29th December: Gut Busting Blues

The first time I’ve done a double header and a fitting end to a monster year of running in 2014: part 2 of my Blues Brothers 10 Miler.

This second instalment was the Winter Gut Buster over in Mortimer & Silchester. It was the same course as the one I had run last year, although this time around I had been more organised and entered properly rather than having a wait-list place on the day.

With the beautiful sunshine all day for yesterday’s Brutal, the clear conditions had prevailed overnight producing quite a hard frost with sub-zero temperatures.

Driving the short journey from home to the overflow car-park at Wokefield Park, where I had been allocated a parking space with bus transfer to the start, I lost control of the van on black ice on one of the country lanes: As I went around a right hand bend, the back stepped-out and I lost control… Fortunately I reacted as you should (this is not the first time I’ve had a skid in a car) and was fortunate enough to regain control before I hit the hedge at the side of the road.

I say its not the first time, the worst time I had was when I was caught by a gust of wind and aquaplaned off a motorway in France at around 70mph, flying off the side and barrel-rolling the car through 540 degrees through the air before landing upside down and then rolling a couple more times on the ground for good measure. The end result was this:

Just a couple of scratches.

A bit of panel-beating and she'll be fine!

Anyway, back to the running!

Just as I parked-up I watched the transfer bus pull away, so figured I’d have a bit of time to kill, so I had my pre-race brekkie of a Cliff bar and drank some energy drink before half-changing in the back of the van. For the Brutal I had forgotten to wear my support shorts, but I came-out of the run unscathed - I wear them to support my right groin muscle more than anything, but with minimal lateral movement exerted when running, unlike in football, it seems I can easily survive without them, so I decided to do without them again today.

When I saw the bus pulling in to the estate I shoved the rest of my gear in my bag I made my way to the queue, taking my seat with everyone else once the doors opened.

A 10 minute ride and we were at the race-base of Butlers Lands Farm and I went through the registration process before looking for a place to change, only to be informed on inquiring that there was not one, so I snuck in to a barn behind a tractor and turned from fat bloke in to Blues Brother.

Milling around I bumped into Dennis ‘Carthorse’ Cartwright - of the ‘Den’s Got the Runs’ blog, and we were able to have a chat about what he’s got coming-up. He was using today as a training-run ready for the Enigma Winter Double - two marathons in two days the following weekend!

As the clock ticked its approach to the 10am start everyone gathered in the farmyard for the safety briefing. Just looking around it was easy to see that there were far more people than the previous year. Today was the Gut Buster’s third time of running and word has certainly spread!

Huddling like penguins to keep warm at the briefing.

With the organisers saying that the field is nearly double from what it has been previously and the interest was for plenty more places if they could have offered them. Looking at the attire of my fellow runners, there seemed to be less in the way of pavement-pounders out for a change of scenery that I saw last year and more in the way of ‘serious’ runners shod in trail shoes. But then again after the quagmire conditions last year, I think people would have heard what to expect on the course.

After the briefing we were ushered around the corner for the start and we were all off.

The throng behind me!

I set off at what I thought was a reasonable pace, but turned out to be quite a pace!.. Both the 10k & 10M races had started at the same time and although I was towards the middle of the field, it seemed like I was trying to just hold-on with those around me, which at the time I put-down to tired-legs from yesterday’s Brutal.

As I was fighting my way up the first hill, a figure appeared on my right shoulder and enquired if I was who I am… I turned to see a familiar face - someone who I had not seen since I was 19, which makes it pretty much as long since as we were old back then! I knew Tania back from schooldays in Yateley, and at that point in her life, she really wanted to get in to running cross country, which I was getting in to at the time when back from uni, so I agreed to take her out on to the trails at Blackbushe to do a couple of miles. Its amazing to see how far someone has come from being a reluctant teenager exhausted after running for around half an hour - these days Tania has several marathons under her belt as well as plenty of other races at shorter lengths and is now getting her pace up for an assault on the CTS South Devon half marathon in Feb, supported by her husband who is also a keen (and quick) runner… I tried for all I was worth to keep-up with Tania’s pace and to have a decent chat, but my being a fat-bloke got in the way and I had to make my excuses for holding her up as I really couldn’t keep the pace going for much longer and needed to throttle back, plus I did not want to ruin her race - and with that she shot-off in to the distance en-route to her finish of 7th female!.. Sorry Tania, I probably cost you a place or 2 but it was good to catch-up, albeit briefly, whilst I was struggling to breathe and talk at the same time… and fair play for spotting me through my fancy dress as well!

