The Majors Series - 5k in the mud

We were lucky with the weather. The cold grey start gave way to a brighter, less chilly morning without much wind. Sally [wife of Uncle Jonnie] was kind enough to drive four of us out there. The other competitors from South and City College Birmingham were at the 10K distance and had already set off. We had entered ourselves for the much saner 5K event.

The warm-up consisted of being shouted at by a soldier who looked a bit like Jessie from Obese: A Year to Save My Life. The ladies and Steve were suitably impressed. Private Jessie had us spinning round arm in arm, lying on our backs in the mud and jumping up and down doing high-fives before I could say 'WTF is this sh!t?'

The actual start was a hesitant few steps into wet grass and mud before realizing that the whole course was ankle deep in grey filth. Then I just started running in it and hoping that the ankles held up to the punishment...

The plan had been to run with Steve but he was being much more sensible and taking it easy on the slippery stuff. Then came the first real obstacle - imagine coming across a watery bog surrounded by broken, barren trees. Obviously, you'd turn back or try to find a way round. But apparently not when you're running one of these assault courses, that would be considered bad form. So it was that I found myself in a long line of other horrified Karrimor-clad people, nipples deep in freezing brown water and ankles deep in thick, sucking mud. After wading, dragging and stumbling out of the bog, I was then expected to run up a hill or two and then wade across a lake. Yes, a lake. Up to my chest in freezing cold lake. Then to wade across another bit of the lake. And then another bit. After that, a spot of mud running/stumbling, then a hill... you get the picture.

Actually the pictures are here. You just need to type in my number: 0396.

The big disappointment for me came after about 3K, just before the hill slide: a queue. Not a queue of about 10 or 12 people, but a queue of about 50, maybe more, A queue that lasted minutes. A queue where people behind me could push past to catch up with their friends at the front of the queue. And that was okay, apparently. It really did beg the question: why was I wearing a timing chip? Would it time how long I spent queuing? Would it count how many red-faced chubby girls elbowed me out of the way so that they could stand next to the rest of the girls from the local ASDA? The hill slide itself was great fun, especially the bit where I did a 180 half way down and found myself hurtling head first instead of feet first.

Disappointingly, there was another huge queue for the barbed wire obstacle, a queue which I obediently stood in to the point where I started shivering. 15 minutes ago I had been sweating. The obstacle itself was crap - a crawl through the mud under barbed wire. Unfortunately, the mud was laced with rocks. Lucy and I had a lovely collection of cuts and bruises on our knee-caps to compare later on.

The ending of the event was great. I made a mad sprint for the line although who I was competing against at the time I have no idea. Perhaps I considered myself a young, muddy Seb Coe being chased down by the horribly working class and equally muddy Steve Ovett? Whatever I was thinking, head back and panting, I crossed the line a happy, filthy 39 year old in a muddy field near Tamworth.

I managed to raise about £120 for MacMillan nurses over my 2 event challenge [I did the Mad March Hare cycle ride 6 days earlier] as well as testing my ability to complete a messy, demanding event like this. The big surprise [besides queuing] was the fact that I ran the whole thing. I suppose I'm actually fitter than I thought I was. A few more weekend beers and slices of bread pudding should sort that out, though.

Big love and thanks to: Lucy, Sally, Naomi, Steve, Natasha, Raye, Clare, Craig the Bear, Laurie, Jo and all of my sponsors.