By Daniel Green, for The Beachcomber

Salli Swift, known to many as Vashon Windermere’s marketing coordinator, has taken interest in a particularly grueling sport: Tough Mudder events.

Tough Mudder, a large-scale, mud-drenched obstacle course, is unlike any conventional pastime. The course features military-inspired obstacles spread out over a large swath — usually 10-12 miles — of land. Daunting trenches, freezing water and dangling live wires are common throughout the circuit.

“I always like to do something different,” Swift said. “I drove buses; I learned to ride motorcycles. I needed something else that was a challenge, that was different.”

Designed to test the camaraderie, mental grit and physical ability of participants, Tough Mudder allows only the most determined to cross the finish line.

“It’s about getting over your fears,” she said. “It’s a physical and mental challenge.”

Swift said she first took part in the challenge for her 40th birthday.

Save for occasional running, Swift hadn’t before pushed herself through such a physically strenuous situation. To prepare, she had to begin running frequently and undergo interval training — short, repeated blasts of exhausting action.

“I went all in,” she said about the exercise program she embarked on.

For her first event — in 2013 in Black Diamond — she started training seven months in advance.

After long weeks of beach runs, push-ups, and burpees, Swift felt like she was in relatively good shape.

The course, however, put her athleticism to the test, and drove her to the brink of collapse, she said.

Swift described the difficulty of climbing great mounds of mud, jumping dirty moats and hoisting herself over 10-foot wooden walls. She was forced to crawl through cramped, dark tubes and dive into a vat filled with ice water.

“You get in, and you don’t have any idea what to expect. That’s a little scary,” she said.

The most difficult obstacle, she said, was one called “Electroshock Therapy,” or “EST.” Participants were tasked with running through a jungle of dangling live wires charged with 10,000 volts of electricity. The runners suffer through about 40-50 feet of electric shocks.

Swift emphasized that the real challenge of EST was staying determined. Even after slipping in the mud and tripping over hay bales, she had to make the conscious decision to get back up and get shocked.

At one point a wire shocked her on the forehead.

“It felt like I got hit with a baseball bat,” Swift said. “I just face planted.”

She noted that injuries in the competition are not rare and that before competing, she was required to sign a death liability waiver.

Facing constant demoralization at the event, she identified the key to her success: her friends and every other participant. The event does not include a race or any sort of timed competition, but rather a challenge that encourages teamwork and the cooperation of all “mudders.”

One of the obstacles that most directly involved teamwork was a 15-foot quarter-pipe named “Everest,” Swift said. As usual, the mudders had to run up the ramp and climb over, but because of its slick surface, ascension was no easy task. Those who had already clambered on top of the quarter-pipe remained at the peak and helped to pull up struggling climbers.

“Everybody helps everybody else,” she added.

Swift shared another incentive that kept her trudging on: a free beer at the finish line.

“We joked about that the whole course,” she said with a laugh. “Free beer. That free beer is going to taste really good.”

With yards left, Swift was tuckered out.

“I was exhausted. My legs were trembling,” she recounted.

She had spent the last three and a half hours trekking through muck and scaling brutal obstacles. Only the EST stood in her way.

Affected by epilepsy, Swift faced a dilemma. Her doctor had, not surprisingly, advised against running through a tangle of live wires.

“I could see the finish line on the other side, and I was just too driven not to finish,” Swift stated.

Her determination outweighed any fear of failure. She hustled through the electric clutter and crossed the finish line, safe and sound.

Now, Swift has three Tough Mudder runs tucked under her belt and is planning a half marathon scheduled for September. She admitted that finishing the first circuit piqued her interest in obstacle courses and more long distance running, something she hadn’t been involved in since high school.

Some of her family thought she was crazy, and colleagues didn’t expect her to sustain such a fierce hobby, but she said finishing Tough Mudders has been an important physical and mental victory for her.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And I did it,” Swift said.

— Daniel Green recently graduated from Vashon High School, where he wrote for The Riptide.