Up the first hill - Tania's arm to my right as she cunningly hid behind the fella in green as we approached the photographer!

As I eased-off the pace, I found I really did not have too much choice in the matter anyway. With the icy conditions overnight, the tarmac on which we were running for this stage was slick with the cold stuff and at times everyone was struggling to stay upright - trying to pick a path through the worst of it or attempting to run on the narrowest of grass verges on the road side. With most people sporting trail shoes, the grip you get on the ice is even less than normal as you only have the tips of the lugs on the sole contacting the ground, so you tend to do bambi-on-ice impersonations whether you like it or not.

Around the icy bend just before the ford.

As we arrived at the ford there was the choice again of going on the narrow bridge or through the water. Naturally I chose the wet option even though I would not need to queue for the bridge this year, but if you’re going to be getting wet and muddy, you’re only postponing the inevitable so through the water I ploughed without breaking stride.

Hitting the wall.

Up the hill from the ford and soon we were at the walls of Silchester and around the city walls we went, although this year we did not do a complete circuit around them, instead cutting through the main street through the middle of the city and back out past the llama’s.

Glowing Llama!

Crossing the denuded sprout field, the going was a lot easier than last year as only sometimes did your foot sink down to the ankle rather than all the time, and after traversing this it was another road section up the hill to the split for the 10M & 10K.

Just after the split I found myself yo-yoing positions with a girl called Tiffany. Before her superior pace allowed her to pull away we naturally got to chatting about running and it turns out we're both down to do the Classic Quarter ultra in June. Today was her first foray back out running in an organised event as she builds-up her fitness levels ready for the terrific undertaking that will be the Classic Quarter. She was persuaded to go for it by one of her friends as it is on her birthday! What a way to celebrate - getting a finish in an ultra under your belt, surely a birthday you would not forget in a hurry. Good luck in your training Tiffany and hopefully I'll bump into you at the start in June.

Hitting the long and winding road section.

The next section of the course was exactly as I remembered it from last year: the longest road section of short steep undulating hills. This part last year had me suffering from my wearing of new trail shoes not yet fully worn-in. A year on the same shoes have been well and truly worn-out having seen me through a good few marathons and have proved awesome on the softest of ground, but unfortunately they are now nearing the end of their life with the seams to the side of the toe splitting on both sides on both shoes. They are now going from race to race awaiting their fate.

The long hard slog across the soaking fields made-up the last couple of miles. Seeing the farm and the finish line on the horizon, and hearing the tannoy welcoming the finishers home I remembered that its a tease… You think you’re going straight there, only to divert away and then skirt around the edges of the fields before it relents and you turn for home. At least time I was prepared for the energy sapping incline through the cloying mud that this section is and I managed to keep myself on a pace to get to the finish in one piece… I may not have won the race, or come any where near winning the race, but at least the man on the tannoy congratulated me as being the winner of the fancy-dress race... If they were to have had one!

With my medal around my neck from one of the marshals and my timing chip taken from me, I made a bee-line for the mulled-wine and mince pies available for the finishers. Scoffing one and savouring the warm spiciness of the wine I made my way back to the finish to clap home fellow finishers.

I had realised whilst running that Carthorse had not passed me during the race so he would surely be appearing soon and sure enough a few minutes later he crossed the line and after he’d composed himself I congratulated him and enquired how he had found it - and the smile on his face said it all! He was surprised at how quick he had managed to cover the course - well ahead of the time he thought he would have, and the same was applicable for me as well.

I finished 7 minutes faster than I ran the course last year in a finish of 149/259 so a decent 58%... My assault on mid-table mediocrity carries-on apace!

The Gut Buster event is well organised and a great fixture to have on the door-step just before New Year's. With how popular it is getting I am wondering how they will be able to cope if they are going to grow it further, and if it is already at capacity then it will become one of those events that you need to book your entry as soon as they open as it will sell-out quicker by the year.

Add caption

28th December: Brutal Blues

After a couple of days of eating, drinking and being merry I was back in action this morning for the first part of today and tomorrow’s 10 mile cross-country double header. I had chosen to run this race (and tomorrow's Gut Buster) dressed as a Blues Brother just to be different as no-one seems to do these in fancy dress, and with the time of year I thought it would bring a bit of festive cheer.

