I'm still not entirely sure how it happened, but in January I found myself agreeing to do the Forest Warrior - a 10k mud/obstacle race - as part of a team at work.

2.5 months of denial and half arsed "training" later six of us dragged ourselves through a lot of mud, climbed over walls, scrambled in and out of ditches, carried tyres up and down hills, crawled and swam through various depths of water, and ran/jogged/walked the bits in between.  Oh, and got shot at with paintballs (but none of us were hit, hurrah)

not pictured - ALL THE MUD

We were not quick.  GPS traces suggest it was actually more like 12km, but even so...  It was a team effort so we went at the pace of the slowest - rather than what those who did the Forest half marathon a few weeks before might have liked!

As well as the extra distance, there were other hold ups as some obstacles caused bottlenecks - or in one case a massive queue that we got bored of waiting in after about 15 minutes.  Which suited me fine, as the obstacle in question was 'The Iceberg' - a big inflatable thing that you had to swim across to, climb up, jump off and swim back.  I was freaking out slightly at the idea of jumping into the lake, so was more than happy to skip it.

Our friends/family/other assorted spectators waited very patiently for us to arrive back in the field for the final set of obstacles.  No mud here, hence the photos all looking a bit clean.  Some had wandered down to catch us at Mallards Pike too, though I think I was too busy concentrating to notice them.

Anyway, we all completed it successfully.  A well earned t-shirt, medal and huge sense of achievement and relief!  It took a lot of scrubbing in the shower to get all the mud off, and two weeks for the bruises to fade away.  But we did it, and raised a decent amount of money for charity, so yay

And the worst thing about it all?  I seem to be entered again for next year.  Eek!

tags: exercise Forest of Dean running work