Race - Major Series (Midlands) - 20th April 2013

The Major series is run by British Military Fitness, I don't train with BMF, but the missus does and she told me about this race. She wasn't up for it but I signed myself up for it. The race number and chips are sent out before the race, so i rocked up 30 mins before fully kitted up. A quick look around the event village and a trip to the loo, and I was starting my warm and stretches. After 10 mins of stretching the 'official' warm was due to begin, I joined in,. but I found the warm childish and didn't really get me warmed up, so i was grumpy in the corner doing my own thing whilst the majority of the rest of the runners ran through each others legs and did the hockey cokey. I must have missed the starting pistol, as i was just standing near the start line and people started running off. I joined the runners and worked my way up to the leading group.

The water jump in the pre race dawn

The running was good and an early shallow water jump livened up the pace and spread the runners out a little. The running through the fields and woodland was tough going with shallow tree hurdles, and muddy ditches to jump. This was certainly a cross country runners, run. so i was very happy to be able to keep in the leading group. In the opening few kilometres the course was mainly running with no real obstacles until a pool of dark muddy water to wade across. The water was pretty foul, so i was glad to be only at waist depth. after more running, a series of hale vaults loomed. The hale bails where up ended, large round hay bales that stood roughly chest height. the first two or three were tackled with ease, but got progressively harder and more painful to clamber over. by the final bale (10th, at a guess) I was pretty knackered but had to carry running. the next series of obstacles were around a steep sided bomb hole in the woods. steep climbs and descend with commando crawls mixed in, helped me gain a few places from the runners that peeled away from me in the open running.

Because I'm worth it

After more running through fields, I spotted the next obstacle which was a water slide on a large tarpaulin. I didn't slow my pace, in fact I may have cranked it up and leap out, feet first onto the wet slippery blue sheet. The rough grass at the end of the tarpaulin did a good job of slowing my free fall  but took a far amount of skin from the side of my left thigh too! at the bottom of the hill the course sharply turned back up the hill to climb back up a second blue tarpaulin. As I crawled like a cat up the blue tarpaulin, marshals tried to slow our progress with buckets of water. A few more hill reps help take more energy out of my legs and lungs.

More running and a few more minor obstacles,and i was faced with a larger obstacle, this time it was a deeper pond with four dunking points where I had to submerge fully under a pipe on the surface of the water. this disorientates and the extra chill saps what remaining energy I still had. The marshals gave out lots of encouragement and I push on for the last 250 meters which included a couple of kids with paint filled water pistols..

post race self portrait

I finished I was slightly disappointed I hadn't pushed harder in the last 2 kilometres  and let a few people past me, but I hadn't realized I when I was in the last 2 km. It was a decent trail run, and fairly average obstacles, with a couple of notable talking points.

In summary: A great trail run, but only a few obstacles and challenges of note. Incredible marshalling and motivating from the BMF instructors. 

Scores (out of 10)
Course: 5
Terrain: 7
Difficulty: 6
Return factor: 5
Overall: 6.5

Race - Endurer - 13th April 2013

This is my third time at this race, and i keep coming back because I love the course, and i will keep coming back until i manage to run every step of this course, which may take a very long time!
I was picked up and we drove the 45 mins through the stunning countryside of Matlock, Matlock Bath, Darley Dale, the stunning Chatsworth Estate, Baslow and then up to Holmesfield its self. we parked up registered and then go into our race kit.

Whilst i queued for the toilets, Jim had time to sneak in a quick pre-race massage. The pre-race warm up was a bit of a mess due to sound equipment problems and most people not really getting involved. managed to jostle up to about the 3rd line of the starting group. a quick 10 second countdown and we were off. It isn't technically an obstacle, but the first 150 meters of the course is an incredibly steep run. that ends with a less steep field to run up. It was only a minute and a half into the race but my lungs and legs were starting to feel the strain.

