This is fun. The Atlantic Cities has a piece of New York bike commuting featuring some of the work from my #BikeNYC project. Check it out!
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Around 1200 seriously badass individuals (including 100 women) took part in World’s Toughest Mudder on November 17-18 at Raceway Park in New Jersey. Quick refresher: Unlike a “regular” Tough Mudder event, where participants complete a 10-12 obstacle course and which is explicitly not a race, World’s Toughest is a competition, with cash prizes for top male, female, and team finishers. The other difference is that WTM goes for 24 hours straight. Completing the course circuit counts as one lap. The mudder with the most completed laps at the end of the 24 hours wins.
Junyong Pak, last year’s winner, took the top prize again this time, completing 9 laps total. The top female finisher was Amelia Boone, who also completed 9 laps and at one point was only a couple of minutes behind Pak on their final lap. Just to reiterate: 9 laps – that’s a total distance of 90 miles, plus 32 obstacles each lap. “Nine Inch Males” took the team prize.
I was shooting from 7AM on Saturday until about 5PM, at which point I went to HQ to warm up and post the first gallery on Tough Mudder’s Facebook. Then it was back out for the night shooting. I caught some Zs between midnight and 2AM but excitement and hearing updates over the walkie soon had me back out trying to track down the leaders for some night shots before the final push Sunday morning. So I was preeeeetty tired by the end of it, but possibly not as much as Pak, Amelia, and the hundreds of determined athletes I saw powering through all day and all night.
Tough Mudder has a great recap of the event here. I’ve got pictures below.
Just under 16 hours until the start of the second ever World’s Toughest Mudder competition. (Here’s what last year’s looked like.) For those who don’t know, WTM is just like a regular Tough Mudder, except it’s a race, and competitors run laps of the 10-mile obstacle course for 24 hours straight. Whoever has done the most laps after 24 hours wins. Simples.
I will be the sole Tough Mudder photographer out there, so I’m well armed with cameras, batteries, memory cards, and, most important, foot warmers.
It’s going to be cold, wet, and dark. I can’t wait. My photos will be up on Tough Mudder’s Facebook page on Saturday afternoon and more on Sunday. I’ll also be doing regular updates of this nutty event on my Instagram.
And now for something completely unrelated to Tough Mudder. I’ve just finished shooting a 2013 Calendar with with my friend Sheryl, a.k.a. Bitch Cakes the famous weight loss / fitness / lifestyle blogger (and fellow Greenpoint resident). I first met Sheryl 2 years ago when I photographed her for my #BikeNYC project. Since May 2011, we have been working off and on when our schedules allowed it to photograph 12 + spreads. Sheryl describes the style as “part pin-up cute and part NYC worship” and this is about right. All the photos were shot on location in Manhattan and Brooklyn at Sheryl’s favorite landmarks, neighborhoods and businesses.
Sheryl’s fans have been urging her to do a calendar for years, and we’re finally done! And we are proud of the results.
Hit up Sheryl’s announcement blog post to read more and to buy the calendar.
So great to be back in the Austin area for the second year in a row to photograph Tough Mudder. It was 95 and sunny when I got into town on Friday. By Saturday we were looking at around 60 degrees and cloudy. Sunday it was in the 50s. Which meant that the new iteration of the Arctic Enema obstacle (now a gigantic ice water-filled pit instead of dumpsters) was especially painful. Another huge event for Tough Mudder – 15,000 participants ran on Saturday alone.
In addition to the mainstay Tough Mudder obstacles, participants had to scramble in and out of several deep earth pits at various points in the course. Course manager Garth Wilson (made famous here) told me that some of the pits were dug to create the other obstacles, and he figured, why not route the course through them.This created more energy-sapping, teamwork-requiring challenges that weren’t even official obstacles on the map.
Enough words. Here are some of my favorite Tough Mudder Austin photos from the weekend. View full post »