Tough Guy winter 2007, year of the oirish toiger: beyond pain, beyond glory. (UPDATE: short video now available)
Drago!
Tough Guy claims to be the world's most demanding one day survival ordeal. Certainly, it has cause for that claim. Go on the website and this is the description:
What is Tough Guy?
It is the original survival ordeal, a test of physical and mental endurance designed to take you beyond your limits on torture rack obstacles known as The Killing Fields, following a wild terrain warm up. It is held annually on the last Sunday in January and July.
We are set in over 150 acres of fertile land where spring waters will wash away your miseries and replace them with smiles of achievement.
Each year a new theme is built into Tough Guy this ensures that it remains one of the world's toughest events. Tough Guy will always be a physically challenging, mentally demanding, fear inducing, visual spectacular. After you have taken part you will understand why thousands keep coming back, year after year to experience some of the most demanding yet rewarding challenges of their life!
Yohimbe!
We have searched the world amongst military and security forces to find any unit with a more demanding ONE DAY survival training ordeal. The US Navy S.E.A.L.S. 'Grinder' Assault Course is our nearest rival. We admire that no S.E.A.L. would ever desert a colleague and that on completion of each endurance discipline they shout 'Hoo-yah', their own unique cry of triumph. Tough Guy has the Buddy Devotion and now we have our own cry - 'Yohimbe'. Only on completion of the event will you be told the derivation of the word.
Nice way to introduce the race, uh?
How did I get involved into this?
Many months ago, when the sun was still warming nicely this island and winter seemed like a far, far away place, Gemma, Lindsey's previous flat mate, sent me an email to me and some other guys asking if we would like to take part in this "unique" race. It'll be fun, she wrote.
After completing a miserable Isle of Wight Marathon under extremely depressing weather circumstances, I needed some new short term goal so I gladly accepted, without even checking the website.
I liked the name of the competition, I didn't have any football match scheduled in that weekend, and so it was enough for me to say yes.
The months passed and only after Christmas I realized that if I wanted to run it without dying, I needed to train. For my training, I decided to get inspired by Rocky Balboa .
Rob, my official commando trainer, provided me music and videos inspired by the Rocky saga.
I spent some days watching and re-watching the training montages and I decided to go for the Rocky IV way of training : running a bit, growing a beard and shouting "Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaago" at the top of the Wandsworth Bridge.
With the same soundtrack music repeated over and over on my ipod, getting in shape wasn't a problem.
The toughest part of the training? The self-imposed alcohol ban.
I realize that with no alcohol I have a very small social life. Everything seems to be revolving about pubs and bars, especially on Friday night. Oh well.
Anyway, after all these hard weeks of training, and with a respectable beard, I traveled to Wolverhampton the day before the race. Gemma and company decided to enjoy some winter camping on the track, while I booked in a nice Hotel not too far from the track (5 miles maybe less).
Hardly the toughest way of getting ready, but before this kind of race you need to get the better sleep you can, you may never know when you die.
The hotel where I was staying was booked out and everyone seemed to be a participant in the competition. I saw a group of people doing some briefing in the conference room, analyzing the track and how to beat all the obstacles. Their idea was to do it as quickly as possible. And it was mine too.
I met Andrew, an Irish dude who was a first-timer as me and he drove me to the track to check the course. In the gently winter afternoon sun, it didn't look so bad, but the amount of water was somehow scary. Wearing the right things was a priority. If you need to run this thing, you'll need to be prepared. And I was, oh yes.
Back to the hotel, and after watching some classics on the television (Tomb Raider and Dumb and Dumber ) and spending a good hour sewing my number on the shirt, it was time to go to bed.
The next day was Tough Guy day!
Are you a tough guy?
The morning of the race I woke up around 7.30am for a last decent breakfast and ready to walk to warm up.
I walked with my bag for around an hour before getting to the place. The distance didn't seem so big the day before, when Andrew drove me.
I met with my team, the "Aye Up Jeff"'s people, in the camping area and in the parking zone. It was full of Germans by the way, and a detachment of the German army was taking part as well. You know you're going to have fun in a race where Deutsch people take part!
Everyone was there, ready for the competition: Gemma, Erik, Jeff, Julian, Andy, Ian, Oli, Rebecca, Matt and Jill.
Someone weeks ago had the brilliant idea of buying some flowery swimming hats for multiple purposes: quickly recognized members of the team and keep our heads warm in the cold water. I don't care how gay those flowery hats looked; they probably helped me in my performance more than anything else!
The race had a late start (around 11.00), with groups divided by the experience/money paid (a lot goes to charity, more money paid means you'll start in the front squad team). So we started around 15-20 minutes after the top group.
As soon as the race started, the feeling was similar to the start of every marathon I've run in my life: smiles, jokes, a lot of happy shouting shared by the runners. I knew that anyway soon everything would turn into the sweet silence (with some swearing) of pain.
After maybe 8 miles of off track running, I lost contact with my group.
You see, there are two different ways of facing this monster: you're either take it easy and just finish (but prolong the pain by queuing, wet, cold and miserable, to cross the obstacles) or you decide it for the "fuck it" way.
Since I'm too much of a competitor, I decided to face the Tough Guy the professional way: run to win it. You may never know how many people could die in front of you.
I realized that my chance of winning were quite low since our group started behind maybe 2000 people. But I didn't care, I wanted to do it as quickly as possible, so I started accelerating in the country miles .
