IT TURNS out the toughest obstacle of a Tough Mudder-style race might not be dodging live electrical wires, hoisting logs or leaping over a wall of flames. It might be the nasty stomach bug that can come from swallowing the muddy water, the New York Post reports.
The US federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention issued a memo Friday warning that animal faeces in the mud along the courses can give participants a bad case of diarrhea.
Mouthful ... a participant jumps into a freight container full of ice and muddy water during the Tough Mudder endurance race in Henley on Thames, West of London. Picture: Justin Tallis Source: AFP
The agency said nearly two dozen people from the Nellis Air Force Base community in Nevada reported coming down sick after participating in a race in rural Beatty, Nevada, in October 2012.
The investigation traced the sickness to the bacteria campylobacter coli. It concluded people became ill after accidentally swallowing contaminated water on the course, which was on a cattle ranch within sight of cows and pigs. The sickness generally sets in three days after the race, and it lasts a week.
Adventure races are increasingly popular, where they drew about 1.5 million participants in the US alone in 2012, according to the CDC memo. In the 16- to 19-kilometre-long Tough Mudder challenges, participants slither on their bellies through fields of mud, plunge into icy water and try to cross lakes while balancing on slippery tightropes.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/why-tough-mudders-are-getting-horrible-cases-of-diarrhea/story-fneuzle5-1226904602574
The US federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention issued a memo Friday warning that animal faeces in the mud along the courses can give participants a bad case of diarrhea.
Mouthful ... a participant jumps into a freight container full of ice and muddy water during the Tough Mudder endurance race in Henley on Thames, West of London. Picture: Justin Tallis Source: AFP
The agency said nearly two dozen people from the Nellis Air Force Base community in Nevada reported coming down sick after participating in a race in rural Beatty, Nevada, in October 2012.
The investigation traced the sickness to the bacteria campylobacter coli. It concluded people became ill after accidentally swallowing contaminated water on the course, which was on a cattle ranch within sight of cows and pigs. The sickness generally sets in three days after the race, and it lasts a week.
Adventure races are increasingly popular, where they drew about 1.5 million participants in the US alone in 2012, according to the CDC memo. In the 16- to 19-kilometre-long Tough Mudder challenges, participants slither on their bellies through fields of mud, plunge into icy water and try to cross lakes while balancing on slippery tightropes.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/why-tough-mudders-are-getting-horrible-cases-of-diarrhea/story-fneuzle5-1226904602574
