AUSTIN, TX — A local man has revealed that — despite there being no enemy to attack, bullets whizzing by your head, or soul-crushing bureaucracy to deal with long after being injured on the battlefield — the Tough Mudder adventure race is practically the same thing as military combat.
“Now I haven’t been in combat per se,” said 22-year-old software developer James Young, while reflecting back on the troubling times he had during the intense savagery of the ‘TM’ as he calls it, “but this race was probably just like it. My heartbeat was up, everyone was pumped, and we were fighting for our lives.”
Young, who completed the Tough Mudder race hours ago, described the the challenge as a “crucible of combat.”
“When I had to jump into the freezing cold water, it was exactly like that time in the movie Shooter where Mark Wahlberg was firing at people in the arctic,” said Young. “Then we had to run up and down these hill obstacles like the brave men serving in Afghanistan.”
“Just like in the military with bullets flying and guys getting wounded,” Young added, pausing momentarily to shed a tear amidst his emotional story. “The race was exactly like that. We lost a lot of good men out there.”
The popular race — featuring mud pits, hill obstacles, and many miles of running that could theoretically result in sudden death similar to getting shot through the heart by an Iraqi sniper — also has a unique and life-threatening ending, which Young described in detail.
“When we got to the end, with the electric shock obstacle, good Lord,” said Young while slamming his post-race party Dos Equis to calm his nerves. “The shocks rushing through my body must have been just like the torture of John McCain and others in the North Vietnamese prison camps.”
At the end, Young and many of his comrades had “completed the mission” of the Tough Mudder.
“Like our brave men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, I was forced to suffer through a full set of Toby Keith as I neared the end of my journey.”
“Goddamn that was an amazing race. Now could you excuse me? I feel the need to go sexually assault someone,” he added.
Duffel Blog investigative correspondent David Brooks also contributed reporting.
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