Hellrunner 04/01/2014

In murky waters dreams are lost, as forces cast a torturous spell

This filthy land adorned with frost, which covers every moor and fell

Abandoned hope is now the cost, as icy bogs yield souls to sell

Spirit’s now aside are tossed, as we run the muddy hills of hell

Hellrunner 04/01/2014

Awoken at 3am by pounding rain I peeked out the curtains to be greeted with the sight of a waterfall of torrential rain, when I say torrential I actually mean it was lashing it down, hammering, bucketing, pouring, drenching, stair-rod sideways, upwards, downwards, diagonal driving torrents of storm filled wetness. The booming crack of lightening followed by the bellowing rumble of thunder meant that the eye of this particular storm was nearby, as was the Hellrunner course I am running in the morning, surely it would be called off, I am confident the organisers will use their common sense and not allow this race to go ahead under these severe circumstances. I get back under the covers with this in mind and drift off to sleep.

The alarm goes off and I wake up to the sound of rain still pounding against the window, it’s not as heavy anymore but last night’s monsoon would have turned the course into a gooey slurry of mud and rivers. I look at the website to check if it is still on, there is nothing on there to say it is not, I check the Twitter and Facebook page, but nothing is on there, I text Mat and Colin to see if they have heard anything, but they haven’t ……. Bugger …… it is still going ahead.

As usual all of my gear is laid out for me on the floor, today I will be wearing layers topped with my skeleton morphsuit, it is damn cold outside but the rain is easing off, not that it makes too much difference considering the lakes we are going to have to wade through shortly, it was bad enough last time in chilly November but this year it is on the 4^th January and the weather has been pretty arctic lately.

Mat arrives in Das Bus and we hit the road to pick up Colin, Mat is wearing an evil Dr’s morphsuit, let’s just say that the costume leaves a little less to the imagination than mine does and in this weather he is a brave brave man. We pick up Colin (timekeeping appalling I might add) and make our way to Longmoore Army camp to tackle Hellrunner Down South.

The course is made up of hills hills and hills, it is all off road and trail, moving through woods, streams, rivers, sand, and a huge amount of glorious mud, it is between 10 and 12 miles long and is truly energy sapping for its entirety. Included in its website description are the Hills of hell, and the Bog of Doom, both of which are severe enough to bonk out the most accomplished of athlete.

We park up and move out, on the way we take a look over at the Bog of Doom, is it just me or does this seem a lot deeper than last year? We walk down the soggy puddled trail towards the start line, the rain is still coming down as we huddle in line for the bag drop and it is cold enough for shivering goosebumpled arms and chattering teeth. Numbers pinned on and eager to go we head over to the herd of entrants waiting by the start line, we take shelter in a corrugated arched construction away from the freezing drizzle. Mat is getting a lot of attention in his morphsuit, and is certainly turning a lot of heads, maintaining eye contact is proving to be difficult for a lot of them due to being covered only in a thin layer of blue lycra.

One of the organiser comes rushing in screaming blue murder, at first I think something has gone wrong or someone is hurt, but it turns out he just wants everyone out of the shelter and for us all to line up at the start, in the rain, in the cold, in the wind,  brrrrrrrrrr. I spot my friend Martyn who I ran Tough Mudder with last year and he joins us to start the race together. I assure everyone that the first bit of water we will encounter properly is the Bog of Doom which is about 5/6 miles in or so, we just have to avoid the puddles along the way. This proves to be an exercise in futility from the first mile onwards.

Lumbering towards us comes the devil, walking on stilted Faun legs and brandishing pointed deep red horns he bellows encouragement to all participants, sparking up red flares he looms through the scarlet mist as a menacing Beelzebub, an illuminating Lucifer, this fallen angel and chief of the demons will sound the alarm to start the race and begin our adventure into a modern day filth splattered purgatory.

