Tough Mudder: Infinity vs. Toughest
Ready to chase official mileage recognition without sacrificing daylight hours? Tough Mudder Infinity strips away the darkness and exclusive pit advantages of the 12-hour Toughest format, delivering a punishing 9-hour grind through longer 15k loops that reward grinding athletes with metal clips and an iconic gold belt buckle at 60km. If you've been stacking laps informally for years, here's your chance to get legitimately recognized for the endurance beast you already are.
In early 2022, Tough Mudder added another event to their endurance series. Infinity is a 9-hour multi-lap experience held simultaneously on-site with select Tough Mudder events. Athletes are required to finish a minimum of 1x 15k lap and at least one more lap (either 15k or 5k) to be considered an official finisher.
Here’s how Tough Mudder Infinity stacks up when compared to their 12-hour Toughest Mudder overnight event:
Length
Tough Mudder Infinity involves running laps of the 15k or 5k to accumulate mileage. The 15k is longer than their 12-hour 10k laps and longer than the World’s Toughest Mudder 5-mile laps. The laps are longer if you choose the 15k route, but the time is shorter (9 hours vs. 12 hours).
Obstacles
Unlike at Toughest Mudder, when Infinity starts, all the obstacles are open at once. That means no sprint lap, no rolling obstacle opening and no bypass bands earned for mileage accomplishments. Additionally, in recent years, Tough Mudder has been adding a twist to their obstacles at Toughest, often making them more challenging with mashups combining two of their obstacles into one more difficult version. For Infinity, you’ll get the standard line up that everyone else is completing at the normal event.
Pit Space
If you ran Toughest Mudder in 2017/2018 you may remember the pit spaces that were offered for the 8-hour overnight race. Infinity is very similar, tables were setup so that each athlete could put their equipment on a table. You do not have the 10x10 foot pit space that is available for Toughest and World’s Toughest Mudder, instead it is about a 3x3 foot space on a table in an area located between the finish and start line.
Day Time vs. Night Time
The biggest difference is the fact that Infinity is run during the day while Toughest Mudder is run at night. This means those looking to rack up mileage will have to watch their nutrition and hydration closer than normal. Consuming extra water or electrolyte tablets is a good idea to avoid a hard crash mid-event.
Normally, during Toughest, the course is only open to other Toughest competitors. However, for Infinity, the normal waves of 15k and 5k participants are on course. This means that some of the obstacles have lines at them. When I ran Infinity this year, the start line MC Sean Corvelle did do a good job informing participants about Infinity. It still felt a little weird to jump the lines. That being said, I still politely asked to jump the lines, and sometime people would clear a path for me without me saying anything.
Competitive? Awards?
Technically, Infinity is not a race. There are no awards or recognition for 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. However, there are awards for mileage, which means there needs to be a method of tracking participants. This means if you are curious how you did compared to others, there is an option to look up your results. For distances between 20k and 55k, you get a small metal clip that shows your mileage that you can wear on your headband. The big goal of many attending is reaching 60km which offers a nice, hefty gold belt buckle for reaching that milestone. As of 2022, there was no additional swag to reflect mileage milestones above 60km.
Swag
One of the biggest perks of Infinity is the swag. Besides the mileage awards described above, you also get a unique, purple Infinity bib and an Infinity headband. For our Tough Mudder fans, those are like Pokemon cards…you have to catch them all. Finally, to earn the ridiculously awesome looking Holy Grail you need to complete an Infinity, Toughest and World’s Toughest Mudder in a calendar year. For that reward, you’ll get this awesome display. While I can’t confirm 2022’s will be exactly the same, I suspect it will be very similar since the finisher medals have magnets on the back again.
Overall
Infinity is a nice addition to the Tough Mudder lineup. When I viewed it as a race minus some of the normal race perks, I honestly wasn’t a fan because of the lack of placement recognition or prizes. When viewed as a fun run with addition benefits, I enjoyed it. I’ve been multi-lapping Tough Mudder courses for years, and this is a nice way to get official recognition for something many of the Tough Mudder community has been doing without any formal acknowledgement.
Looking to reach your PR at Tough Mudder Infinity? Pick up a copy of The Ultra-OCR Bible for in race tips and On Endurance to get your mind ready to achieve super human performance.
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