My Story

An ordinary Yorkshireman

I am an ordinary bloke from an ordinary family, with a slightly above-average intelligence, a stubborn streak and a growing appetite for challenges that initially sound like a bad idea.

I am also a grafter. I have spent much of my life quietly wading through whatever was in front of me, growing a little stronger with each passing year.

Even my name is ordinary: Andrew John Smith.

My mum tells me that she originally wanted to call me John. However, being Yorkshire folk, my parents apparently could not bring themselves to name their son after a beer.

Having already used four apostles’ names between my two older brothers, they settled on Andrew John. Andrew means manly, strong and brave. John means God has been gracious.

No pressure, then.

My parents moved from Leeds to Ilkley shortly before I was born in 1978. My mother was a teacher and my father was an engineer.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in God’s Own County, exploring and playing on the moors around Ilkley. Looking back, that may help explain why I have eventually found my way towards mud, hills and endurance events.

It just took me nearly half a century to get there.

For most of my adult life, I was far more likely to be found behind a desk than on a start line. I was not an athlete. I was not a runner. I certainly was not someone anybody would have expected to enter a 24-hour obstacle event.

Before the change

For as long as I can remember, I was overweight.

I loved playing outside as a child. I enjoyed cycling, exploring and generally messing around. School sport was different. Football was forced down our throats and, if you were not good enough for the team, there seemed to be very little else available.

Rugby and athletics appeared later, but everything was so varied that there was never much opportunity to become good at anything unless you were already one of the teacher’s favourites.

I was not.

Gradually, I lost interest in sport. My weight increased and the familiar cycle began.

I would occasionally have a health kick. I would eat better, exercise and lose some weight. Then I would get bored, tired or frustrated and return to the comfortable routine of sitting at a computer, watching films and bingeing television programmes.

For me, weight was never simply about knowing what to eat or how much exercise to do. Habit, comfort, motivation and how I felt about myself were all tangled up in it.

I did not think of myself as particularly unhealthy. In my head, I was healthy but fat. The medical description was rather less flattering.

From around the age of 13 or 14, my weight seemed to follow my age. At 15, I was around 15 stone. At 18, I was 18 stone. By the time I left university, I was approximately 21 stone.

Eventually, even that miserable formula broke down, but the damage was done. The lifestyle had become comfortable.

I wanted to be lighter. I knew what needed to change.

I just never changed it for long enough.

The year everything changed

On Christmas Day 2022, I sat across from my dad while he wore a ridiculous Christmas jumper, smiling and laughing at a television repeat.

I loved the scene so much that I quietly took a photograph.

Eighteen months later, that photograph appeared in his funeral service sheet.

By Christmas 2023, Dad’s health had deteriorated significantly. He had suffered a stroke and lost the sight in one eye. We did not yet understand the full extent of what was happening inside him.

We sat in the same room. He wore the same ridiculous jumper.

But the man inside it seemed different.

The smile from the previous year had gone. He struggled to see the television, follow what was happening and focus on the people around him.

I took another photograph.

I have never gone looking for it.

Something in me already knew.

Over the following months, I travelled across each weekend to take my parents to church. My mum walks with two sticks, but Dad’s decline became so pronounced that he eventually took longer than her to reach our usual seats at the front.

We normally stayed for coffee afterwards. First, he stopped having a biscuit because he did not have the energy. Then, on the final weekend we attended together, he did not even have a drink.

I was desperately trying to be confirmed so that I could take communion with him before the inevitable happened.

On Easter Sunday, we had planned to go for a family meal after church. Meals out were rare for us, so I knew something was wrong.

When it came to communion, I was not yet confirmed, but I went forward for a blessing. Something told me that morning that I needed one.

When I returned to my seat, my mum was crying.

I knew what was coming.

Watching cancer strip away my father’s health, strength and independence burnt a hole in me.

Other people’s fathers died.

Mine was invincible. He was always going to be there.

Suddenly, I was forced to look at myself.

What had I done with my life? What was I waiting for? I was approaching 46, weighed more than 23 stone, had a 42-inch waist and could not find a suit jacket that fitted properly.

Life was short, and I was wasting mine while a great man, with enormous dignity and soul, was having his taken away.

My dad died from metastatic prostate cancer in June 2024.

Grief did not give me a detailed plan.

It did remove my remaining excuses.

Something had to change.

Building a routine

I knew that another temporary diet would not be enough. I had tried short-term diets and occasional bursts of exercise before. They worked until I became bored or frustrated, and then everything gradually returned to normal.

This time, I needed to build a routine.

I had heard about Peloton through clips on Instagram and had seen the instructors trying to keep a straight face while reading increasingly ridiculous leaderboard names.

The bike and subscription were a serious investment. My biggest concern was that I would use it for a few weeks and then be left with one of the world’s most expensive clothes horses.

But I enjoyed cycling, I needed to change my life and I knew that half measures had not worked.

I took the plunge.

From the first day, I made one rule: use the bike every day where reasonably possible and complete at least one class.

No prolonged negotiation with myself. No waiting to feel motivated.

Get on the bike and do it.

