This is an old favourite. I've been coming back to it almost every year since it began 11 years ago. This year's race was possibly the most enjoyable ever.
What mud! A minute or so in, we were crossing a sodden field. Your feet just sank in and squelched wet mud everywhere. It reminded me of the Seaton beach in the Grizzly... grit your teeth, wade through it and enjoy the sensation of speeding up as you come out of it.
A couple of kms of tarmac, concrete and gravel, and we were into really technical rutted lanes of mud. It was glorious. I had my fell shoes on and happily overtook a few cautious runners. Having cursed my way through plenty of mud over the previous month, mainly from running commutes through Squab Wood, I felt completely at home in all this bog.
In the second half there were some long gravel paths, downhill then uphill, and then a final bout of muddy path with some great zigzagging around trees. I wondered how runners further back would cope with this terrain once it was nicely churned up. Carnage, I was told.
I managed to put on some speed for the final straight finish. I felt strong, and very chuffed that the 16 miles I had covered the day before hadn't undone me. I looked at my watch and wondered if I could go sub-40, but I couldn 't quite get there. It would have been great to have some more company/competition in the second half, but I was more than happy with the race and chuffed to get the M50 prize - a massage!
Final score, 40:10 - here's the data.
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