Then, it was time to face the killing fields, and their obstacles.
Some of them were quite easy. Climbing the rope structures wasn't that difficult, as long as you didn't have to queue behind 400 people and freeze your ass while waiting.
I was expecting the tyre crawl , the barbwire crossing (Stalag Escape) and the Vietcong tunnels to be longer, but their length was enough to leave scratches all over my legs. I didn't realize the amount of cuts on knees and shins until 3 days later!
The most difficult obstacles were definitely all those with some water in it. It was just a surprise to land in muddy, frozen water that would leave you with a numb sensation, especially in the crotch area. Like in the Dragon Pools
I'm sure many penises shrunk so much that they needed special treatment after the end of the race!
The harder combination was probably at mid-race: colditz walls (to climb with a rope and jump on the other side), followed by the behemoth , a tricky rope structure, and by firey holes , a combination of hay on fire followed by pool of hay and mud, similar to quicksand and quite deep.
I had trouble walking out of it and I heard scary stories of people who never did.
Another killer obstacles were the underwater tunnels , where you had to pass under a wooden bridge, with your head completely covered by the icy water. I've seen pictures of people getting pulled off the structure half dead.
But my special mention goes to the plank, the new obstacle introduced in this edition: a quick climb followed by a walk on plank and a dive in the freezing water, 5 meters below.
I've done it so quickly because all I wanted was to end the race in a good position, but next to me, on the other planks, people just stopped, scared of the impact.
After some more obstacles (you can read about it on the official website), and 2 hours and 13 minutes, my race was over, and a dirty and huge medal was swinging around my neck.
Never in my life had a cup of hot chocolate tasted so good.
I think I probably drunk something like 10 cups before feeling finally full. Without any change of clothes (I left everything in a car) I waited for the rest of my team to arrive. They did, and only one dropped from the race, after a leg injury.
I was wondering how Gemma could complete the race with water holes and muddy quick sands deeper than 5'8".
I heard she almost drowned few times, but was quickly saved by Erik, who, by the way, arrived at the finish line still completely shell shocked.
All the smiles and the jokes were gone, hypothermia quickly kicked in for many participants and I think I've never seen so many miserable faces rocking front and back trying to understand what just happened.
The different layers of my clothing help me stay decently warm, but I need to thank Jeff & co for the essential help provided me afterwards.
With soups, warm packs and chocolate, I was saved from a quick shock to the system.
This was the final list of our team:
OLAF OLGIATI 2:13:10
JEFF FIDLER 2:59:53
JULIAN WOODWARD 3:05:02
ANDREW STRIPP 3:05:34
IAN DUGDALE 3:06:04
JILL DUGDALE 3:06:04
OLIVER SINCLAIR 3:33:33
REBECCA RACE 3:33:34
ERIK HAGEN 3:33:36
GEMMA HAGEN 3:33:39
MATT BOYCE DNF
After the race, we spent our last hours eating like pigs in a local pub, all still quite smelly and dirty. Fortunately many of the people eating in the same pub finished the race as well. I ate bacon, steak, my first pint of beer in 28 days and an awful cheesecake that made my miss the last bus.
I took the train and I was 3 hours later at home, with my medal still covered in mud (and manure).
I was smelly, my beard still had pieces of mud and frozen saliva, but yet I managed to smile all my way back to London.
I ran the Tough Guy, and I survived. I'm a hard mofo.
We are set in over 150 acres of fertile land where spring waters will wash away your miseries and replace them with smiles of achievement.
How did I get involved into this? 
After completing a miserable Isle of Wight Marathon under extremely depressing weather circumstances, I needed some new short term goal so I gladly accepted, without even checking the website. 
For my training, I decided to get inspired by Rocky Balboa . 
With the same soundtrack music repeated over and over on my ipod, getting in shape wasn't a problem. 
The hotel where I was staying was booked out and everyone seemed to be a participant in the competition. I saw a group of people doing some briefing in the conference room, analyzing the track and how to beat all the obstacles. Their idea was to do it as quickly as possible. And it was mine too. 
The morning of the race I woke up around 7.30am for a last decent breakfast and ready to walk to warm up. 
I met with my team, the "Aye Up Jeff"'s people, in the camping area and in the parking zone. It was full of Germans by the way, and a detachment of the German army was taking part as well. You know you're going to have fun in a race where Deutsch people take part!
Everyone was there, ready for the competition: Gemma, Erik, Jeff, Julian, Andy, Ian, Oli, Rebecca, Matt and Jill. 
The race had a late start (around 11.00), with groups divided by the experience/money paid (a lot goes to charity, more money paid means you'll start in the front squad team). So we started around 15-20 minutes after the top group.
After maybe 8 miles of off track running, I lost contact with my group. 
Some of them were quite easy. Climbing the rope structures wasn't that difficult, as long as you didn't have to queue behind 400 people and freeze your ass while waiting. 
Another killer obstacles were the underwater tunnels , where you had to pass under a wooden bridge, with your head completely covered by the icy water. I've seen pictures of people getting pulled off the structure half dead.
I was wondering how Gemma could complete the race with water holes and muddy quick sands deeper than 5'8". 
After the race, we spent our last hours eating like pigs in a local pub, all still quite smelly and dirty. Fortunately many of the people eating in the same pub finished the race as well. I ate bacon, steak, my first pint of beer in 28 days and an awful cheesecake that made my miss the last bus.