Combined with changing what and how much I ate, the routine began to work. The weight started to come off.

Seeing results created motivation. Motivation made it easier to exercise. Exercise produced more results.

For the first time, the cycle was moving in the right direction.

One hundred cycling classes became 250. The sessions became longer and stronger. My weight declined, my fitness improved and exercise stopped feeling like something temporary that I was forcing myself to endure.

It became part of who I was.

“Grief did not give me a detailed plan.
It did remove my remaining excuses.“

The first start lines

After around a year, I decided to find out whether the fitness I had built on the bike could carry me around my local parkrun.

I hated running.

I still managed the 5K.

I walked parts of it, but I completed it without too much drama. That planted the idea that perhaps I could do more.

My first big target was the London Marathon. I entered the ballot twice and did not get a place.

Eventually, I realised that I wanted events I could commit to, rather than spending months waiting to discover whether I was allowed to begin preparing for them.

Tough Mudder was different.

Pay the entry fee, secure the place and start training.

There also seemed to be a community around it. I like being part of something, although preferably from somewhere near the edge of the room where people know I am there but accept that I do not want to dance.

My first mistake was waiting for Tough Mudder to come to Yorkshire.

Had I known then what I know now, I would have started sooner.

At least I did not make the second mistake of taking the easy option and entering only the 5K.

I booked the 15K.

Before that day, I had never completed that distance and had never attempted an obstacle-course event. I was also going alone and had no idea whether a solo participant would be able to manage some of the obstacles.

That uncertainty was precisely what attracted me.

My first Tough Mudder

The daily Peloton sessions and substantial weight loss had given me a better endurance base than I realised.

The 15K was challenging, but it was achievable.

Strictly speaking, I still cannot claim to have run the entire distance. Some of the Yorkshire hills were walked, and I make no apology for that.

I crossed the finish line muddy, battered and grinning.

As I sat in the enormous traffic queue trying to leave Broughton Hall, I knew three things:

1. I would be back;
2. I wanted more; and
3. something had started.

The birth of Tough Smudge

Within a week of completing my first Tough Mudder, I was already booking more events.

In my enthusiasm, I booked races at the final three Tough Mudder weekends of the year and the Yorkshire Infinity for 2027 before receiving the post-event emails offering additional discounts.

A lesson was learned.

While looking at what could come next, I became increasingly tempted by World’s Toughest Mudder: 24 hours of running, obstacles, cold, darkness and mud.

I initially asked a couple of friends whether they might train for it with me in 2028.

There were no takers.

The idea did not go away.

I started researching whether people competed alone and discovered that some had completed the event solo, occasionally even without a pit crew.

That did not prove that I could do it.

It did remove one more excuse for not trying.

The embryo of Tough Smudge was formed.

Credit card out. Details entered. Place booked.

The next challenge was working out how to use the journey to raise money.

I am naturally private. I am comfortable in my own company, keep a small group of friends and have never enjoyed drawing attention to myself.

Fundraising and sponsorship require almost the exact opposite.

If I wanted this to make a meaningful difference, I needed to become more visible, tell the story properly and embrace a little self-promotion.

That meant creating an identity.

Very early in my career, I worked with a small team that I remember with enormous affection. One of them, Steve, started calling me Smudger.

At first, I was not sure about it. Eventually, I discovered that Smudge and Smudger were traditional nicknames for somebody with the surname Smith.

More importantly, it was the first nickname anybody had given me that was not based on my weight.

I held onto it.

When I needed a name for the endurance journey, Tough Smudge simply worked.

It contained the word mud.

It sounded Yorkshire.

And it felt like me.

Why Prostate Cancer UK

If you have read this far, the reason for supporting Prostate Cancer UK will already be fairly clear.

My father died from the disease. Prostate cancer has also affected other members of my family, and a family history can increase a man’s risk.

This is not an abstract cause to me.

It is personal.

I hope that continued research, awareness and improved diagnosis will mean more men discover the disease earlier, receive better treatment and live longer lives.

I also want more families to understand the risks before it is too late.

This is the most personal page on Tough Smudge.

It is Raw Smudge.

In reality, the whole endeavour is dedicated to my dad: every training session, every step, every mouthful of mud and every finish line crossed.

But it is also for your dad, your brother, your uncle, your husband, your partner, your son and your friend.

I genuinely enjoy the training and events. That does not weaken the charitable purpose. It means I can continue doing this, take on greater challenges and use something I love to make a difference.

Direct donations made through GiveStar go to Prostate Cancer UK.

Patreon memberships, sponsorship and partnerships support the cost of developing Tough Smudge, entering more events and documenting the journey.

Where the story goes next

This page explains how I reached the start line.

My Journey follows what happens next: the events, training, mistakes, milestones and road towards World’s Toughest Mudder.

Progress and Milestones records the numbers and significant achievements along the way.

I would love you to follow the journey.

Donate directly to Prostate Cancer UK if you can.

Join the Tough Smudge Patreon if you would like to help make more events and content possible.

Or simply come back occasionally and see whether this ordinary Yorkshireman can complete something properly extraordinary.

Thanks,

Andrew