This year one of my goals was to earn myself the Spartan trifecta.  The trifecta is earned when you complete the Sprint, Super and Beast races within the space of one year.

• The Sprint is a minimum of a 3 mile run with at least 20 obstacles.
• The Super is a minimum of an 8 mile run with at least 25 obstacles.
• The Beast is a minimum of a 12 mile run with at least 30 obstacles.

Having completed the sprint earlier in the year I had two to go and this weekend saw the second, the Super.  I was slightly nervous as it is the first event following my epic head plant on my recent bike event Newcastle to London and I am still not 100% but I had signed up with my two lovely friends Helen and Stacey and so off we set.

This photo was taken of me at the start and you can see I do look a tad concerned.

Being part of the Mudd Queens you always get lots of support at obstacle races whether it be from organisers, to marshalls or even other people taking part and of course I was taking part with two friends and we were doing the whole thing together so I had no need to worry.  This is good as there are some obstacles I cannot overcome alone such as the 8 and 9 foot walls – Stacey on the other hand was in a league of her own and upper body strength is something she has in leaps and bounds!

There is a range of obstacles from walls, carrying atlas balls and logs, climbs and wading through a lake so this does of course include mud and water and lots of fun!

I give everything a go even if I cannot complete it like monkey bars – don’t go there, I’m useless!  Got all the way to the top of a cargo climb between two trees and some guy hurtled up it and with the whole thing moving I lost my nerve then was bugged at the end I had not given it a second try.  I also got up a climb on a wet, muddy wall and lost my footing and slid the whole way down.  I was told this was graceful but I had other words to describe it.

Also face planted in the lake tripping over I’m not sure what and turned to two guys who were trying not to laugh and just saying ‘watch that there’s something in the water’ as I turned around and giggled myself.

Managed to rip my amazing mudd queen leggings on one of the barbed wire crawls but that is what I have them for and I had fun in the process!

The running on this course was more like fell running in places with very steep descents in the woods, which I will admit I didn’t have the nerve to hurtle myself down – much respect to those that did, very impressive!

Loved seeing other Mudd Queens around the course especially the marshalls who always have a jelly baby or two, even nicer when you see one of your favourites at the end giving out the medals!  I think people forget how much people put into the event by volunteering but I will save that for another blog post.

Hardest obstacle for me I think would be the bucket carry of rocks which sounds odd but it was so heavy and the walk in the heat seemed to go on forever!  But I am so pleased that with the help of my friends I managed every wall!  Even the big ones as I mentioned earlier.  My bruises tomorrow ill be epic OCR kisses I am sure!

We well and truly earned our medals and have one more to go – the Beast, which will be tough but these girls can!

Over the next month I will need to add some trail running to my training schedule so I am ready for the Beast!

On Saturday I packed up my KitBrix bag and headed up to Wembley with my friend Helen, and her sister and boyfriend.  They were in a team completing in the 10k Mens Health Survival of the Fittest obstacle run.  I was not.  I was there to marshall.

I’ve never marshalled an event before and thought it might be fun and interesting to be there from the other side rather than participating.  It felt a little strange.  We all arrived and as they got ready to run I headed over to be told where I should go and what I needed to do.

I met one of the guys who was part of team No Fear on Wheels at Nuclear, which was amazing as I had seen those guys in action and have so much respect for them.  I also met a lovely lady called Luzanne who had marshalled loads before and knew everyone so I stuck with her!  I was hoping we would be paired up as she clearly knew what she was doing but every post was a solo one.

At first you are given a high viz vest, lanyard with all contact details and a whistle.  We headed in to a briefing where it was explained what was expected of us and given health and safety tips and what to do in an emergency etc then headed out.  As we were making our way around the course we would stop at each obstacle and you were assigned your post.

I ended up on a post that was a double one – runners coming from one direction at about 2k to then hurdle and then the runners heading back my way at about 4.5k on a running stretch of the course.

I was layered up prepared for the cold, proudly wearing my Mudd Queen wrag and had bought with me 11 bags of jelly babies to hand out to the runner as I remembered this was a godsend when I was doing Nuclear Fallout last weekend.

Wearing my wrag was great as other Mudd Queens recognise you cue lots of cheering.

I was cheering everyone on, telling them how well they were doing and handing out jelly babies. I got hugs, high fives, smiles, some people cheered me and I had loads of runners saying thank you for standing out in the cold for them. It was such a great experience and i would definitely do it again!

It was really nice when I saw Helen and her group running back shouting out my name and also shouting for jelly babies!

There were lots of crazy people there doing laps.  I thought I was going mad until they said they were on laps.  I soon started being called Jelly Baby lady as they came around and around knowing there I would be withe sweets for them and by the end of the day I had none left!

