Tuesday 10 December 2013

Hell Up North 2012

So after completing all the wainwrights, what next? a few local people told me about a race they had done the previous year called HellRunner (Hell Up North), so I looked it up and decided to hit the enter button. That was it my first race since my school years, 11 miles around the forest with a bog or two thrown in, can’t be that hard could it?

Race day came and boy it was chilly, just above freezing, the forest was full of harden runners and me not so hardened. I made my way over to the start once wave 1 had gone and 30 minutes later we were off. Straight into it the route took us up the old pale, I’m not too bad on hills, I think all my walking helps with that, so I was sitting just behind the lead group thinking to my self, it’s not too bad this.

After a couple of miles in we hit the forest down small muddy tracks, wave 1 had churned it up nicely by then and the first bog came. I saw a nice big log which sort of lay over the bog and I thought that’s my way across, one or two steps across the log and then straight in I went, I could hardly move, but managing to pull myself out, I scrambled up the bank and onwards . The next few miles were not to bad more muddy hills, streams and then what no one was expecting a LAKE. Lake Lucifa oh joy, I could hear everybody shouting so I decided on the tactic of just run in and hope for the best! it was freezing and it came straight upto my waist. Everyone was trying to stick to a ledge which was the shallow part, mistake 1 gridlock, nobody moved and I was getting colder and colder so I had no choice but to head for deeper water and swin for it! I’m so glad I did otherwise I would of been there another 20 minutes at least, I then made my way out and pressed on. I couldn’t feel my toes and I just wanted to finish now, I then came to the last bog, this was easy compared to the lake and then onwards for the finish line attempting a small sprint finish. I finished in 2hr.11min.17sec, finishing 328 out of 2500.

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