Reppin' MM at Tough Mudder Mid-Atlantic

[G.Irish]

OMG the parking. So Frederick County, MD law enforcement is a bunch of bobos. 24k people (not including spectators) coming into your sleepy-ass town on a weekend? No need to do anything at all, I am sure it will be fine.

The road going into the course (2 lanes) was entirely gridlocked for over 3 miles. People were abandoning their cars and running to the startline to try to make the last waves. Very poorly managed traffic.

Looks like the Tough Mudder organizers didn't pay for enough police officers to manage traffic and didn't have an adequate traffic plan. Apparently Frederick County only required that the event provide planning for adequate parking and the Tough Mudder people proceeded to fuck up on traffic:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/speed-cameras-traffic-enforcement-or-highway-robbery/2012/09/11/82d6281c-fc41-11e1-98c6-ec0a0a93f8eb_story.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/spe ... story.html</a><!-- m -->

Frederick County pulled the permit for the event after day 1, which was the real reason day 2 was cancelled, not the weather. Angry entrants started demanding refunds and raking them over the coals on Facebook and they deleted the thread. At first they were only issuing vouchers but apparently they reversed course and gave some full refunds.

Last year when I did Tough Mudder there was a big clusterfuck at the bag check leading to people waiting in line over 2 hours to pick up their bags. Seems like there's a serious lack of foresight and leadership in the organization now that the events are getting really big. Maybe they'll get it right next year though.