After the killer uphill start we had a short sand bag carry and 15 meter commando crawl which was very wet and muddy but great fun. it was then my favorite part of the course and one of the unique selling points of this  race. The Ravine. The ravine is a steep stumble down to the valley floor into a narrow slate bedded stream. the course at this point become single file but it's hard to press hard enough, to try and pass another racer. running streams and and climbing up and down the small valley walls are hard work but this path is beautiful and incredibly challenging.

Thankful to be resting my legs by crawling

Once into the open the course took another uphill turn, this long drag always defeats me, turning my pace down to a somber trudge, towards the top i fired my self up and ran the last 20 meters before the narrow young tree wooded area and into the heather and gorse bush strewn moorland. The moorland is a hard place to run due to the tall, sharp gorse bushes trying to snag clothes, shoes, and in my case; beard. The trail its self is incredibly twisty to ensure zero rhythm, and incredibly muddy in places to ensure at least one poor sole will loose their footwear today. The one thing that pushes you on is the knowledge that some great tunnels are up ahead. these 10 meter long, mud carpeted. muddy crawl tunnels.

Managed to hit the ground running

another run around the edge of a farmer's field and I was met with the monkey bar challenge, last year I had mountain bike gloves on that had zero grip, and I fell at the first rung and, they were to high to re-attempt. but this year I came armed (or should that be handed) with neoprene surf gloves, with more grip than a gecko's gonad. after the monkey bars it was a shock to see the track was through a foot of snow. the hardest things was the dazzling reflection from the sun on the snow. the uphill snow run was hard, but was spurred on by the crowds poking their head over the warm, clapping and cheering on the runners. at the end of the snow was a huge pile of tires, piled up against a gap in the wall. it was half climb half fall to get over the rubber obstacle.

A welcome water stop and a short marsh run, and then, once again opens out into more farmers fields, this was a long drag of runs, but at least I could open up my legs up and build up a decent pace. After a km or 2 the run was brought to an abrupt halt by a 7 foot wooden wall. i slowed to a job and with a meter to go, i leapt and managed to get an arm over, which gave enough purchase to bring a leg over, which gave enough weight to throw the rest of my body over the wall and crash into the floor on the other side. its not elegant, but it is efficient and quick.

I'm a slow swimmer so jump as far as possible

After a few more minutes it was bath time, a swim across 20 meters of neck deep water with a couple of ropes to help drag yourself across on. As a approached the lip of the water, two cameraman adjusted their position and focused their cameras, and the gathering crowd expected entertainment. Well. I know's it deep. Go on then. I leapt as far as i could and give the water hard and fast. i managed to keep my head out of water but my beard got a dunking. i swam until last couple of meters and then used the ropes to drag myself to my feet and out the other end.

With only 1 km to go the tank is nearly empty

It was now three hard and lonely zig zags up and down the steep field, a traverse across some chipboard frames, a series of sole destroying hay bale clambers before the hilarious and high speed water slide, with added fairy liquid to help things along. I was now in the quarter of a km so I emptied the tank and ran as hard as possible to the finish line.

once we hard cleaned up and sneaked another massage in we headed to a local cafe and replaced the lost calories with a huge 10 item breakfast and a mug of tea.

In summary: a stunning and incredibly hilly course that has only about 1 km of uninterrupted cross country running, the obstacles are basic and more fun than challenging.

Scores (out of 10)
Course: 8
Terrain: 10
Difficulty: 8
Return factor: 10
Overall: 9

Book review - I am not spock by Leonard Nimoy

I read Leonard Nimoy's 'I am not spock' a while back after finding it in a local book fair. It constantly referenced the early book so I set I out to find a copy. The book was surprising short at 134 pages and only covered the period when he played spock in the tv series and jobs he did for a fee years after. It was interesting but so many of the stories had been covered in his second autobiography. So if you want to know more about Leonard Nimoy then just read his second book, as it contains most of the first anyway.