The first 300 metres or so were a pretty dry affair, the odd puddle threatened to dampen our laces but we managed to skip over the worse of it and pick our way over the dry patches of hard ground, half a mile later sopping wet shoes and sodden socks ensured that my promise of no water for 5 miles was to be somewhat unfounded. The path and terrain made it an impossibility to daintily hop over the watery obstacles and we found ourselves wading through a thigh deep, sub-zero, bitterly cold lake. As the water raised further up my legs towards the mid-rift area I was immediately glad I had a couple of layers to at least protect myself from the icy harshness of the watery elements, although it wouldn’t last forever I was at least grateful for a slight reprieve from the cold and that what warmth I had would be prolonged for a little while to come.

Stop for a while, take a breath in, as you do purse your lips, now breathe in harder and make a pa pa pa pa noise, increase your volume until you sound like steam train, this is the noise that a man makes when the Baltic conditions finally seeps through his clothes when submerged waist deep in water, it is like a Mexican wave of  locomotives as the icy chill hits everyone at the same time, the pack of competitors who drove into the lake with cheery dispositions and laughter now hurriedly rush to scramble up the bank the other side like wilder beasts trying to avoid the crocodiles in the rivers of the Serengeti, the small mercy to be thankful for is that what little lactic acid that had built up was certainly flushed away now, but this was of little comfort as we all nimbly and numbly emerged out of the water and made our way into the woods. The marshal cheerfully informed us that there wasn’t a lake there a few days ago, Mat Colin Martyn, and I laughed this off until the realisation came that we had another 10 miles of this to come.

I may sound like I am moaning a bit already, don’t get me wrong I love a challenge, I love cross countries, I love hills, I don’t even mind the odd puddle, if it was easy then everyone would do it and I like the aspect of trying things that the average Joe wouldn’t even consider, however my circulation in my hands and feet are awful, my feet especially now that they are soaking wet and will be for another hour and half to come, my hands are ok as I am wearing my gloves but I do have a bit of a moan before realising that I should just MTFU.

We are moving at some pace and overtaking a lot of people, we all train pretty hard at the gym on our legs with untold squats and lunges, Colin and Mat are keen cyclists too so we are making light work of even the steepest of hills, Mat is running ahead and Martyn slightly behind, Colin and I use drafting methods to catch him up, not for any wind resistance reasons but just for a bit of friendly motivational encouragement, we  all group up as we ascend the thick sticky clayed hills and put the trust in the work we have done on our thighs to power onwards and upwards to the summit. Head down and arms pumping I pick the appropriate path to make for the easiest route, looking up I am confronted with the thin blue lycra’d sight of Mat’s arse, to be fair it is quite pert but it is definitely not going to help me reach the top of this slope. This scenario is repeated throughout the race, as soon as you hit a down-hill an uphill almost immediately greets you with a big filth incrusted grimy sludge caked grin.

Many a slip and slide adorn our journey as people tumble and fall all around us, as yet we have avoided the temptation to come a cropper and have maintained balance and dignity, even on the treacherous descends we manage to horse trot side-wards with pacey precision in relative safety. We work our way over the course in true camaraderie fashion, providing a push or leg up where needed or an arm pull and a back pat at particularly harsh obstructions, true friendships can be cast when confronted with major hurdles, not just physical ones either, but when you have the mental and moral support of your chums it is truly appreciated.

Laughter is the best medicine, it is true, and laughing at someone’s misfortune (depending on the situation of course) can be one of the most rewarding therapies of all, I don’t mean in a horrible sense, more of a ‘You’ve Been Framed’ kind of way, it is well known that Colin and I have no coordination, in the Body Combat class we take at Waterlooville’s Horizon Gym we are notorious for making up our own moves and generally doing things at completely different times and directions to anyone else, Colin’s balance however fares a bit worse, as it proves today as we reach our first long stretch of water. Turning a corner in the woods we see our fellow participants queuing single file to slowly submerge themselves into a stretch of water about chest deep and about 50 yards long, Colin goes ahead of Mat and I as we precariously wade our way through the murky pond, about halfway in, our magician of a friend shows us his ‘now you see me, now you don’t’ trick and disappears into the drink with all of the grace of a falling stepladder, a Scottish cry of ‘oooerrrrrrr’ fills the air before the final splash of an undignified entry, brilliant this is just what I need to pick me up and I bellow a laughter of approval, heightened further still as Colin’s head breaks the surface of the water still full of smiles but covered in boggy residue.

