Why Adventurous People Dislike Organized Fun

Organized fun; an oxymoron?

Some fun comes neatly packaged. Think of when your mom signed you up for soccer when you were a kid. Here’s how it went:

“First, we’ll make teams. Then, we’ll wear matching jerseys. Then, we’ll do drills. Then, we’ll play a game! Against another team! Isn’t this FUN!”
 

I spent my short-lived soccer career eating orange quarters and lamenting the unfortunate colour of my team’s jersey (grey). I would think of the many places I would rather be—for one, the playground, pretending that I owned an ice cream shop sited underneath the slide (can you think of a better location?).

My point is that for some of us, organized fun isn’t really that fun at all. Fun is supposed to be adventurous and spontaneous.

And that is the basis of my thesis, Why Nobody in Whistler Partakes in Tough Mudder.

Tough Mudder is one of those extreme obstacle races, with mud pits and electric shocks and tunnels and cold things. Participants round up their friends to form a team and pay an entry fee ($100 to $150, depending on the location) to compete in “probably the toughest event on the planet” (self-proclaimed and debatable). There is no official prize other than an orange finisher’s headband that entitles you to storm around Whistler Village kicking bus stop shelters.

I’m sorry, that was a little cynical. There actually was a bus shelter kicker, but most finishers are normal people who spent the night of the event sleeping off their exhaustion and not kicking bus shelters. There is no doubt that these people are accomplishing an impressive and personally satisfying athletic feat, and the events are incredibly well-run and encourage people to challenge themselves mentally and physically. I can’t fault that.

Curiously, despite taking place in Whistler, my field observations have been that very few Whistlerites partake in Tough Mudder. Most of the participants are the weekend warrior types, coming in from the Big City to conquer all that nature has to throw their way. Why do Whistler kids hold back?

My theory is that Tough Mudder is like organized fun to these people. Whistler people are all like, “You want tough? Tough is hiking a mountain and avoiding avalanches and carving a line that no one else has ever carved (at least since the last snowfall). Tough is carrying days’ worth of food and clothes on your back. Tough is snow caves. TOUGH IS LEAVING CELL PHONE RECEPTION AREAS. GRAAAAAAAAH (caveman sound)”.

Tough Mudder is designed to be tough, but it’s not terribly dangerous to people who tightrope along a cliff face without blinking an eye. It’s a safe kind of tough, and for adventurous people of the mountain, safe tough just won’t do.

Alternatively, maybe Whistler people don’t play in Tough Mudder because the entry fee is steep*. Or, you know, because it takes up a whole Saturday and most of them work on Saturdays.

We’ll never know.
 
*To be fair to Tough Mudder, the entry fee isn’t THAT crazy. Most races have entry fees because it costs money to put on an event. Still, if you’re making minimum wage, 12 hours of attending to kids smushing macaroni into a restaurant booth is a lot of money.