One of my favourite events as I've been doing it since 2005. Was meant to take place in December but it was postponed - not because of the condition of the course which was merely "more interesting" it was issues of actually getting there. Re-organised (which unfortunately meant I had to miss hockey) the race went ahead following a week of pretty heavy rain. The course is on land used to test Army vehicles and is described on the website as "interesting!" - that word again! After the mass start you reach a long hill where those who have gone off too fast or have realised that their charity costumes are incredibly heavy when wet, start to walk. Then you descend eventually reaching a water filled ravine. Then running over exposed heath where the wind really bites as you are soaking wet and muddy; on "puddle-strewn paths" their description - but does it count as a puddle if its knee deep water that you're running through? Also they forgot to describe the slippery cattle grids and the general all round muddiness. Before having to crawl under camouflage netting over a muddy ravine - at which point I managed to drop my glasses. With nothing clean or dry to wipe them with meant that I ran the rest of the race through a sepia type haze. It was like running through one of those old photos of a WW1 battlefield- ironic really considering the location. You eventually reach some man-made mounds (one described by an incredibly chirpy marshal as "the big dipper") before arriving at and running through some rather large puddles (a masterly understatement). they warn you to expect to get very wet! - duh! Finally you run on to the fast vehicle driving circuit (fast for vehicles maybe but this time more of a snails pace!) where it is rocky underfoot. This brings you to some more large areas of water and the finish area.
Two things you begin to learn quickly on these type of events - the photographers are always positioned at points of maximum difficulty/pain/water/mud/discomfort ...... and the chirpier the marshal the more difficult/painful/wet/muddy/uncomfortable the next bit will be! No pictures of this one as they're not a pretty sight - if you're interested you can go on the website and put in race no. 4966.
Result - 168 out of 1948 in a time of 1:11:56 (20 seconds slower than 2009 - I must be getting old!)
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