day and take my breaks near some coffee setup/water cooler, I'd be praying for Saturday's Mudder to come so I could burn off the calories I'd been accruing from eating all those doughnuts in the breakroom.
It'd also give me something to talk about around the water cooler come Monday.