Mud soaked glory
• Bridport’s Joe Krushka midway through an extreme challenge in the 2019 Melbourne Tough Mudder.
By Taylor Clyne,
October 23, 2019
Challenging himself against some of the best Tough Mudder competitors in the world Bridport’s Joe Krushka has made a name for himself after impressively finishing third overall in a time of 1hour 22minutes.
The sixteen-kilometre mud soaked course was run in Melbourne over the weekend featuring twenty five treacherous obstacles in a race that is not for the faint hearted.
“I completed one back in 2013 with a few Scottsdale Football Club boys and had always wanted to come back and do it again; my main goal was to finish without stopping,” Joe said.
Whilst he couldn’t rustle up any mates to participate in this year’s event the Bridport Football Club senior coach said he was pretty proud of his efforts on course.
“The hills were quite challenging with really steep inclines, it’s not just running - its running through paddocks where cows have been treading, thick scrub, climbing over walls and throwing yourself physically into difficult situations.
“One of the hardest obstacles was jumping into a shipping container full of ice and having to swim under a point in the middle at the bottom and out the other side,” Joe said.
Three kilometres out from the finish line Joe said he was alerted by one of the stewards that he was running close to the front of the field.
“I was a bit surprised as I was only there to finish the race without stopping so I thought I had better try a bit harder for the last bit,” he laughed.
Joe completed all the check points, distance and challenges in a time of 1hour 22minutes finishing third next to Andrew Gibson in second place who flew from Canada to compete and Andrew McKenzie of New South Wales.
“The winner qualifies to complete in Las Vegas. It’s a big thing in America,” Joe said.
Speaking of his future extreme competition plans, Joe said he’s not interested in applying for Australian Survivor 2020.
“It’s going to take me a little while to get over this, it takes the sting out of you that’s for sure,” he laughed.
Official times and competitor numbers are yet to be finalised, but preliminary results indicate that Joe was competing against more the 300 people from around the world.