What. A. LAUGH!

Pretty Muddy, Race for Life for Cancer Research. Phew!

Earlier this year my best friend pushed me to enter this. 5k race with muddy obstacles, sounds right up my street! (Well, except for running 5k!).

Unfortunately I was poorly in the weeks leading up to our race and still ill on the day so I just couldn’t do it. I was feeling feint and weak just walking for a few minutes so there was no way I would be able to drive myself to the event and then walk or run 5k with obstacles.

Instead I re-entered later on in the year and some family members came with me instead.

The pressure was off to run as we all decided to walk together and I arrived on the day feeling apprehensive but excited!

I’m not a huge fan of organised events, where you have to go and do things with lots of other strangers and follow the crowd like sheep. I’m not sure why really but it’s just not my scene. Maybe because I’m quite shy at times and self-conscious (aren’t we all?!).

However as we were ushered in to the starting area 15 minutes before our run and a fitness instructor took us through a music warm up routine I really started to enjoy myself! I found I could mostly keep in time with the lady and it wasn’t very hard really. As everyone else was doing the same as you no one was watching you! I think I’d quite enjoy a fitness class actually, although I don’t know if I could keep it up for an hour, 10 minutes was enough.

Then before we knew it we were off! Not knowing what we were heading in to we left the boys behind and wandered along a little country track. Soon muddy people were running past us from previous runs, an insight in to what was to come.

The first one was crawling under a cargo net. Then we had to hop over a low wall in to some ankle deep mud. Here one of the stewards playfully grabbed one of us and pushed her back in to the water, so then he was attacked with muddy hands. It become the goal for the rest of the run to cover the stewards in mud, and they all took it with good humour.

Natural gaps appeared between everyone and it was good to have some space with my group to take the obstacles together.

Other obstacles consisted of getting through a rope net, space hoppers, balance beams, crawling through a tunnel and running through swinging balls.

Not much muddy stuff yet!

Before we knew it we were nearly there. The real good one was second to last where you crawled on your hands and knees through thick mud while you were squirted with water guns. Then it was up and over a high cargo net before a short jog to the finish.

The inflatable slide! We went up together and slid down holding hands and landed in the mud pool at the bottom.

Hurrah!!! Over the finish line, we had done it!!

It was so much fun. We had such a laugh together as we went round and the obstacles were so easy and not too wet or muddy that I thorough enjoyed myself. I was in my element.

The only slight gripe I have is that your family members couldn’t watch you go round. I don’t know if it’s different at other events but we did the one at Reaseheath and they literally saw you walk under the start line and round the corner then saw nothing until you are coming down the slide at the end.

They must have been so bored just sat around waiting and there were no opportunities for them to be supporting you or taking photographs. Luckily we had a couple of people with us so at least they had each others company, plus a coffee van.

The website also said no dogs so we assumed this meant no dogs on site whatsoever as it was private property, but then when we arrived a few people had brought dogs with them. Instead of leaving ours at home they could have come with us and mooched around with Ash while he was waited, so that could have been clearer.

As for the race and event though it was great. I highly recommend it to everyone! All ages and abilities can do it and if there is any obstacle that you’re unsure of you can skip it, although I would encourage everyone to embrace the muddiness and throw yourself in to the experience. It’s a lot of fun for a good cause.

https://raceforlife.cancerresearchuk.org/about-our-events/pretty-muddy
www.cancerresearchuk.org