Wednesday, 25 September 2013

Challenge Three - X-Runner Wild Thing

The confirmation email for this event stated that it was a 5km course with 32 obstacles - runners had a choice of whether to do one or two laps of the course on the day. This being my first ever obstacle course, I was both excited and nervous. I had trained in a fairly generic manner, building on my basic stamina and running outdoors.

About a week before the event I had a very exciting shopping trip on my lunch break and got myself some Trail Shoes after being convinced by the guy in the shop that pink and expensive were the two main features I needed in the shoes!

Race day came round pretty quickly and feeling quite under prepared, Sean and I drove to the event. I was in the first wave, starting at 9am. We were given a warm up and told that there were actually at total of 68 obstacles on the 10km course!

The run itself was great fun - at first I thought I might struggle as I was one of the very few people who wasn't running in  a team but as soon as the race started everyone was very supportive towards each other and very chatty whether they were part of a team or not.

There were various small(ish) obstacles at the start, mainly consisting of walls made from hay bales, commando crawls under netting and tyres. These were following by running through a small stream, a fire jump and the monkey bars.....then came the really fun obstacles.....lots and lots and lots and lots of mud! Although the mud was tough, it was actually quite a nice break from running. 

The course then moved on to the water obstacles - a swim in icy cold water followed by a water slide/short swim then another water slide a little further on. Getting into the cold water was the hardest part of the course, especially the second time around when I knew just how cold it was. 



Next along the course was some muddy climbing, a very uneven run through the woods which included my least favourite obstacle, the cargo nets (for some reason, I freaked out at the top of the net every time!) and a rope climb up a very steep hill.

The final stretch of the course was fairly dry and consisted of lots of small obstacles very close together - more tyres, commando crawls, balance beams and jacob's ladders. 

Just as I was about the reach the finish line, I took a left turn and ran the whole thing all over again! As I was in the first wave, the second and third waves were on their first lap of the course as I ran the 5km again which meant that the obstacles were busier and there was more standing round/waiting. Despite this, I managed to complete the 10km and 68 obstacles in 1 hour 44 minutes which was a great time for me! 

The sense of achievement in crossing the finish line was amazing and I'm very much looking forward to my next event already. 


Photos by Sean Carl Chaffe