Oblivion!

At 1.30 this morning I was woken up by the rain lashing down and thought 'ok, very funny, it can stop now'. 6 dry weeks and then torrential rain for 2 days? Made for good mud though!

My birthday started brilliantly with lots of run-related pressies from Guy (a lot of them being Things For Dodgy Knees) gin and a necklace from Ice Cream Sian, and champagne and an absolutely fantastic birthday card from Fit Mark:

There must have been close to 1000 cars in the Deer Park at Eastnor Castle, but we managed to find each other - by this time it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out. Perfect!

And look how CLEAN we are. Please do look... it didn't last long!

The course started with a really, really long uphill... Ice Cream Sian and I managed about two thirds of it then gave up and walked - we'll admit now that Ice Cream Sian's achilles enforced lack of training and my stinking cold were not the best preparation...

After the long up there was a long down, then another up, then a down, then a swamp... Our first taste of being seriously muddy - brilliant! Fit Mark was well ahead of us, despite running as slow as he could, and yelled back to smile for the photographer. We did our best. In the early stages there wasn't space for spectators, but we think we've been caught on camera by the official sports photographers, so hopefully more photos later in the week... After the swamp there was another uphill and I was seriously wheezing by this time - or 'Darth Vader having an asthma attack' as Fit Mark put it. There was talk of forcibly retiring me, so I ignored them both and wheezed less...

The track was either slippery, or about hip deep in water - amazing! One of the huge muddy puddles had a cameraman on it, so Fit Mark came back into the water to pose with Ice Cream Sian and me for a photo - that should be a super photo. Or at least it was until I lost my footing and went SPLAT into the water - the cameraman loved it! Nice and cool though...

There were obstacles about every kilometre - climbing over telegraph poles, under telegraph poles in water, a series of four 6 foot high fences (and loads of people trying to climb over, the main thing to avoid was being kicked in the teeth by the person in front) and an incredibly complicated cats cradle construction over the deepest mud on the trail - I got one leg completely stuck in the mud and thought my trainer was going to come off, but thank goodness it just stayed put, with a fab sucking noise as it eventually came free...

There was a water station half way round with the lovely stewards and volunteers handing out water and Red Bull. Damned Fine Idea.

Fit Mark was seriously faster than us on the uphills, and also seriously faster than us on the downhills... This meant that he spent a lot of the race (can we call it a race when we took 20 minutes to do a mile?) waiting for us and peering back to see if we were in view...

Nope. We're nowhere in sight...

Ice Cream Sian and I were spectacularly muddy before we got to the two lakes at the end... We knew we were going to get cleaner, so we posed for a photo taken by Guy before we jumped in. I think it was cold - we were so hot by then it was just refreshing. If muddy...

And this is us crossing the second lake - look, all smiling!

To get out there was a large orange padded mat - Ice Cream Sian skipped up the left side and I was just eyeing up the knotted rope to climb out when Fit Mark came back, grabbed me and hauled me up. Probably just as well as I think I might still be there otherwise...

Then he grabbed both of us by the hands, yelled 'SPRINT FINISH' and set off like a train...

So we sprint finished! That's Guy on the left, with Rubbish Running Dog in her favoured 'nose down hunt the hamburger' pose which she adopts at large public events.

And that was it - we were handed medals as we finished, and tin foil blankets, and T shirts (yay!) We were filthy. Utterly filthy. And very, very happy! Fit Mark had disappeared to get changed by this time while Ice Cream Sian and I stood around saying 'we did it' over and over again.

And then it was birthday picnic time - in a warm sunny car park. In a Force 8 gale. Where did the wind come from? We had to hang on to cups, plates, bottles - well, everything really! Guy's quiche was great and our chocolate cake with chocolate icing had got squashed so it really did look like part of the mud run.

The Mud Runner was utterly brilliant! The camaraderie was great - everyone slipping, sliding and getting filthy together, shrieks as people fell over, nearby runners checking to see nobody was injured, three boys running as pink fairies, and a chap in a cow outfit (who passed us...) Ice Cream Sian smiled the whole way round (the photographers loved her) and we did finish the course. At a sprint.

Fit Mark's best insult? Telling Ice Cream Sian she went across a deep muddle like a Jesus Lizard, then changing his mind and saying 'Oh no, I meant a Jesus Hippo...'

Our time? Hmmm, 2 hours 8 minutes. Pretty rubbish, but the lack of recent training and the wheezing did for it... we'll be under 2 hours next year.

Oh yes, we've already decided we're doing it next year!