Tough Mudder recently announced their 10-hour team building challenge called Tough Mudder Infinite Hero Honor Challenge that helps raise money for the Infinite Hero Foundation. The event requires some basic land navigation (can be done with or without a compass), a light ruck (10 lbs. minimum) and has 22 person platoons completing a variety of mentally and physically demanding tasks. People keep asking me for more details on the challenges you’ll face. I’ll give you a few more details… but part of the challenge is facing the unknown, so I’m still going to keep things a little vague.
What are the tasks?
The tasks will involve keeping your 10 lbs. ruck on and require all teammates to complete them together. However, there is often a twist mixed in there. Think blindfolds, being tied together, carrying heavy objects, balancing items or not being allowed to use certain parts of your body. The challenges may incorporate some Tough Mudder obstacles on course or there may be some unique challenges of their own. It might also require you to do the obstacles in a different direction. Lastly, the challenges all have a reason for why you are doing them. Don’t forget that it is part of a larger scenario involving your platoon operating in a “foreign” territory completing mission essential tasks for the Mudder Nation.
Where are the tasks coming from?
The tasks take inspiration from some tricky tasks like you were required to do for some of Tough Mudder’s virtual events in 2020, as well as inspiration from military training and selection events. Part of the goal is to find the halfway point between Tough Mudder mental challenges and the physical stress of military challenges.
To do this we got the help of two long time Mudders:
Johnny Little: Johnny has been working with Tough Mudder since 2014, so he knows the brand inside and out. Besides being part of Tough Mudder, he’s also an accomplished endurance athlete himself with an iron distance triathlon (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run) personal best of sub 9 hour 30 minutes, a finisher of the Norseman extreme triathlon (described as the ultimate triathlon requiring some of the most brutal terrain and a swim in extreme cold) and a Escape From Alcatraz finisher. His goal in 2021 is finishing the well-known Leadville Trail race, a 100-mile foot race that tops out at almost 13,000 of elevation. Johnny knows Tough Mudder, and he knows endurance, but he also knows overcoming adversity since he is a cancer survivor.
Evan Perperis: Evan is an Army Special Forces Soldier with 17 years of military experience and 44 months of combat deployments. He ran his first World’s Toughest Mudder in 2014 and has accumulated 63x Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) podium finishes since then including his two-man team winning World’s Toughest Mudder 2018. Every year since 2016, he’s done a self-created extreme Ultra-OCR challenge including things like a 48 hour multi-lap, 8 OCR marathons in 8 days in the winter, 24 hours of treadmill OCR and an Ultra-OCR at simulated 21,000 feet to raise more than $26,000 for charity, much of which is chronicled in his book Ultra-OCR Man (available in hard copy, digital and audiobook).
Additionally, it is likely veterans who are also longtime Mudders will be added to the list in the coming months to keep that true to brand feel and keep the challenges fresh.
If you want to see what Tough Mudder’s Infinite Hero Honor Challenge has to offer, you are going to have to come out and experience it for yourself. I don’t believe in asking people to do stuff that I haven’t personally done myself or at least stuff that is similar to what I have done before.
Register here.