The day was set up with 10k runs of the course through the day and then in the evening started the 5k runs.  I saw Tom from Mudstacle who I had done the Commando Series OCR with.

There was one guy who was AWESOME!! He was lovely and stopped for a hug every time he came round and I say every time as he was doing laps but  many many laps.  He did 6 laps of the 10k course and then when the evening 5k runs started he did 2 of those as well so 8 laps in total and 70k!! He smiled the whole way and on the last lap we had joked he should wear all of his medals and he did!  I heard this noise before I saw him and I cracked up as I knew immediately – legend!

I headed home cold and tired but with a huge smile on my face – met some lovely people and if you’re thinking about doing it I would highly recommend.

And to top it off its weight day today and I’ve lost 1lb so back on track to the most I’ve lost to date – onwards and upwards! Just 28lb more to go!

 

On Saturday I took part in Nuclear Fallout, one of the Nuclear Races events, with the most amazing group of people!  I’m not sure what else to say because that just sums it up – amazing! And I feel a little bad for you all as your Saturday could not have compared.  My Saturday with these guys and completing this event was just brilliant!

It was cold and it was wet – of course.  Nuclear Fallout was 13.84k with 86 obstacles.  I know some people will just think what?  Are you mad?  But hear me out, because its awesome!  You will remember my blog post about the Bear Grylls Survivor race – we were not impressed with that event at all, but this race – Mr Grylls you could learn and thing or two my friend (and then refund me the money I paid for your race once you realise it sucks in comparison). Harsh? But fair!

The course is close to home for me and a lot of our team, Scrambled Legs, had done this event before.  One of the lovely ladies actually made champs for her age – Lauren Barnes – epic!

In between the obstacles the running is through the wood and across fields where the cold wind really slapped you in the face and the ground was so uneven but thats what its all about right?  If it was easy everyone would do it!

I was armed with my new Mudd Queens wrag and was proud to wear it.  These ladies are amazing!  They were like angels sent from heaven handing out jelly beans at the different obstacles.  And other Mud Queen runners showing much support on the course often stopping for mud hugs!

The team work on the course was amazing and from everyone – fellow team mates, other runners and the marshalls.  There is a proper can do attitude and everyone stops and helps and is more than happy to do so, which was great for me as I don’t think I would get out of some of the obstacles on my own – high mud slopes without a helping hand would leave me in a wet ditch for a long time I’m sure!  Two of the guys in our team were amazing and at every obstacle helping – everyone should have a Steve or Bobby when completing one of these events!

Favourite obstacle?  Definitely either the zip wire or the death slide!

It would have been much much better if I had trail shoes and so something I will definitely invest in for my next obstacle race – because there will be more, many more.  The next Nuclear is in May and i will be there for sure!  Normal trainers just don’t cut it – I was part running part skiing through mud for a lot of it and even fell over before I even got to some obstacles – still it’s all fun.

Before I do that though I will make use of the Wild Forest Gym, which we ran past on the course route – looks amazing!  I could do with hints and tips and general obstacle training though I am good with running downhill and sliding on my bum – I’ve got that sh*t handled!

I must mention one group we saw on the course, a whole team with one member in a wheelchair – No Fear on Wheels.  This guy is awesome and the whole team are too.  He does all the obstacles and they run with him pulling on ropes, pushing you name it.  I mean when you see people like that its so inspirational – massive respect to them all!

I was so pleased when I got to the final few obstacles and saw my hubby – made my day even better!

It took me quite some time to defrost, I’m not going to lie, and even laying in a hot bath (which soon resembled mud soup) didn’t seem to do the trick.  My legs are bruised all over, I had mud in places you should not get mud, my running leggings are ripped, I ached and was so tired by early evening and would do it all over again!

Yes I am crazy, yes I was in pain and yes I paid to do it! And i got to finally meet one of the lovely ladies, Kelly, that reads my blog as she recognised me part way round and we even had the chance to help each other up and over some pretty steep mud banks – there is no dignity on an obstacle run its a case of help someone up grab what you can (arse, foot, leg, any body part really) and push/hoist!

Getting up the following day was fun – achey achey achey!  I don’t think there was a part of me that didn’t ache!  I almost needed to go down the stairs on my bum but that ached too much too.  Today is no better!

I found from a facebook group someone who was in the same wave as me posted a video he was recording as he went round the course so if you are feeling curious take a look here – and then sign yourself up for the next one in May!

Go Team Scrambled Legs!!!!

So we’ve all heard of Bear Grylls and probably watched him on TV do some whacky skinning of an animal to keep warm whilst camping out in a freezing forest and also evading being eaten by bears or something equally as sinister.

