81-Year Old Missourian Smashes Second Tough Mudder

Featured image: Tough Mudder/Instagram

People of St. Louis! Having trouble getting off your couch and into the gym lately? 81-year old widow Mildred Wilson (based in Sikeston, Missouri) can't relate. She just finished her second tough mudder in March, St. Louis. Imagine what you can do!

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Back in March, Wilson jogged across the finish line of a tough mudder 5K, smiling from ear-to-ear. She's more than 80 years old, and this was her second Tough Mudder.

In 2019, right after she turned 80, Wilson's son asked her if she wanted to do one of these famous obstacle races, after he had finished one himself. If you're unfamiliar with the Tough Mudder, participants army crawl through muddy water, run through hanging electric wires that shock them, and climb over nets and other various obstacles.

“I had watched him do the World’s Toughest Mudder in Vegas,” Mildred said, according to local news reports. “He asked me last fall if I would like to do one. I said yes, but, if I do it, I want to be able to really do it. Not just be out there.”

After her doctor gave her the okay, she started training at the local YMCA. She trained so well that after running her first Tough Mudder, she made the remark that it was “a little easier than I expected, except for the wall! I always wanted to try that wall. I realized it wasn’t a piece of cake. It took a whole village to get me up.” This remark was referring to an obstacle called “Everest,” during which participants must ascend a wall using a rope.

In 2019 when she did her first race, her husband cheered her on and watched her through the whole race before passing away in 2020. She dedicated her March 2021 run to him.

Tough Mudders just turned a decade-old, having been co-founded in 2010 by Will Dean and Guy Livingstone, British citizens living in New York. Dean is a former counterterrorism officer, and he developed the idea for the company wall attending Harvard, where the idea was a semifinalist in Harvard Business school's annual business plan competition.

Will Dean expanded on the idea of the Tough Guy races that have been run in England since 1987, started by Billy Wilson.

The first Tough Mudder was held on May 2nd, 2010 on the grounds of Bear Creek Ski Resort near Allentown, Pennsylvania. It was promoted only through Facebook advertising and word of mouth and attracted more than 4,500 participants.

Three years later on May 2nd, 2013, Tough Mudder announced that they had reached 1 million registrations since 2010. The company has since expanded all over the world, with events in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, China, and United Arab Emirates.

If you'd like to challenge yourself, like the 81-year-old woman who has currently run two more Tough Mudders than I have, you can find all their upcoming events here.

Next year, there's one just outside of St Louis.

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