After the Christmas Day collapse of my bike’s bottom-bracket, today saw me driving off to the Brutal 10 - or in this race's case: the Brutal 16. Normally the Brutal's are 10k races, hence the name, with the Brutal being a reference to the terrain: lots of short sharp hills, mud, swamp, puddle, pond and more mud (as detailed in previous blogs), but this race for a change had 2 options: an 8k or 16k distance, with the 16k being a different route to the 8k rather than 2 loops of it as you may suspect. Naturally I had opted for the 16k version of the run: looking forward to pitting myself against the usual terrain only over the longer distance to see how I held-up.

Driving the 20 miles to the event's location of the Longmoor Camp army base, we passed through security at the gate-house and on to the camp itself, following the marshal's directions to the race base of the camp's gymnasium. The weather was looking perfect for the run: Glorious clear skies, a pale winter sun shining upon us and a chill in the air that meant we would not be overheating on the run. With all the rain of the previous week the Brutal gods were really smiling down on us today having been busy prepping the course perfectly then giving us the conditions to enjoy it at its best.

The gymnasium base.

Parking on the field next to the start/finish it was a quick registration and I hung round to watch the CaniX racers get their run underway before heading back to the van to get changed in to my fancy dress.

Dogs taking their owners for a run!

Taking my place amongst all the other starters it was not long until we were off in pursuit of those hounds.

Under starters orders...

...and then it was all a blur.

 The first stretch of about a quarter mile lulled us in to a false sense of security: a nice easy downward stretch out of the centre of the camp and on to the training grounds… And then the mud, sand and hills began.

The easy bit!

Yours truly on the ascent.

Looking back from the sandy summit.

After weaving our way across the sandy plain and climbing the short steep hill at the end it was the first stretch of many through the pine woods that make the bulk of the camp’s terrain. With the torrential rain we have had of late I was half expecting to be running through a continual quagmire, but with hills a plenty under the trees it was soft pine needles under foot - until we hit the first bit of fun - the course’s inaugural stream.

Taking a breather... The guy on the right prepares for his dip.

Queuing to cross there was a chance for a snatch of breath and recovery, before taking the first of many icy plunges of the day. Scrambling out the other side freezing cold, you were eager to get moving again to get some warmth back in to your legs, to stamp the frigid water out of your shoes to try and get some life back in to what felt like two solid blocks of ice dangling off the end of your legs… And then straight up a very steep slippery hill.

Looking back down the steep slippery slope.

Just as some life had been brought back in to the frozen feet then it was back in more water for a knee-deep jog, then waist deep wade through more icy water, where for the first time in the run the water was deep enough to give that freezing cold stroke of the scrote that makes all men gasp, and instantly sends your knackers retreating back in to your body for some shelter, only to reappear when having a warm shower long after the event has ended.

Lovely weather for a paddle.

The course continued as an enjoyable, as much as it was challenging, blend of hills, streams and mud, with your feet never getting a chance to warm above a certain temperature from hereon through continual immersions. Approaching the half distance, the field had spread-out and there was little in the way of overtaking going on around me, so I decided I would do my utmost to keep in touch with the people in front and if possible reel them in one at a time. The trouble with running these courses by yourself is when you hit the swamps and the mud you have no reference point of where the good path through is in order to steer clear of the submerged obstacles, as there’s no watching others making mistakes and falling over! It certainly slows you down having to tentatively find your own path. 

The view from the most easterly part of the course.

At the halfway there was a drinks station, where I stopped for a cup of water before carrying on my way. The second half started with a run through more pine woods with the 8k runners who were with us on this section of the course splitting off in a different direction. This stretch was more wading through blackened swamp so pace was reduced somewhat once more!

The long final wade.

Catching up on a CaniX runner.

By the time we emerged from this section, a breather could be had as I joined the queue for the last long watery wade of the day. I could see on the opposite side of the water a couple of the CaniX runners were there, so I must have been doing alright for time if I was able to reel-in back-markers…

Climbing through the heathery heath.

Out the other side and a climb up some heather & gorse covered heathland and I caught and passed the second of the two CaniX runners, the dog not looking too impressed with its owner as it trotted along clarted in mud and its coat all soaked.

Hello & goodbye!

One soggy doggy.