Well Mr Grylls has launched a survival run and when my crazy friend Laura was getting a team together for this I jumped at the chance of taking part and we all signed up including my friend Helen who is equally as crazy.  It was marketed as a tough race and a substantial challenge, requiring both physicality and courage.  They were ensuring there were at least 35 obstacles and saying that you needed to complete lifts, carries, water obstacles and a variety of medium and difficult obstacles.  If you couldn’t complete an obstacle you were warned there would be a penalty and told to think of a 25m bear crawl through xxx (wait and see)!

Yesterday morning we headed to Trent Park in London and made our way to the ‘Festival Area’ where the race began.  This area was full of people, stalls, segway experience, bungee jump, a huge inflatable that you jumped form a height on, which I was disappointed to see in this area as I had seen a pic of this and thought it was one of the race obstacles.  There was a stage, food stalls, and loads more including stacks of stuff for kids and spectators, which was good considering they were charging £15 (if paid in advance) to be a spectator!

We headed over to the bag drop and there was only one word for it – carnage!  The queues were ridiculous and a complete mix of people dropping bags and those who had already run and were collecting bags.  There was no structure to it and at the front of the queues there were staff just chatting as our wave time drew closer and closer.  When we got to the front they asked where our plastic bags were – what plastic bags?  The staff on the table with the bags to be given out that you put your kit in were to one side chatting so no one had these!  The race had not begun and we were miffed already especially as there were people everywhere who had completed the run and were not happy about a lot of things!

We managed to get all bags checked in just as our wave went off so we all ran over to see if we could nip through the cloud of orange smoke that was now the start and the marshall had no idea so we went anyway only a few hundred yards behind the wave anyway.

The rest of this review leaves me a little baffled as to what structure I put it in or what order.  Do I mention first that the ‘obstacles’ were poor?  Do I mention first that the signage was useless?  Do I mention first that pretty much apart from the start and finish there were no marshalls? There’s more but where to start?

The last obstacle race I had done was The Commando Series at Hever Castle and it was brilliant.  The group of 9 I was in have all done Nuclear Races apart from me and Helen and they also said that was brilliant.  Helen has done Tough Mudder and I have spectated when my husband has taken part and that looks brilliant.  My husband has done the Spartan Trifecta and I have spectated at the sprint, super and beast distance events with him and want to do those myself next year as they look brilliant too!  Now I know that Bear Grylls is not mentioning any of these events or comparing his to theirs but the reason I am mentioning here is to show that between us we all have more than enough exposure or first hand experience at other OCR events.

It was lucky that Bear Grylls showed us how to survive without water by drinking out own urine because all of the water stations were unmanned or was simply a sea of empty bottles that had been discarded!

The first ‘obstacle’ was some wood that was across the path that you had to get over and when I say wood I mean about half a metre high and a couple of cms wide – just walk over that then!  We had a cargo net and then another cargo net, then monkey bars, and more monkey bars, at least 2 or 3 ‘walls’ to get over, 2 ‘walls’ to get over or through, some hay bails to jump over, some hay bails covered in cargo net to crawl through, rings, pulling a weight on a rope to reach the top of a metal construction, wires in the forest, getting across a wall using pegs in holes, getting across a wall with foot and hand wooden cubes on the wall, carrying a rucksack weighing 20kg up a hill through the forest and then back down, carrying tanks of water up and down, carrying another weight up and down, pulling a weight up and down a length of floor, shimmying across some metal bars without falling on the floor, getting across slack ropes and a sloped wall to climb up with a rope.  Barely any mud and the only water was a ditch you ran through where the water covered your feet.

To make it more interesting we ended up kicking the mud and water in the ditch over each other.  When we finally found a bottle of water we threw it over each other to make up for the lack of water.  And at one point we decided to roll down a hill and make up our own obstacles.

I am still struggling with my wrist injury and can’t put much weight on it at all so some obstacles I had to do the penalty and it was just a bear crawl or 10 burpees or star jumps not through anything like they said with wait and see!

We finished looking barely any different to when we started.  But we started as a team and finished as a team and we made it fun and laughed along the way.  Though to be fair we could have probably done most of that in a local park!

On completion, where a 70 year old lady ran to the end – kudos to her – awesome, we were met by some more event staff who were mostly chatting but when we walked over to ask what we were supposed to be doing they offered us a tshirt, then a medal, then we asked for a bottle of water and then we just helped ourselves to an energy bar as no one was giving them out – shoddy.

Back into the festival to wander round and hunt for some more freebies we were promised which were beer and coconut water and the guys on these stands were lovely!  Also Newton Faulkner was performing on stage and the atmosphere there was great (apart from everyone moaning about how sh*t the actual event was).

