PixelMEDIA Inc.

It was 2:30 on May 7th, 2011 that marked the end of a long road for 6 employees, 1 co-founder and 3 friends of PixelMEDIA when we crossed the finish line at Tough Mudder New England. For hours, the ten of us subjected ourselves to 10 miles, 7,000 feet of steep hill climbing, 27 brutal obstacles, 10,000 volts of electricity and a pair of swims through 36 degree water in the snow maker retention ponds at Mount Snow in West Dover, Vermont.

It was back in November that I announced that several of us had teamed up to take on the Tough Mudder, a new paradigm in endurance racing. In a nutshell, Tough Mudder takes the novelty obstacle course racing of Spartan Race and Warrior Dash and combines it with the intensity and challenge of the legendary Iron Man Triathlon. The result is unlike any sporting event in the world. Each Tough Mudder is designed to test strength and stamina as well as “mental grit” of its participants, pushing them out past their limits to a new level of athletic performance. These courses are so incredibly difficult that Tough Mudder finds a typical finishing rate of 75% indicating that 1 in 4 participants will not complete the course. Tough Mudder New England, however, stated to be Tough Mudder’s most challenging course yet (Travlete’s Grade A review of the event agrees with this), actually had an 83% finishing rate, proving conclusively that New England Tough Mudders are the toughest of them all. Don’t be fooled, though. For all the aggro ferocity, mayhem and thunder of Tough Mudder, it is not a race. Tough Mudder is a challenge. Simply finishing is a major accomplishment and along the way you’re expected to lend a hand and help your fellow Mudders complete the course. Like I said. There’s nothing on Earth like it.

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They call them Mud Runs and everyone thought I was nuts to even be considering participation in an athletic event that sets the last mile of the race on fire, expecting you – the participant – to run through this in order to complete the course. I’d bring it up in conversation and whoever I was talking to would express interest but then go to check out the website and come back to me with this look on their face that said, “You can’t be serious,” – but I am.

Of all the mud runs out there in the world, Tough Mudder makes the claim that it’s the hardest in the world. Your average mud run is 5k in length, 10k on the high end, and between the start and finish line there are numerous obstacles, like walls or cargo nets to climb, pits of mud to run through and tires to traverse like some kind of football movie training montage, minus the Eye of the Tiger soundtrack. Tough Mudder takes this format and triples the length and number of obstacles. The obstacles in each course were designed by members of the British Special Air Service, the UK’s equivalent of US Navy SEALs. The Tough Mudder organization describes it as Iron Man meets Burning Man, an aggro test of strength, endurance and all-around toughness, implying that a certain mental preparedness is necessary to finish. And let me tell you something: I cannot wait!

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For a real long time you would have thought that Youtube was the only game in town. Their web presence was absolutely staggering. But let me ask you this: How many videos of frat boys drinking multiple beers in ten seconds from a giant beer syringe do you really need to see before you feel like you’ve seen them all? Youtube never seemed to be much good for anything but that sort of video. As soon as cable and TV networks started cracking down on clips of their shows popping up on Youtube, the site became a wasteland of teenage camera phone antics and the average Youtube user seemed to be out for that sort of experience. In spite of Wired Magazine declaring Youtube the future of television and Newscorp paying out the nose to buy it, it’s certainly not for everyone, particularly if you’re trying to reach a much more sophisticated audience.

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