A rumble of traffic meant we were near the A3 and the knowledge that we were approaching the closing stages. As we ran along one of the woody tracks we passed another of the CaniX runners by the side of the trail. Unfortunately the race had been too much for the poor dog - what looked like an Irish Setter, as it was wrapped in a foil space-blanket to warm it up, and being held tight by its owner as they awaited a rescue to the finish… It turned out the dog was fine, it was just exhausted from the running in the cold and the soakings, which for the dogs amounted to several total immersions, had gotten the better of it. Perhaps the 16k in the cold of December on a course like this is a little too much to ask of the dog's no matter how eager they are to get out and run.

One last hill and a few muddy twists and turns and the finish was in sight, crossing the line to the customary round of applause from those already finished, the welcome post-race snack of a banana, a few Quality Street and a cup or two of water.
 
Running dressed as a Blues Brother seemed to amuse quite a few people, with (understandable) questions of whether I was on a 'mission from God', or 'getting the band back together' and engendered some respect for taking on the course attired this way. At the finish, I could see one of the marshals looking at my feet so I couldn't help but look down myself to see if there was something the matter. He noticed I as following his gaze and said "I was just checking to see if you had run it in proper shoes". I told him that even I'm not that mental to attempt the course in them!.. The costume itself was surprisingly unrestrictive on my movement whilst running through an environment as demanding as this, although at one point I did overstretch a little and tear the stitching on the crotch. It was also cool enough to not make me overheat, so as far as costumes go its a pretty easy one to get along with whilst running.

I thoroughly enjoy these Brutal runs as they are not too serious and the entry field is wide in its age-range and is edging closer to a 50/50 split on male/female entrants. They are well organised with very friendly marshals cheering you onwards around the course. The races are getting ever more poplar as even more people discover them and word of mouth spreads. It seems as though there's a majority of runners in the field that wear their Brutal jerseys at the races, so there's certainly a 'Brutal cult' developing out there - of which I am one!

I think the idea of having the 2 lengths of race was a good idea and something worth them pursuing for other dates - perhaps keeping them to the Christmas and last ones of their season so as to keep the idea as a novelty and something special for an event and to not move away from the core idea of the runs: a brutal 10k course.

In case you're curious, position-wise I finished in the middle of the pack: 125/245 so a decent end-result for me as I aim to get my speeds up to the 50% finishing mark in my races for 2014.

Pulling a Blues moose :)

1st December: Daddy Daughter Running 2

This Saturday was one of the few days each year that I see my daughters and with my youngest disappearing to her BFF's birthday party for the morning of the day, in advance my eldest had asked that we go running together again in the absence of her little sister. Naturally I jumped at the chance for a bit of quality daddy-daughter time and had already planned the day to fit around this.

With my eldest easily managing a muddy 3 mile XC with me earlier this year and completing the 3.5 mile Hook fun run (as previously seen on this blog), I suggested when she brought up the subject of distance and route that we go one stage further and run a 10k and to my pleasant surprise she went for it!

Turning up on the morning, the ex had rather helpfully dressed my daughter in the clothes to go running in... but without a change for after and with fashion trainers on her feet that aren't really suitable for running, especially XC, rather than her proper running trainers which were 'still at school'. The little thing was really excited to be running with me so I knew we had to go for it even if her attire was not totally ideal!

That morning after brekkie we went out to the village store to get food for lunch and dinner together and we discussed the pending run; how we would approach it, the route and that we would not stop, just slow down to a walk and after a pre-run watching 'Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen' we left for our jaunt.

True to form the little monkey was very eager and wanted to run at a pace that would burn her out in no time, so I had to rein her in, explaining that the distance was nearly twice as far as she had run before.

We're off!

Settling down to a more manageable pace for her we made it up on to the common and our close encounter of the hairy kind with the Highland cattle. 

Tread carefully, there be hairy beasts about!

Deciding to walk past them it gave her the chance of a small rest before we went up and over the motorway bridge.

Over the motorway.

Once through the woods we were further than she had run before from the house, although she had walked further and we carried on across to the water meadow and on to the canal. After a bit of mixed running and walking we reached King John's castle and jogged round and inside it before making it to the end of the canal and the halfway point.

Arriving in King John's Castle.

Poor little thing was starting to feel it now as we made our way on to the fields and the way back in the direction of home. It was here that she started to notice the rubbing of her little toe on the side of her trainer and asked if she could take it off to run. Explaining why this was not such a good idea with what she was running over I tried the old trick of misdirection and started talking to her about how we were going to have the chicken nuggets we had bought as soon as we returned to the house, which seemed to work, although I could tell she was being genuine about the pain.