I am not sure where I injured my knee, I think it was a combination of the descends that took its toll and caused it to start being a problem, it meant that running uphill was now becoming a struggle and I was being left behind, however going down them I was able to catch up and overtake, I was starting to limp a little and could really do with something to numb the pain …. It was like the devil himself had heard me and offered me his best solution for the problem, the ‘Bog of Doom’ .. a stretch of water longer than any of the others awaited us, crowds of supporters were watching from both sides of the bank as loved ones and friends sink themselves into the dark waters of the stagnant pond of filth. Blasts of dry ice are funnelled into the stinking ravine and lingers on the surface like a menacing mist warning you of your impending doom, yet beckoning you in like the Camp Crystal Lake. Entry into the bog was more of a plunge as you was immediately greeted at neck height by glacial water of hyper thermic proportions, my breath wasn’t just taken away it was forcibly removed like an elephant had trampled on me, I couldn’t catch my breath at all and tried to propel myself forwards as fast as I could to get it over and done with, my feet reached for the bottom and it was soon very apparent that the only way to get through this was to swim, I was a bit panicky if I am honest and looking around most people were wide eyed and heavy breathing, that is to say everyone but Mat, Mat in his 1mm thick costume was pulling out the backstroke like it was a dip in the Mediterranean, here I am fighting just to breathe and he is diving under the water and larking about like it’s a summers day on the beach, plumes of dry iced smoke are fired into our faces making it impossible to see anything in front of you, there are people around us grabbing onto trees for safety, some are doing their best to pull themselves out at the sides, one girl was being carried through the water, I am moving forward with the best breast stroke I can muster, Colin is ahead and shouting encouragement as he reaches toe touching ground, and Mat is just enjoying it. There are camera’s the other side and I do my best (for once) to avoid them, I can’t even fake a smile, that is by far the worst thing I have ever had to do in a race and even though there are a few more streams to cross I know now that the worst is over and done with, at least my knee feels better.

More and more hills come but the finish line is almost in sight, my momentum starts to pick up after a few minutes, and even more so as I can hear some cheerleading up ahead, the water and exhaustion must have made me delirious as coming up I think I can see singing angel cheerleaders, I look at the lads and a nod confirms that there are indeed scantily clad cheerleading angels up ahead, we run through the middle of them as they chant rhymes of inspiration and praise as we continue on our run through the woods with renewed vigour.

The final mile or so consists of sand, wet leg sapping, shoe sucking sand, trudging wearily through we manage to reach every peak and persuade our muscles to take us home, there is one final dip through a waist height lake and we are on the final straight, all together, running as one, running ….. well a bit faster, and faster still, there has not been a pre-organised sprint finish, in fact this race has been all about good friends helping each other out, yet still we are getting faster and faster, we turn a corner and see the finish line, we are now flat out, neck and neck, wailing and screaming limbs are begging us to slow it down but our competitive brains will not let it happen, the line is getting closer and closer and we are in synch right down to the stride, the red mats suddenly appear and the head dipping chest lunging push for the line is now over.

We will have to wait for a while for the results to be published on the website, to be fair it was just a bit of fun and no one really cares what the time was, maybe a bit of bragging rights for later that’s all. We grab our medals (awesome by the way) and our goody bags and make our way back to Das Bus, my feet are blue with cold and it takes a good hour or so for them to go back to normal colour, the heaters are on full blast as we all get changed inside Mats VW. I can only apologise to the lady who was getting changed very discretely by the side of her car next to us, as with most races it’s not unusual to get changed in and around your car, however I am sure she wasn’t expecting the sight of three naked bums peering at her from inside the vehicle next to her.

So that was it, for me it was tougher than Tough Mudder due to the conditions, but I enjoyed it immensely, the whole day proved how fellow runners, mates and competitors, can all pull together and work as a team, runners are already the friendliest groups of people I know and events like this show how you can form real alliances and bonds with strangers and friends alike. It is about the journey, not how long it takes to get there, and if you come second in the race but put in 100% then no one could ever ask for more ………… isn’t that right Colin ;o) ……….