England National SC Championships, 2025

 This race has been an ambition for a while; that is, at least six years back to 2019 when I took part in the 'Southerns' at Parliament Hill.

This was my first outing with Lordshill Road Runners. The day didn't start terribly auspiciously. I got my timings badly wrong (ahem, a whole hour wrong) and ended up running a mile to catch the minibus a few minutes late. I took my seat feeling mortified and in a lather of sweat.

It was great to get to know the Lordshill and Totton folk on the minibus. I'd only met the LRRs in the dark on club nights. I'd left my lunch behind in the rush and was peeved about having to shell out for overpiced stuff at Fleet Services.

We arrived at Hampstead Heath in plenty of time, set off from the carpark along a tarmac path and entered another world. The whole race zone was a fiesta of mud. The club tent zone was Glastonburyesque in its level of wet churn. We sorted out numbers and I wandered around a bit, watching some of the other races, scoffing some food and searching for a loo with minimal queue. The scale of the event was immense - much bigger that the Southerns. I sniggered to myself at the poor spectators who had come with unsuitable clothing.

Lordshill Ladies

The ladies join battle

The chaps

3pm, the hour of the senior men's race, approached. I put on my spikes, ran around a bit and headed down to join nearly 1800 other blokes at the start, just as the sun burst through. . I was delighted to bump into Rob Finch on the way. Standing at the start line, feeling like part of a medieval army, the chatter melted away as we moved into position and listened for the gun. 'Can we wait for my Garmin?' some wag shouted, and laughter washed over the crowd. And then - bang - we were off.

As expected, the charge up the hill was messy and cramped. We funnelled into each other at the top and I was slowed to a walk as we passed through the bottleneck and onto the course proper.

Oh. My. Goodness. The mud was extraordinary in its gloopy ubiquity. Downhill - stay on your feet; flat - dance through the swamp; uphill - heave against the laws of physics. It was slow and hard. There were odd sections when it was almost like running an normal trail race, but not many. I managed to trip over twice, leaving my arms and legs covered in quick-drying matt emulsion.

Freshly mudded and bloodied

Don't let this scrawny wee chap get you

Hanging in there while the mud congeals

On and on it went. Some guy complained at me, quite deservedly, when I managed to spit on his legs. Sorry about that. I shared a brief 'what the hell are we doing here?' moment with someone on a particularly arduous uphill section. Towards the end I kept saying to myself 'this will be the last hill' before realising there was a bit more to follow. Eventually it was downhill and then onto the finish straight, which was, of course, a muckspreader of a finale. 

Type 2 fun. The race was anything but pleasurable... but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. It was a glorious experience, although intensely awful at times in the moment. Getting myself sufficiently free of mud afterwards to be able to get onto the minibus was quite an exercise. 

In the end I finished in 826th pace out of a field of 1783 - so top half, which felt respectable. At 5:02 km pace, I was way slower than in 2019, but that just reflects the conditions. What a cracking day out.

The men's team results

Goodbye Parliament Hill

We all survived somehow