10.30am: Sticking myself in the back of the ‘intermediate runners’ group, so I am still ahead of the beginners and the walkers (people walking, not Zimmers).
11.00am: First batches of runners head off — first obstacle, a bunch of bales of hay (the rectangular ones). They don’t look big from where I am.
11.30am: And we’re off! I no longer own a watch with a stopwatch, so I’m going to have to guesstimate my time (until the chip timer people record everything and let us know).
First km: hay bales are no problem, no heroics with jumping or anything.
Second km: we hit the first trail portion and I turn my ankle. Twice. ‘Boot camp’ obstacle of press ups and jumping jacks breaks up the excitement of twisting my ankle (i.e. twist, press ups, let’s twist again). And the trail is uphill. Walk through the ache, walk through the ache.
Third through fourth km: ah, Queen’s Park Drive, I know you well. A bouncy castle type of obstacle (climb up, slide down) results in ankle twist number three. I skip the second portion of the obstacle (climb up bouncy castle thing and slide into foam) since twisting my ankle a fourth time will mean CERTAIN DEATH.
(Skipping obstacles is completely allowed in this race.)
Fifth through sixth km: nothing really of note, we’re just running along Queen’s Park Drive. I make up a bit of time at this point, I think. Then there’s some weird ’slide across car bonnets’ obstacle (the nod to parkour?) and ‘run over some tree stumps and jump over some stacks of (fire)wood’, which I do slowly.
(By the way, I may not have all the obstacles listed in the right order, but it was something like that.)
Seventh km OF DOOM: up the Radical Road to the ‘fantastic view’ (who’s looking when they’re trying not to fall off and die) at the top of the Salisbury Crags — on the way up, I pass someone who’s right on the edge of the path (avoiding us weirdos) and practically dancing his way down. Bastard.
Eighth km: there’s the ‘go over the first hurdle and under the second hurdle’ obstacle, both of which are at an, er, awkward height. Man shouts encouragingly, “Only two kilometres left!” I answer, “It’s not the two kilometres I’m worried about!!”
Ninth and tenth km: Road running is obviously highly underrated. Running on grass may be better for your knee joints, but it’s hell on a twisted ankle. There’s another obstacle, one of those ‘crawl on your belly under this camo’ thingamajigs. It’s high enough for me to crawl on my hands, forearms, and knees, bum up (I’m stealthy that way). A kid scooches down and stares at me. Oh goody.
Finally, I cross the blow up FINISH arch, get my goody bag, a bottle of water, drop off my chip timer, and the FINISH arch falls over.
Job done.
(I’ve got a rash on my forearms now.)
Update: my official time, according to ChipResults.co.uk, is 1:18:46. I was 399th out of 466 finishers. Considering I was limping and had a climb up two trails (once again, I don’t do hills), I think I did reasonably well. And I wasn’t last (which is usually my only goal).