Returning over the motorway.

Working within her energy levels we ran and walked our way back across the woods, the motorway and the common to the last stretch home that was thankfully downhill she found her second wind and hared-off at the speed she started the run so I had to up my pace to keep up with her! After 1h23 we were back at the house with a very hot and rosy-cheeked young lady panting like a steam engine from her terrific achievement!

She was really made-up with the fact she'd managed to complete a 10k XC and quite rightly so! At 9 years old I am incredibly proud of her in running further than most adults ever will at such a young age, and hopefully now she has proved to herself what she is capable of doing already and who knows, it may encourage her to push-on to bigger and better things now she has this under her belt!

On a different note I've managed to get a wait-list place in the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon at the end of December as I realised that I was going to have 6 weeks between the Dorset next week and the Anglesey in January, so squeezing this one in at the mid-point seemed a sensible option and will also mean I would have clocked-up 15 in the space of a year! I have also entered a Brutal 20k and the Winter Gut Buster 10M as back-to-back runs on the 29th and 30th of December so as to not let my fitness levels drop too much over the Christmas period.

24th November: Hawley

I had to work early on Saturday morning so took the opportunity to stop on the way home and go for a jaunt around where I first started XC running seeing as it lay between the work location and home. The inspiration for this had started from a discussion on Strava amongst people looking for different local routes, preferably with a bit of hill to them and my mind had been drawn back to Hawley Woods where on a personal level running cross country began for me.

It all started one afternoon in 1995 on a weekend in the summer after my first year at uni, when I had an urge just to get out and run - so I did just that, and could not believe how hard it felt and how rewarding afterwards when I had been running for over an hour for the first time in my life.

Growing up on the edge of Hawley Woods living first on the south and then the north sides, I spent a large chunk of my childhood playing in there, building camps, finding and collecting spent ordnance… Oh yes, its an army training area for Gibraltar Barracks where they send the new recruits to the Royal Engineers! As a result I know my way around these woods like the back of my hand and have watched it change over the years. Originally part of the south end of the woods served as a base for the Canadian Army during WWII and what was the parade ground was used for army HGV driver training long after their barracks had been demolished… The UK HQ of Sun Microsystems is now on this site!

I have not run on this particular figure of 8 route of 2 laps taking in the main part of the woods since 1998! so I was looking forward to revisiting it, although I had decided to incorporate towards the end of my run a bit more hill-work into it by revisiting a chunk of the route I had run on the XT Duathlon when I raced there a couple of years ago.

Parking by the Memorial Hall and a quick change out of my work clothes into my running gear, I set-out into the cold autumn morning air armed with my camera and faithfully retraced my steps from years ago.

Up on to the airfield.

The first point of note on this route is the old airfield in the middle of the woods. This is a large cleared plateau with a single take-off and landing strip that dates back to WWII and its use as a dispersal site for the nearby airfield at Blackbushe, as well as a take-off and landing point for the Special Operations Executive doing covert drops into occupied Europe. During the summer you get all the adders coming onto the tarmac deck to bask in the heat, and with it being an active MoD property you sometimes get the odd surprise when you arrive up the hill and round the corner… Such like one time I came face to face with a flight of Lynx helicopters armed with TOW missiles ready to fly-off to Salisbury Plain for an attack in a large military exercise as they were using the strip as a forward operating base! A few times over the years Harriers had been known to have landed and taken off from there to practice on a 'rough' landing strip and I've watched a Chinook touch down and disgorge its payload of troops before flying off… Today all there was were a couple of mini-buses for the Air Cadets who must have been camping out doing some field craft!

Looking in to the trees.

Descending from the plateau I joined the road around the lake and 'Hawley Hard' where I learned to sail on Bosun's as a teenager, looping round the back of the lake bordering the Pinewood Park estate where I lived for the first 8 years of my life, before climbing the long hill that nearly takes me all the way back to the van.

First glimpse of the lake.

Bemused onlookers.

Looking back across at the Hard.

As I rejoined the track near where my run started, rather than climb back on to the airfield, I took a left and the path that runs around the base of the hill as I start the second of the two laps.

A splash of green amongst the browns, golds, oranges and yellows.

