I'm was so excited for this event. £59 each for a 'skin of the teeth' entry due to some people pulling out last minute. So my best friend who took part in the Colour run decided that she would gladly do it with me.
Let's bare in mind that I hadn't run properly since my Birmingham half marathon. I though of the obstacles, yeah it's not timed, no need to do any hardcore training- Oh how wrong was I? Baring in mind that this was the winter wolf run, I kept an eye on the weather around Stanford Hall... Mateeeeeeeee, it couldn't have been worse. Rain all day the night before race day on the Friday. I was like absolutely brilliant. We had the start time of 1:50pm too. I was beginning to regret this entry. I knew we were in for a mucky ride.
We arrived at the venue about an hour before the start time, to line up and get our race packs. I was all set in my black running leggings, my black compact thermal sleeved top, my headband and cycling gloved and a pair of old running shoes. Hoping this would keep me warm we progressed into the warm up arena. Even just looking at that made me cringe. But it was nothing compared to what was about to come. The warm up consisted in some very good humour by the instructors, whereby a guy had reportedly lost one of his shoes in the mud on the course and continued with one shoe on. Ahahahaha- that's dedication. Talk about getting your money's worth from your entry fee an' all. We were then told to run, crawl and superman pose in the mud. Which I found deeply satisfying. I was loving every minute and so we the Vickster. I got her good by flinging some mud at her, at a event force It got her smack bang down the side of the face. All you could hear is "Coley, you little $h¡t"
Warm up antics.
Moving on... It was time to progress, the first part of the course was passing the wide river.mit was absolutely freezing. I said to Vickie. I hope your ready for this as we're going to have to keep a good pace Inbetweeners obstacles to keep warm. As it was nearly 2pm. It was only going to get colder. After about 1km in Vickie was already stuggling and breathing quite hard so we walked (annoyingly! But I thuought hang on. She's doing this for me at the end of the day. Stop being so petty). By this point I already had some strong guys hoof me over a massive hay bale due to being too short to get over myself. Funny times. We approached the first swimming section. Vickie isn't a very confident swimmer so she decided against this route and ran to the left on the non swimmers side. I braved it, the water was oil black and stunk. I went all out and just slid in. Omg, not going to lie, I felt like Jack Dawson from the Titanic when it sinks and he (sadly) dies. It was disgraceful. Trying to swim whilst absorbing the shock of the freezing cold water, attempting to catch your breath, whilst trying not to be kicked by other participants, and get sucked in by whatever it was on the bottom of that river bed. I don't even want to know.
I'd finally found Vickie hoping that she would have ran on without me. But luckily it wasn't long before I was out of the water that she came running up to me. At this point in the race, it was fairly OK. I WAS Fairly warm, all that muddy-Fiedler and feeling hyped for what was next. Trying to avoid pot holes and attempting not to slip over on the mud. We progressed (slower than I would have liked).
You seriously need to note that, all of the obstacles I'm trying my hardest to remember and describe does not do this run justice. It's one whereby you have to experience it!
Anyways. The mud got worse, sections up to your knees. It acting like quick sand type of suction. The obstacles become more demanding. Swimming through dirty green mossed swamps crawing through tiny passages in the dark on your hands and knees getting mucky as hell. Wow. It was truest amazing. Like I was a big kid.
I got to 8km and lost Vickie. She had twisted her ankle and told me to go ahead without her (so romantic I know). At his point it was pressing on, dawn was round the corner. I knew at this point it had been an hour and a half near on two hours. The next two km I embarked on was tough. I was getting tired and exceedingly cold. The fun was wearing out. Considering I'm use to a 1hour.6minute 10km. It seemed like I was doing a half marathon due to it feeling like the course was never ending. I was sliding everywhere the route was just full on mud. As you can imagine. You can't physically run through it effectively.
Jumping over some trees and logs I could see the finish in sight, I climbed the 2 high climbing frames to cross the river and sprint tog the finish. Vickie was nowhere to be seen after 15 minutes. I got worried and was annoyed at myself for leaving her on her own. But she succeeded and finally crossed the finding line about 20minutes after me. I was so proud yet again. I've now threw a 3.1 miles and a 6.2 mile run at her and she conquered both with a smile on her face.
We collected our finishers packs and my dad chucked me my bag after we freezing attempted to use to events shower heads to get the excessive amount of mud off of us. I go into he tent for the women and realised I didn't bring a towel. Nor did Vickie. Oh dear. Luckily there was a towel on the floor. I thought fuck it. I'm using it. I have no care if this former person had some type of contegious disease. I will use this towel to get warm and changed into fresh clothes. As you can imagine, I had to throw all my clothes away. Managing to save my headband. Over all this was an amazing run, fully worthy of the price. I look forward to partaking in The spring, autumn, summer and winter one next year to gain my alpha wolf technical t shirt. I recommend anybody to do this. It's really fun and tests your limits. For example. I conquered my fear of highest on a certain obstacle. I advise you get as many people to do it with you as possible as that's my only regret. I seen all these friend and family groups having more fun and making shared memories! Overall an amazing mucky day out!
Here's some photos from the day
