Deceased Cape teacher serves as motivation for Tough Mudder competitor

Tough Mudder is a hardcore obstacle course designed to test participants’ all-around strength, stamina and mental grit, and runners must be at least 14 years old.

Mildred Wilson has no problem meeting the criteria.

Wilson, 85, was a spry 80 when she competed in her first Tough Mudder five years ago.

Mildred Wilson competes in the Tough Mudder. Wilson, 85, has been competing in the Tough Mudder for the last five years and is the oldest participant in the obstacle course.Submitted

She said her son did World’s Toughest Mudder in Las Vegas a few years ago where he ran about 50 miles. That event piqued her interest.

“I just kind of offhandedly made the remark to him that I wish I had known about this when I was younger and I would have liked to have done it. He said, ‘Mom if you want to do one, we’ll make it happen.’ Of course, he was talking about the smaller one here in St.Louis,” Wilson said.

And so she began training and has competed in the years since.

For the event this year in St. Louis, she wanted to honor a special person — her daughter-in-law, Tanya Wilson. Tanya Wilson was a teacher for 28 years at Franklin Elementary School in Cape Girardeau, and she passed away last July from pancreatic cancer.

“I just wanted to do something for the school, in honor of her. I kind of talked to some of the teachers who had worked with her, and they came up with the idea of making a little reading room called Tanya’s Purr-fect Reading Room, because Tanya loves cats. So they were gonna have a little mural painted there with cats in it in honor of her, and then have a plaque with her picture and 28 years of service to her. So, that was my object this year,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the events each year serve as a fundraising platform. Her first year of running them, she had just lost her husband, and her son’s youth group was raising money to have a fresh-water well built in Africa. She helped raise $12,000 for the well and did it in her husband’s name. She said she always has thought of there being a well in Africa with her husband’s name on it.

Wilson said Tough Mudder in her case is a 3- to 5-mile obstacle course in mud.

“Everything is muddy, and this last time it had rained so much up there that there was just water and mud everywhere. You do it at your own pace. It’s not a race necessarily. Some of it is you’re crawling in mud under barbed wire. Some of it is of you climbing a four-story cargo net thing. You can run if you want to, but in mud is almost impossible. So it’s mostly walking in mud, and it is probably halfway to my knees,” she explained.

In her five years participating, she has grown fond of the training and even looks forward to certain obstacles. Her favorite obstacle is the cargo net, which is about four stories high. Working as a team is a must during the Tough Mudder. Wilson said there are some obstacles you can’t do without others.

Being the age she is, Wilson said she holds the record for being the oldest to compete in the Tough Mudder and that she has been given the nickname “Queen of Mudders”.

“They make me feel very special. They always make mention of me and talk about me and all this kind of stuff when I’m there, and introduce me to the crowd and all that, it’s kind of cool to be the oldest one,” Wilson said.