The woods still seemed to be as popular as ever with dog-walkers; lots of energetic springers, collies and the likes galavanting through the undergrowth having a whale of a time, probably chasing the squirrels of which I spotted a good dozen!

Circling the lake in the opposite direction as I arrived at Hawley Hard I took a diversion left from the road on to the XT trail I ran and headed over the sandy tracks up in to the woods again to pay a visit to the old railway bridge.

The railway bridge.

Across the top of the bridge.

Looking down at the trail leading to the bridge.

As far as I'm aware, this bridge never had a proper railway servicing it, merely constructed with a small amount of track along the bridge and underneath it to simulate a railway bridge for practice in attack and defence of such structures. When I was a lad there were still things like disused bogies and railway gear lurking around in the undergrowth.

Where to next?

There was an orienteering mark on a tree next to the parapet, and with spotting some more further along around the airfield I suspect those cadets whose van's I passed earlier were embarking on an orienteering exercise.

Running along the track that ran across the top of the bridge I returned to the airfield before detouring round to the bottom of the hill to jog up the fiendish hill. Once I was on a morning run when I looked like this:

only wearing running gear, and approaching the hill I saw for the second time on the run a bunch of new recruits out on one of their first PT runs with their instructors yelling at them to pick-up the pace and keep running in orderly lines of 2 equally spaced apart. The recruit's faces were nearly as red as the shirts they were wearing; collectively puffing and wheezing as they attempted to get up the hill as I easily caught and jogged past them. Seeing this their PTI's were less than impressed with their charges, one of them yelling at them about how useless they were as I had just run past them with ease having been running for longer and I looked like a 'fucking girl'!

Another time around on part of the hill and it was back across the airfield and to the car-park concluding my trip down memory lane… I'm pretty sure I'll be returning, only next time running across the heathland to the north as well to increase the mileage.

20th October: Brutal

As part of my training for the next marathon I entered the latest Brutal 10k event which was held not too far away from me and just a few miles further south from the one I ran last year.

These runs are quite intensive. They may only be 10k in length but they are deliberately as tricky underfoot as they can possibly be, with lots of short-sharp hills, mud, bogs, streams etc. so it acts as good training for being back on the CTS runs as of next month.

To make this run more of a challenge I decided to cycle the 17 miles there and back so as to build on the time of cardio activity and make it better for endurance training with a combined total of around 3.5 hours with very little rest between the 3 legs. I planned to leave a good 2 hours before the event's start so I could take it easy on the ride there… Unfortunately with me being rubbish at getting out of bed, I did not leave until 8:30 with the race due-off at 10, so it was a flat-out hard cycle the whole way there, with me arriving with just 15 minutes to register and change for the start!

At least with only 15 minutes I did not have time to get cold and I had also heeded lessons from the last time out and from the Grim, and arrived wearing the clothes I would run in and brought a towel and a change of clothes for afterwards as being wet and cold is never fun when having to cycle a long distance.

The event base was on the edge of a live firing range, with an open-fronted wooden pavilion being the baggage store and registration area. Collecting my number the ladies on the desk could see that I had cycled there and asked how far. When I told them the distance they were impressed in a 'you must be nuts' kind of way as it seems I was the only person to cycle to the event this time.

My first step on the journey to this marathon madness can be traced back to a challenge laid down by one of the guys I grew-up with to run a Brutal over in Deepcut a few February's back. The run was a real eye-opener as to what proper trail-running is and the experience made me realise how unfit I was at the time and how much fun running through the countryside really is and spurred me on to the path (trail?) of where I am now. As such the Brutal 10's are always have a special place in my heart.

From the previous races I've figured that the trick with these, especially as they are only 10k, is to put your head down and keep going as hard as you can for you can afford to blow all your energy over the hour and change that it takes to complete, rather than having to conserve anything as you do in longer distances. With the terrain how it is, there are very few opportunities to get a good speed up and work on a decent time, so if you're slow and steady like me then it plays in to your hands as the field is pretty-much reduced to my level with the enforced stopping and starting for traversing ditches and trenches and picking your way over heather-clad heathland - if anything I am more sure-footed than most through being used to this kind of track and the fact I am not worried about getting wet or clarted in mud! Bearing this in mind along with the need to push myself in training, for today's race I had set myself the target for the race of running every step of the course, no matter how bad the hills would be, so I was psyched-up to get to the end in a decent time for myself.

