IceBreaker - view from the rear...

It's a beautiful bright sunny day for IceBreaker and I'm allowed to park close to the race village as I'm the designated back-marker (or 'arse of the race' as Fit Mark so aptly puts it).  As soon as I arrive I meet both Elsie and Mike the Mic who spot that I've driven myself up in the absence of any Melodeon Master.

Me:  He's at band practice.
Elsie:  He practices?  He needs to.
Mike the Mic:  He practices?  It doesn't show.

I am enormously cheered up.

I collect my Mud Runner official red bib and walkie talkie with promises not to drown it this time.  I find Fit Mark looking spectacularly fit, and Beagle Nic with Quick Ceri and Ceri's husband Matthew as Team Honey Badgers.  If they're going with the definition of 'fearless' then it's a great team name, if they're going with 'aggressive' then maybe it needs a re-think... I tell Fit Mark that I expect great things of him - he doesn't disappoint, finishing an absolutely BRILLIANT 27th out of 418 finishers.  I was 418th, but that didn't really come as much of a surprise given the title 'back-marker'.

The race starts in two waves, so I'm not only at the back, but at the back of the back wave.  The runners set off with me in pursuit and they are QUICK.  My fastest time for a flat kilometre on trails ever is 7 minutes 30 seconds, my average for a kilometre uphill at the start of a run is 9 minutes.  I complete the first uphill kilometre in 6 minutes 47 seconds.  I realise if I carry on like this I may well be dead by the end of the run.  After 2k (luckily a few people slowed up - phew) I come across No. 198 doubled over and sweating profusely, but not in a good way.  He says he's had flu and was in two minds whether to start.  We discuss the fact that there are still 31 arduous kilometres to go, and he says he'll call it a day.  One of the lovely marshals walks him back to the nearest Land Rover, and I carry on, now unable to see anyone in front of me at all.  With much puffing, hurrying and a fair bit of grunting, I catch the back-marker - a lovely chap called Warren with a T-shirt that says 'Too Old For This'.  I wonder how old he is, so I ask - '44 last week'.  I don't have the heart to tell him how old I am.  We jog along companionably, agreeing that it's very muddy and very tough.  He's been talked into doing it (his first mud running event) by a friend who now isn't doing it herself.  We agree that she owes him a BIG drink.  A bottle in fact.  Several bottles.  At some point in the woods I see the obelisk that I know we'll cycle past later - it's absolutely miles away.  I don't point it out to Warren...

When we get back to transition and collect our bikes we have completed the run in 1 hour 58 minutes - that's a whole TEN MINUTES faster than Ice Cream Sian and I did it last year - and this year was a lot muddier and tougher.  I am chuffed.  I couldn't have gone any faster, and am hugely grateful to Warren for being about the same speed as me.  He says he's 'better on a bike' and promptly proves it by belting across the first field and uphill section.  I puff, hurry and grunt behind.  Again.  We pass two girls who are giving up and heading back to transition.  At this point I can't say I blame them...

Soon we're into something resembling a ploughed field, and we're walking - then it's up, up and up to the obelisk.  Then a downhill where Warren goes so fast I'm going slightly faster than I want to in order to keep up - the bike is bouncing on the stones and my teeth are rattling.  Once in the woods it's lethally slippy and we're walking again.  Then we see somebody ahead - a gorgeous blonde girl with no helmet.  I say goodbye to Warren knowing that he'll push on and get ahead, and I stay with the Very Pretty Blonde.  She's absolutely frozen, bless her.  She's only wearing a thin T shirt and knee length running trousers - no gloves, no extra layer, no drinks, no energy bars.  She's struggling and going very very s-l-o-w-l-y.  We pass one of the marshals who is concerned that she has no helmet and says he'll get a Land Rover to come back the other way and bring one to her.  We pass an ambulance and another Land Rover who fall into convoy behind us.  It's a rather slow convoy, but quite comforting to have an ambulance so close behind.

We're now out of the tough woodland bit and onto decent tracks, but the poor VPB is frozen stiff and really not thinking straight - and really not pedalling much.  We meet the marshal who's been sent back with a bike helmet, and this seems to be the last straw for her.  She does another 100m or so then asks how far we have to go.  My clever watch thingy says that we've got about another 14k of the bike section still to do and she asks if anyone has given up.  I tell her about the two girls who doubled back, and that I've heard on the radio about various others who have called it a day.  She says she's had enough and because our following Land Rover is full of marshals by this time, she gets a lift home in the ambulance.  I'm slightly jealous as I am, by this time, completely frozen too.

Once she's safe I pedal like crazy to try and catch the back-markers.  I know I'm a long way back - but I don't know how far.  At the entrance to the deer park it's possible to see 4k or 5k ahead - there's nobody in view.  I fly down the hill, all the miles on the heinous exercise bike coming into their own, along the back straight and down to the lovely smiley marshal standing by a Toyota 4x4 at the far end.  I ask how far back I am.  'A long way'.  Then, 'Do you want me to chuck the bike in the back and give you a lift?'

I think fleetingly of the personal glory of achieving 33k under my own steam, the medal, the T shirt.

With the bike in the back we're soon buzzing along the last leg of the deer park, into the woods, along by the Dirty Weekend campsite, into more woods and across a seriously steep field.  We pick up cadets who've been acting as marshals along the way, two of them fitting into the back with my bike.  When we hit a bump there's a resounding SMACK noise from the back of the van - heads on roof, I think.  They seem to be fine, bless them.  After about 6k we see back-markers at the top of a grassy hill - I've never been so pleased to see a collection of backsides pushing bikes.  I hop out with profuse thank-yous to all the cadets, grab my handlebars and jog up the hill.  It's a bunch of people I don't recognise - and Warren.  We chat a bit, cycle down the other side of the hill (again, he's quick) and then come across another back-marker at the next marshal point.  This time it's Sarah who is out of sugar, has ordinary trainers and is riding a road bike with failed brakes.  Warren carries on, and I don't see him again. The lovely photographer gives Sarah a Mars bar and I find a spare Snickers in my rucksack so she has that too.  And water from the marshal.  Then, feeling better, we're off again.  Well, 'off' as in moving - with the brakes issue she can't really ride her bike downhill, and with the road tyres it just gets clogged on the grass, so she can't really ride it on the grassy bits either.  We walk a lot, chatting about the race, running in general (she's done half-marathons - proper runner!) and mud.  Soooo much mud.  Mostly in her front wheel, to be fair.

When we get back to transition we share a bottle of Lucozade and some jelly babies from my supplies and then we're off again - running the last 3k.  Boy, she's quick when she runs!  I'm puffing, hurrying and grunting again.  Luckily she's fairly wiped out and walks a good deal and we chat.  We finish with a back-marker wrapped in a foil blanket, and Sarah collects her well-earned medal and goody bag.  I say to Elsie that I don't think I've earned a medal and T shirt as I did 6k in a Toyota.  He says I have - no more prompting needed, and the medal and T shirt combo is lovely, thank you!  I pose with Sarah in front of the finish board with the incredibly patient and smiley photographers - can't wait for the posh pics later this week!

Will I do it again?  I'll want to be faster at running and wear more layers on the bike.  And I'd want the lovely smiley marshal with his Toyota on tap too.

Right now, today, I'm thinking that at 52, I really am Too Old For This.