MANSFIELD — As of approximately 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 8, I, Dillon Garrett Carr, have the privilege of identifying as a Tough Mudder.
It’s quite the earned dubbing.
By now, most people recognize what the Tough Mudder entails — 10 miles on rugged mud-blanketed terrain interrupted by professionally engineered obstacles that resemble an army brigade’s bootcamp.
And for the first-timers (me), Electroshock Therapy — a “shocking” conclusion as you trot through a pool of mud and protect your head from hanging electric ropes.
But as I lined up with my fellow Mudders for Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course’s Tough Mudder event on Saturday, there was only one question ringing through my mind: Should I strap on a GoPro?
I imagined getting frustrated as the head-strap gradually loosened after each mile.
I saw myself reaching a point of anger that would end in me carrying the GoPro and setting it aside during each obstacle.
I wondered how many of the coveted, tiny sports cameras ended up buried in the mud, forever archiving first-person footage that only archaeologists would watch in the future.
So I decided that, for my first Tough Mudder, I would forgo capturing the video evidence. I thought it was too risky, both practically and emotionally.
But although Tough Mudder does recover a number of GoPros after each event, it turns out my concerns might have been a little much.
“We do find a little under a dozen GoPros in some of the obstacles after each event,” said Tough Mudder Marketing Communications Associate Jodi Kovacs. “Especially the ‘King of the Swings,’ or at the ‘Funky Monkey’ obstacles.”
She said most of the GoPros they find end up in the obstacles that involve water. Currently, there are 21 unclaimed GoPros and equipment Tough Mudder collected in North America.
“They can fall off,” she said.
Kovacs said Tough Mudder Inc. has a team that collects the GoPros and miscellaneous camera equipment after each event and sends them to their Brooklyn headquarters, usually within two or three weeks. Once there, the personal items end up in a lost and found database and the customer service team works to get them back to their owners.
For those people who lose their GoPros or other video camera, Tough Mudder has a spot on their website to browse unclaimed items or file a claim if you don’t see your lost item listed.
When the item is claimed, Tough Mudder mails it back.
“We have the owners take a video of themselves when they get it back,” she said.
Kovacs said, although it’s common to lose GoPros and other equipment along the course, it’s fairly common to get it back.
So, for this year, I did not capture any of those cool GoPro shots of me swinging 20 feet above a frigid pool of mud-water, climbing over the Block Ness Monster, getting shocked in Electro Shock Therapy and finding footholds in the Mud Mile 2.0 moguls.
Yeah, it would have been good stuff. I’ll take my chances next year.