Tattoo - Next phase - Chest moon craters and duel semi spiral crop circles

Started designing the next steps for my tattoo, and a few doodles on paper I re-drew the preferred ones on Google draw. these are the ones that made the short list:

Duel semi spirals crop circle

I decided the larger duel semi spirals crop circle would fit on my chest and use an existing circle on my chest as the larger open circle and work away from there and try and encompass my other nipple in the design, as i have already used one nipple in my previous designs. I overlaid the design of a picture of my chest, and amended the rotation of the design and made minor tweaks to make it look and fit better. I would have the smaller solid circles follow my chest and not run onto my arm. I don't have the knowledge to create a 3D digital model of myself, and overlay the tattoos in position, so I'll have to cope with 2D versions of 3D objects.

Duel semi spirals crop circle tattoo idea.

With this design it leaves a lot of white space above the new duel semi spirals, I played with adding the other smaller designs but they just didn't quite fit, and I had already decided they would go on my shoulder above the New Zealand Koru and Australian water hole map.

After being inspired by reading Buzz Aldrin's book and watch the sky at night, i spotted a detailed lunascape and the amazing and random patterns left by meteor strikes. i though the patterns would make a great addition to my tattoo. I put some research in to where Apollo 11 landed (the first moon landing) and found Google have mapped the moon rather well http://www.google.com/moon/ and i manged to find a great topography map of the specific area i wanted.

Julius Caesar area  of  Mare Tranquillitatis on The Moon.

Next all I had to do was outline the craters again using Google draw, and then copy the crater outlines onto the picture of my torso. I've used a star to mark the landing site for the Apollo 11 mission but this may change, I chose a star as its such a strong symbol of America, but I've also though about using XI, or an alien symbol. This leaves the below template ready to be printed to scale and given to a tattoo artist.

80% there and ready to be inked.

Something just didn't look right so I've added more circles to the duel semi spiral design, also the circles on the moonscape were a little to oval so they needed a tweak too i'm loosing the star that marks the Apollo 11 mission landing site and replacing it with the Klingon symbol for 11.

Final version, ready for printing and to be given to the tattoo artist.

Book Review - My Time by Bradley Wiggins

I was given this book as a Christmas present and was very excited about reading it. I've always followed the tour de France and have always enjoyed cycling. So when Wiggo became the first British man to win the tour and then go on to win yet another gold at the Olympics  I couldn't wait to find out more about the man and the processes he had to go through.

The book gave a great insight into his training regime and the huge team effort that goes into propelling someone into the yellow jersey and keeping it too.

The book is very funny in places and Bradley's wit and passion come shining through all the way through. He is at his best when he is offended or has something to shout about. His bluntness and simplistic honesty is very amusing and makes him very engaging to read about.

Book Review - Beave new world by Aldous Huxley

I've wanted to read this book for years, it's one of those 'must reads', a 'classic sci fi'. It's mentioned and referenced in lots of sci fi books I've read, so thought it was time to see what the fuss is about.

I was surprised by the amount of sexual content. Not that this book is smutty or racey, it just deals with some quite unusual sexual activities. With my own prudish ways put to one side, the book was very well thought out, with very plausible predictions of the future.

The lead characters were fascinating and engaging and I always wanted to know what was to happen next. The story itself was a little bland with no real conclusion. The moral dilemmas and questions of 'happiness verses freedom' were stimulating to ponder over, but felt a little week.

In summary, I enjoyed the characters and vision of the future, but i felt let down by the plot.

Race - Wild Warrior - 17th Mar 2013

Before, looking clean and warm

Sunday morning was a miserable one, drizzling and grey and chilly. Ness and I loaded up the camper van after breakfast and headed to the site. We arrived just before 10 am and the parking field was already getting cut up and cars were wheel spinning and sliding. The bongo did well and we parked up, and headed off to sign in and register for the race. We then pottered about, went and looked at the new fire and monkey bar obstacles, then just hung around waiting for other mates to arrive.

