Fair Lawn Resident Completes 'World's Toughest Mudder'

One Fair Lawn resident recently completed a 24-hour-long race in which athletes compete to see who can simply go the farthest through an obstacle-laden course.

Nick Conklin, 18, finished 35 miles at the "World's Toughest Mudder" competition held Raceway Park in Englishtown last weekend. To finish those miles, he had to cross 22 obstacles on each lap around the 5-mile track — 154 obstacles total — and didn't sleep the entire time.

"I was physically exhausted," Conklin said. "I never wanted to fall asleep, though."

Conklin, who graduated from Fair Lawn High School this year and never joined the track team, first got interested in the Tough Mudder competitions when he saw a video of one online, but had to wait until he turned 18 to compete. He ran his first two obstacle races last summer.

"It sounded like it was a fun time," Conklin said of the more intense Toughest Mudder. "I had done one Tough Mudder during the year and I didn't think it was all that hard, so I thought I would try something harder."

Running through mud and waist-deep water during a cold November night caused Conklin to get "super cold, almost hypothermic" and cost him several hours warming up after his first six laps. He still finished 607th of the 1,100 runners, but fell short of his 50-mile goal. He'll probably be back next year to take another shot at it, he said.

In the meantime, Conklin will be pursuing a degree in molecular and cell biology from the University of Connecticut. He said he plans to keep training and will compete in a few Spartan Races — a similar obstacle-based race — until next year's Toughest Mudder.