Ready with minutes to spare I half-heartedly joined in the warm-up with the rest of the runners (having already sufficiently warmed-up from my cycle there).

The army PT led warm-up

We ran from just beside one firing range, off past the armoury and skirted a pond that reeked of the eggy smell of swamp gas.

The start with the firing-range in front.

Picking our way over the tussock strewn peat bog that the pond led us to it was slow going and single file as people kept tripping and falling over hidden obstacles before we found our way in to some woodland. The next mile was pretty straight-forward with easy undulations and a long flat stretch that was ankle-deep in water after the rain of the previous couple of days.

This was where the 'warm-up' section ended, and I was already breathing out of my arse and regretting the effort I had to put in to the ride there, cursing myself for failing to stir from my lovely warm bed in a decent time. Fortunately the terrain got a little harder again, having to run single file through a drainage ditch...

Ditch running.

...and over some 6ft deep grooves worn-out of an embankment of sand so I was able to take as much of a breather as I could, before we had to traverse a stile and were confronted with this:

Mercifully short but very steep!

The vehicle proving ground, and its hill-climb meant to test how good a pull vehicles have on an extreme gradient. At this point I caught the last of the CaniX runners: a woman being pulled-up the hill by her rottweiler - which seemed like an unfair assistance!

Leaving the test-track we traversed pine forest full of what were akin to moguls on a ski-slope, continually going up and down as well as a couple of decent hills and descents thrown in for good measure.

A decent descent.

Then crossing more moorland we had our first piece of proper fun: a 6ft drop into a 6ft wide ditch that was waist high in stinking black water, with a scramble out the other side.

The start of the fun!

Another trek across moor and through wood and then we had our next big challenge: the 'river' I put it in inverted commas as it was more like a deep drainage ditch that we all had to wade through, trying to not stumble and fall on the logs that were in the muddy bottom and totally invisible through the ink-black water coloured by the peaty soil.

Taking the plunge into the 'river'.

Wading through the mire.

My target was to get through the run without reducing to a walk, but by the time we went beyond the 8km and we were faced with another steep hill with overhanging branches that made it impossible to run without stooping at the same time, I succumbed to the temptation of following the lead of those in front and walking up it as fast as I could.

Down the other side and around a corner; tantalisingly seeing the finish line in the distance on the course that snakes around the area like a tapeworm we were still a good mile plus away from it, and next we had the novelty of running across a live firing range! fortunately not in use today, but certainly the first time I have legged-it across one of these.

The last challenge was a wade through that stinking pond we had passed just beyond the start and a short jog to the finish line.

The slow plough through the treacle-like stinking swamp mud!

Grabbing my bag from the the baggage drop I went behind the pavilion and gathered my senses, changing in to some clean dry tops and socks for the cycle back. I took the following photo of my mud covered legs. I wore a pair of old football socks for this and remembered why I shouldn't use these for running as they just filled with sand and mud during the run - oh well you live and learn!

Pure filth

After chowing down on a Kit-Kat I mounted the trusty steed and off I went to Hook, completely cream-crackered after my efforts. On the route, every traffic light I came to was on red, so it was a very stop-start journey and before I was even half way home the heavens opened and soaked me to the skin. Eventually I made it home to a bacon sanger and a warm shower to get all of that mud off.

The Brutal series of runs is certainly growing in popularity with the fields getting larger with each event I participate in, and the popularity amongst women is certainly growing more noticeably than the men. To be frank, the first one I did was a bit of a sausage-fest with hardly any women present but now I would say getting on for a third of the field is female - most likely because of the shorter distance of 10k being more attractive to a half or a full marathon for getting started on challenging cross country runs! But it is great to see that the appeal of the event is universal amongst both sexes. I thoroughly enjoy these shorter (yet challenging) runs and I have a window in my schedule for their Christmas run on the 28th December - perfect for blasting the mince pies, booze and turkey dinner away!

For the race I wore my new (I say new although they were bought in April but not yet worn) intermediate trail trainers for this, a pair of 'Karrimor Excel Dual' trail shoes and I was happy to get-along with them, although I will need to put an insole in them for longer distances and change-out the laces for elasticated ones, but grip was absolutely fine so I expect they will be a decent wear on forthcoming trail marathons.

The new trail shoes (slightly different colour though).

Oh and time-wise I did pretty good, finishing in the 38th percentile!