AN Oswestry athlete has come through fire, ice, flooded tunnels and aerial rope runs to win the UK’s Tough Guy Challenge.
Paul Jones from Oswestry first entered the Tough Guy Challenge in 2004 as part of a 30th birthday celebration, finishing 350th: “I kept returning and my results kept getting better,” says Paul, “then I joined the Olympians and began fell running which helped.”
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Paul was 13th two years ago, second last year and finally won the event in Wolverhampton last week, achieving his goal of taking the title before his 40th birthday by just two weeks.
Paul completed the course in one hour 18 minutes, a minute ahead of his nearest rival, having run through fire, aerial rope runs, barbed wire, mud crawls and flooded sewerage pipes, but he says the toughest part was leading the way through the water crossings: “The ice was so thick, I had to break it with my arms as I went through.
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"By the end it was a mental challenge and my experience paid off.
“It is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” said Paul, “I obviously don’t feel much like doing it again at the moment, but in a couple of months I’ll be raring to go.”