Last Sunday I survived my first Xletix run. It was painful, exhausting and absolutely wonderful.

Two years ago I signed up for my first Tough Mudder. The plan was to do it together with a friend who did it a year before that and told me about it. Unfortunately he injured himself before the event and couldn’t participate, so I ended up running alone.

This was not optimal since these kinds of events are team events. Many of the obstacles are nearly impossible to tackle alone. But the good thing is: You are never alone. Except maybe when you are really slow and started late. Other participants will help you at the obstacles!

And in my case a team of women even spontaneously included me in their team. They were rather experienced with this kind of race and told me that while they enjoyed the Tough Mudder they liked Xletix even better.

After doing the Tough Mudder for a second time last year this time with a small team we decided to try Xletix as well. After signing up I got curious: How does Xletix compare with Tough Mudder? For some reason I could hardly find anything. So here is my comparison of the two. Note that both events have instances all over the world and I have no idea how the same event at different locations differs. This comparison is just between the “Long” distance of Xletix Berlin Brandenburg and Tough Mudder Nord-Deutschland.

Distance: The running distance of Xletix is about 2km longer. Don’t underestimate this though because Xletix has also way more loose gravel and deep sand and steep slopes.

Obstacles: Xletix has more obstacles. I categorize obstacles roughly in three categories: Hardly noticable, medium and big.

The number of big obstacles, those that are really challenging and/or really fun is similar. Xletix’ highlight is a big water slide about 40m long and 20m high and amazingly fast. Tough Mudders highlight is a short slide into a pool of ice water. Refreshing! Xletics has a similar thing but with out the slide. You have to climb into the ice water, which makes it both harder and less fun in my opinion.

In the medium category Xletix has more obstacles and at least according to my impression more obstacles per/km. With these obstacles you have to climb over or crawl under something, but they are easy to tackle alone or maybe with a little push of your team mates.

I don’t care about the tiny obstacles but Xletix has more of those because the track had lots of crossings where one direction had to crawl under a tiny bridge while the other direction “climbs” over the bridge.

Organisation: The organisation is really similar at both events: Parking, Checkin, a place to store luggage but better nothing of high value, warm up, water and food on the track and cold showers afterwards.

The only difference I noticed was that there wasn’t enough food at the track, possibly because we started rather late and also certainly weren’t the fastest.

Summary: I enjoyed both events a lot, but Xletix was a little more challenging and fun. I’ll do both again, Tough Mudder in about a month and Xletix in a year.

If you are wondering how fit you have to be to participate and to finish such a race: Being able to run 10km somewhat comfortable in training should be sufficient assuming you are otherwise of good health.

And if you want to join a team in Northern Germany: let me know.