We arrived to find about 70+ rather fit-looking athletes warming up inside the Scout Hall way out the back-of-beyond - all wearing 'serious' wet-weather gear, small emergency backpacks and quite amazing head torches. Joshua was one of only 4 children in the event. (I should possibly have headed back to the car at that stage!)
After an introduction 'chat' by the officials where they spoke of emergency blankets, thermal clothing, the mud and slush causing people to break their ankles in these running conditions, how dark it was up in the bushes, the gun quickly sounded and before I could give any more thought to what we were about to do, we were off!
We headed into the bushes at around 6.30pm in pitch darkness and we started by climbing up to the ridgeline. It was a hard climb, made only more difficult because of the mud and slush, and the track was only wide enough for one runner so that when someone called out they wanted to pass you had to literally climb up onto the bank and hold onto foliage or trees.
I lost count of the number of times Joshua lost his footing and went down into the mud but he was amazing ... he simply picked himself up and kept going. The adrenalin carried us for awhile and it was quite amazing seeing all the bobbing head torches in the dark. Joshua wore his jacket that had his name printed on the back and other runners were wonderful with their encouragement of him (as they passed us!) .
However, by the time we got to the top, the runners were starting to stretch out and Josh and I found ourselves being rather left behind. The most scary part was realising that the two of us were wearing only children's head torches that did not give very much light coverage at all - at one stage, Mummy was almost bent over using her head torch as a hand-torch desperately trying to make out the path!
At one stage, we seemed all alone up there and Mummy confesses to a mild panic attack, but then the overriding feeling to look after Josh kicked in and we carried on. Unfortunately our torch headlights were not strong enough to pick up the arrows and we missed one turning and found ourselves heading down a wrong track. Fortunately we had not gone too far and were able to re-track our movements and join back on the right track - phew!
Well, I have to say ... I have never been so relieved to see a finish line in all my life! Josh and I, covered in mud and wet from the rain, held hands as we crossed the finish line. What a little trooper he was and it was lovely to see so many people come up and pat him on the back and congratulate him.
We grabbed a quick sausage off the barbeque but didn't wait for the spot prizes. Joshua had to have his muddy clothes literally peeled off him before he could get in the car.
Let's just say that we have ticked that event off the 'bucket list' and I would certainly not contemplate another one unless (1) it was fine weather and (2) it had been good dry weather for at least a week beforehand, and (3) we invested in some serious headlight torches!
A hot shower had never felt so good!
A 'before' shot - very happy with his head-torch on, naively unaware of what was in store
And now the after-shots ... and this only shows the mud on the 'outside' of the clothes, you should have seen up his back!
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