The pre-race warm up was very crowed on the hard packed surface, and we couldn't really get a decent warm up but I had already stretched in the morning so at least I got my blood pumping a little. From the gun my mate went out pretty hard so I hung on to his heels and chased him to the first hay bales he beat me down the other side but I managed to push past him on the uphill run to the next bales. the ground was incredibly slick and wet and gaining traction was incredibly difficult. Any incline or corner resulted in instant 'Bambi on ice' flailing and sliding.

Best photo ever

This year they added 2 new obstacles of a fire pit and monkey bars. I'm not a fan of fire obstacles mainly because they are usually just a simple leap, and the burning hay gives off very acrid smoke which hurts the lungs and stings the eyes. But the wind was up and the smokes wasn't too thick, and it does make for incredible photos. The monkeys bars only spanned a stream and so I decided to leap as far as possible and grab a far away bar. But that bar was about 20 cm too far away and i just ended up in the stream. I quickly dragged my way out and continued the run (stumble and slide).

Trudging on

Next up was the swamp of doom, 50 meters of waist to nipple deep water; thick with mud and hidden trip hazards, tight corners and testicle shrinking coldness. It is impossible to move through this with any speed, you are simply forced to wade and try and maintain momentum with out taking a fall. The climb out of the swamp is muddy and slippery and a challenge all of its own.

The course now opens up and running becomes a lots easier and you can almost build up a rhythm, but there are still hay bales, cargo nets and water dips to break it up again, and the slippery grass and mud mean that every step is a fight for traction and every slip is a back jarring jerk. Nothing was going to be easy today.

Post mud slide chills

Once the open field filtered into a more wooded landscape the obstacles became harder with spider webs of rope criss-crossing between the trees, and another water plunge, and a run of hay bale hurdles. Next up came the showpiece of the course, the water slide. A 10 meter slide in to, yet more, cold, muddy waist deep water. This is a great, fun obstacle, but unfortunately I managed to get a sharp stone in my shoe whilst wading out the pool. I had to fish it out as it was too painful to run on. it took ages to re-tie my laces as my hands where painfully cold and unresponsive. Most annoyingly it gave my mate a chance to pass me.

None stop obstacles

Once my shoe was back on, I ran hard to try and catch up but obstacles and the rope climb up a very muddy and slick mud-bank. I crawled though tunnels, ran through mud and deep puddles, climbed cargo nets, vaulted over A-frames, teetered over balance beams, rolled under cargo nets, and cautiously climbed over a Jacob's ladder, before starting the second lap. I could see my mate at the other end of the field. it was going to be very hard to catch but i'm going to try. The second 5 km lap was even slippier due to the added footfall of extra runners. Every obstacle seemed higher, deeper, colder, greasier and so much harder. Those sweet spots of grippy, un-crushed grass were become a rare memory. My legs and clothes were heavier and clinging to my skin to add to my discomfort.

With the end in sight

 I fell over much more and actually welcomed the short break of lying or sitting in the brown sludge rather being frustrated by the pace stealing accidents. I met with many more back markers and large groups of charity walkers which always pushes you to run past them to avoid being caught at a the pre-obstacle bottle neck. It was still a hard painful trudge over the final obstacles to the finish lane, with bleeding scraped knees but what a sense of accomplishment. Even through i have ran this course 3 or 4 times now, this was by far the hardest time, and possibly the hardest event I have ran. I moved quickly to the bag storage area to quickly dry and change. But my hands were so cold and numb I had to pull my shoes off with undoing the laces. Getting changed was as hard as any of the obstacles and was fought with lots of grunting and mini victories won with each heavy mud infused layer peeled off. I grabbed a coffee to help warm me up. It definitely warm my hand up as I was shaking so bad it ended up all over my hand and forearm. I walked back through the course to keep warm and cheer on my sister and Ness.

In summary: every step was a challenge due to terrible weather conditions. probably the hardest race I've done to date. but still great fun!

Scores (out of 10)
Course: 8
Terrain: 8
Difficulty: 8
Return factor: 10
Overall: 8.5