ReaL Book, Stage B: Workshop 6, Part 2

A horde of icy, mud-caked individuals are finishing up the last obstacle of
the course.

They wear teeth-chattering smiles barely visible through their darkened faces, and a look that says, “Did I just do that?”

“Did I just do that?” That something is more than a race. It is an exercise in survival.

Tough Mudder is a hardcore 10- to 12-mile obstacle course designed to test your all-around strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie.

[Bond] will compete Saturday in the 10-mile-plus Tough Mudder obstacle course competition with a team from the Wounded Warrior Project.

Bond, age 30, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the Marines from 2000 to 2004.

"Wounded Warriors changed my life. There’s no doubt,” Bond said.

However, emergency room staff who treated participants after an event in Pennsylvania said that it’s “unlikely that participants comprehend” the actual risks involved.

Extreme sports expert and blogger Kim Kircher agrees that understanding the risk is critical to running a responsible event.

In the case review published by Greenberg and other ER doctors, the authors noted that many of the injuries were sprains, fractures, cuts, knee injuries, and heat exhaustion. A significant number also seemed to be caused by electrical shocks.

The group has discovered parkour, a fast-moving sport that blends acrobatics and gymnastics. It has become their outlet for evading social constraints and dealing with stress.

Sedighian Rad and some 50 women...are among the hundreds of Iranians who practice this noncompetitive discipline.

“We encounter problems, but we try our best to cope with them because we love doing parkour,” says Sedighian Rad.