When we collected our bags there was a stand for magic towel company MazMik and I was so impressed by these and would recommend buying them – I will be!  If you have seen the film Spy you will have seen where the waiter brings over what looks like a little marshmallow, pours water on it and it expands.  In the film the lady eats it thinking its food but its actually a towel and amazing and only £2.99 for 50!  Best thing at the event ha ha!

So all in all I can say that this is overpriced (way, way, way, overpriced) you are basically paying for the festival area which is great but if you are going for the event you expect your money to represent what you get from the event and this did not.  Bear Grylls should hang his head in shame at his weak attempt at trying to rival other obstacle race leaders such as Spartan.  This seems to not just be my opinion either as the Facebook event page is filling with bad reviews and complaints as well.  And whilst I mention Spartan it is because some obstacles were similar (pretty much the same, well exactly the same) so no originality there!  Where could they have come from?  Who knows? No idea where the bins in the festival area could have come from either *insert sarcastic face here*!

I was invited by the lovely people at The Earned Agency to attend a media preview day for a new obstacle run at Hever Castle.

The obstacle run is part of the Commando Series and the man who runs these events, Brian Adcock, is an ex-Royal marine. The obstacles on this course are designed to be exact replicas of what marines would do in training.

It is a 6k course, includes 15 obstacles set in the beautiful grounds of Hever Castle and is endorsed by the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund.

After a warm up with 3 (easy on the eyes) marines we had a gentle jog over to the lake where we had a briefing by Brian.  We were shown a map of the course and we were told what the Commando series spirit is, which include things like unselfishness, cheerfulness (I think we all smiled the whole way round), determination and unity to name a few.

We set off as a group and were going to be staying as a group for the whole course.  This included the 3 marine instructors, Brian, some photographers (kudos to them for getting around the course and some of the obstacles and taking pics of us along the way!), and Brian’s daughter, Esther.  Before I go on let me tell you about Esther, she is 10 years old and I think it is fair to say she put us all to shame.  She was the coolest child I think I have ever met; fearless and quite simply amazing.  Her parents must be so proud and in reverse how lucky is she to have such cool parents to put on events like this!

So off we set on the course and the marines ensured we slowed when necessary to regroup and we manoeuvred every obstacle cheering each other on and helping when needed.  For the actual event you can opt to do the family course, go round at your own pace or to be treated like a commando.

Some of the names of the obstacles were as follows:

• Smarty tubes – 8m long drainage pipes sunk in the ground (there are two tunnels on each side one with water and the other dry – I opted straight for the water pipe)

• The wires – 40m long in the woods where you have to work your way over/under/through metres of elastic cord whilst smoke bombs are being thrown in
• Monkey bars – 5m long with some differing bars and hoops (I wont lie I managed two monkey bars and fell into the arms of a marine, which made it slightly worth the embarrassment)
• Doom drop – 30m steep slippery slide (so much fun!)
• Catacombs of doom – 30m long cave (not made for this course but an original part of the estate, which is pretty cool)
• Peter’s pool – 30m of chest-deep muddy water to navigate across using the laid out rope

• River cross – crossing of a river using suspended and tensioned ropes (there was a lone fisherman on this river as we descended upon it – he was such a good sport and not his every day fishing to have us lot appear from nowhere)

• The chasm – 20m crossing over a lake (which is more mud and clay than water) either crossing on the ropes by crawling across a single rope or the double rope for the Tyrollean Traverse where you stand on one and hold the other above your head (I chose this one, was talked through it by Brian and had words of encouragement from the marines and other members of the group as I was so nervous I would end up in the swamp but I managed to not fall in!)

• Sheep dip – where you completely submerge yourself and go through a tunnel of water (there was a nice marine to push us through and another to pull us out)

The obstacles all have an easier option as this is an event that is not only aimed at adults but children (for ages 8 and over) and families alike so all can take part.

We were all soaked through and covered in mud and it was awesome.

The event takes place on 14 November at Hever Castle and you can buy your tickets here (and I recommend you do so you don’t miss out!):

The Commando Series is partnered with Six Physio, who will be there to offer massages after you cross the finish line, and KitBrix.  Have you heard of KitBrix before?  They make kit bags that can be used individually or can zip together so for triathlons and multi events are perfect to keep kit separate and easy to use.  Also perfect for the Commando Series as you will have some very wet and muddy clothes at the end.  I have met Rob from KitBrix before at triathlon events that my husband has taken part in and these bags, from me and my husband, are highly recommended and you will notice them more and more at events as I have found and for one reason and one reason only, which is that they are brilliant.