The Tough Mudder is an awesome race with an amazing atmosphere! This was my entire group's first Tough Mudder and I think it is safe to say we all caught the bug and plan to do a full in the future!

You get a really nice technical t-shirt, a cool sweatband, and free photos. The only thing about the photos is for numbers they only give you a front bib (which doesn't really work well for mud races). They had markers at the beginning (that looked scarily like sharpies, but weren't) without instructions. I would honestly recommend writing the number across your forehead for being able to have the most of pictures tagged. Even so some of the photos get taken from behind so you might want to know about what time you hit each obstacle. That's if you really like photos like me. I also brought my GoPro to take my own photos of the group, which I'd highly recommend!

The aid stations were the best I've seen at a mud race. They had water, some electrolyte drink, and bathrooms. There were also some with energy bars and bananas!

The course was also pretty scenic for a mudder and included a decent amount of pretty woods!

There wasn't much challenging elevation. The obstacles were the challenging part.

Parking was your standard field converted into a parking lot, but it was well run so parking was a quick and easy task. You need to pay for a pass, but the pass is in the same QR code as your registration so you won't be forgetting it! There was an extremely short shuttle ride (like we could have walked) to the actual event from the general parking lot.

Race management did an excellent job of setting up the whole event! They set a great tone of teamwork such that any obstacle you needed help on you were instantly offered help by multiple other participants. It was a really great atmosphere. We honestly took forever to get over the warped wall type obstacle because we sat cheering people on with all the other participants for awhile. It was REALLY fun. We had a last minute switch of registration and the website didn't allow it the day of the race, but the management at the race were able to quickly help us fix it. They also had a changing tent at the end which was really nice to be able to get out of our wet clothes.

Everyone in the group agreed we were slightly sad we hadn't signed up for the full.

I ran this race as the half last year, but didn't realize the full wasn't just an extension of the half course.

As always Rhode Races provides you with an awesome technical t-shrit, a finishers medal (that can be combined with other race medals in the series to make a mega medal!), a bunch of little things in a goodie bag, and (my personal favorite) really high quality free race photos!

The aid stations were about ever 2 miles (with a slight gap in the second half of the half I noticed), but were awesome and always had water, Gatorade, and super friendly volunteers!

The scenery for both the half and full impressed me since I wasn't expecting very much being in a city. They managed to find lovely country back road and water side views for the most part. A lot of the second half being along the bike path.

I was in a rush on packet pickup day so I didn't really have time to check out the expo much. Seemed like there was a decent amount of merchandise though.

For being labeled as a really flat race (and knowing a good portion is along the bike path which is the flattest of flat), the first third to half included a decent amount of little hills and inclines. But again the second half is along the bike path and completely flat until about the last 3 miles through the city.

Parking is at the Providence Place Mall so there's tons and it's super easy to get to the start. It's not free, but you could probably look into other lots in the area.

I've run many of Rhode Races races and they have all been great! They seem to really care about your racing experience and just keep improving their already great management yearly!

This race was REALLY great and REALLY terrible.. I've run mud runs before so I thought I knew about what to expect, but I was seriously mistaken. I'm not sure if it was just Spartans overall are much more intense or this specific one just happened to be super intense.

As a trail runner, the course was AWESOME! It was an EXTREMELY technical single track trail, THE ENTIRE TIME that it wasn't obstacles. For my poor non-runner, obstacle loving boyfriend I enlisted, this wasn't so great. Most of the course there was honestly barely a path and we ran through many streams and small rivers. There were spots were the mud was so deep and thick your shoes almost got sucked off and other points you were wading in murky, ankle deep water, to be surprised by a knee deep hole. The path was essentially always, roots and rocks, water, or extreme amounts of mud. It also had many ups and downs.

I didn't read that the 3+ miles could be up to 5 so I was also extremely surprised to find out that course was actually 5.3 miles (but it was my fault). They claimed it to only be 4, but consensus by multiple GPS watches was slightly over 5 miles.

The t-shirts and medals were awesome! They also took great free race photos! Take a selfie of yourself after the race to run through their face recognition software and have a super easy time finding photos!

The aid stations had water. There were also port-o-potties, but runners weren't allowed to use them so that was disappointing.

The scenery was beautiful since it was trails through the middle of the woods!

Parking and race management was a mess. I believe this is the first year they put on this race at this location so they most likely will be improving a lot, but we received an email saying to be there 2 hours before our race time and thought, "There's NO WAY it'll take that long". It did. Parking alone was 25+ minutes of lines. Then we had to run to the shuttle area because we had "only" arrived 45 minutes early. Wait in a disorganized shuttle line to receive tickets we didn't actually need in the end. Then we were about a 15 minute shuttle drive to the actual site. THEN the shuttle drop off to the start was about a mile (so we had to run that too). Luckily, registration check in and bag check were quick enough.

Overall it was a really fun race if you knew what you were getting into and were prepared. Just make sure you don't have any other plans on race day and you'll be fine!

****Just an added note that if you are highly allergic to poison ivy I might not recommend this race as my boyfriend who is got a really bad case of it. I have gotten poison ivy before though and didn't have any issue.