Tough Mudder is returning to Ireland this year, and while it's an incredibly tough obstacle race that will push you to your limits, one of our readers has decided to take up the challenge to see if he can take it.
Jonathan Codd is a 21-year-old student who is passionate about staying in shape and learning all he can about health and fitness, which is why he's chosen to tackle Tough Mudder. A combination of a grueling run and a punishing obstacle course, Tough Mudder is not about tackling the course on your own, but the sense of team work and the way you can push yourself when you've got a whole crew of people behind you urging you on through the most challenging of courses.
With that sense of team spirit in mind, Jonathan is not going to be on his own throughout this adventure, as we've teamed up with Under Armour and Metabolic Fitness on Drury Street in Dublin to help get him in the shape of his life and make sure he crosses that finish line.
Jonathan's mentor for the next few weeks, Dave Peelo, is the owner of Metabolic Fitness and is known as one of Ireland’s top personal trainers. With his 15 years of experience, he has put together a fantastic team of trainers who are known for the incredible results they achieve with clients, and will be concentrating his efforts on helping Jonathan for the next few weeks, but also on sharing some great tips with all of our readers whether you want to partake in Tough Mudder yourself or simply want to get back training to feel fitter and stronger.
Over the next few days and weeks, Dave and the crew at Metabolic Fitness will walk us through some of the obstacles that you can expect to find on the Tough Mudder course, and how you can train for them in the gym by replicating some of the moves that you're going to use to tackle the demanding terrain of the obstacle course.
To keep us up to date and in the loop, Jonathan will be keeping a diary in the run up to the event. With a firm goal and a start date for the race circled on the calendar, he'll let us in on the unique challenges he faces as he prepares to tackle one of the toughest obstacle courses out there.
Jonathan's Diary
Hi, I'm Jonathan Codd, a 21-year-old student from NUI Galway. For the last few months, I've been away in the US on an international experience at State University of New York in Albany, learning plenty of new things and gaining some amazing experiences. However, having been away, my fitness levels have dropped and now that I'm back home, I looked for an event that I could sign up for that would spur me on to get back in shape. I am determined to train as hard as I can to get myself in the best possible position to take part in next month's Tough Mudder, although I know it's going to take a lot of hard work!
I love all sports, in particular field hockey and football, and I would usually be quite fit as I play Division 1 hockey for Avoca Hockey Club. However, the summer months are off-season for us players, so I don't have training sessions every week to keep me in shape. This is also one of the reasons why I signed up for Tough Mudder, so that I can challenge myself and return to pre-season training in good shape.
I have taken part in a similar event previously called 'Hell and Back', and loved every minute of it so I sort of know what to expect, but Tough Mudder is a far greater challenge and knowing this means that I am going to have to train harder than I ever have before. I only have a few weeks, which is a relatively short period of time to train for an event like this, but I am confident that I can and will get through it with a simile on my face. Well, maybe not always a smile... No pain, no gain!
