Mud, sweat and tears.
That’s only a small glimpse of the scene at Friday and Saturday’s Inverell Toughen Up Challenge.
For the fifth year in a row, competitors fled to Inverell Rugby Park to participate in the Inverell Toughen Up Challenge. On Friday, the Juniors, aged 5- to 13-years-old, did a smaller, modified version of the Seniors course, which participants aged 14 and older faced on Saturday.
Tyre flips, monkey bars, hay stacks, burpees and mud pits were only a few of the obstacles that more than 80 Senior teams faced, from the first wave of teams taking off at 10am and the last wave starting at 1:15pm. The Danthonia 2 team won the competitive male bracket and finished the course with the quickest time of all at 1:14:02. Reigning champs, Mick’s Team, came in second place with a time of 1:15:28, closely followed by Danthonia 1 who crossed the finish line only 18 seconds after Mick’s Team.
Although competitors were clean and fresh at the starting line, it was the finish line that saw the Inverell Toughen Up Challenge competitors at their very best. Exhausted, wet and muddy, not a single person crossed the line without a smile. They proved to themselves and to everyone watching that the Inverell Toughen Up Challenge isn’t easy, but it’s definitely worth it.
And if there was one thing that many participants muttered after crossing the finish line, it was, “Let’s do it again next year.”
Pathfinders at Toughen Up
Pathfinders’ staff that participated in Friday and Saturday’s events should feel extremely proud of their accomplishments. The Inverell Toughen Up Challenge secretary was our very own Ability Links Manager, Lynn Lennon. For Lynn and her fellow committee members like Brett Pischke, an Inverell Ability Links Linker, this event took about eight months of planning and hard work. If you spotted Lynn this weekend, she was likely running around making sure the event went off without a hitch while Brett manned a microphone and M.C.’d for most of the weekend.
Other staff members volunteered their time to help at Toughen Up, whether by time keeping, manning obstacle stations or taking pictures and video of the courageous competitors.
And of course, we had staff members get down and dirty! Lea Woodward, Tim Gray, Olivia Adams, Gerrard Marr and Jason Reed all braved the Inverell Toughen Up Challenge on their respective teams, both finishing the course in less than two hours! The Pathfinders Allstars featured Lea, Tim, Olivia and Gerrard. JAKS featured Jason, Anna Watt from the Glen Innes Severn Council, Kylie Hawkins from Business in Glen, and Klint Dunn from Inverell.
Congratulations to everyone who took part of the 2017 Inverell Toughen Up Challenge. It was a huge success, a lot of fun and a wonderful event for Pathfinders to be part of.
