Water Wipeout

Run 3 of 3 in 3 weeks. This is the fun one of the three, after a Half Marathon and then a 10k this is a 10k mud run, or should I say water run!

This is my 3rd of the 4 events by X Runner, earlier in the year I ran (froze) doing their Winter Warrior, last September I ran their Wild Warrior, now it's the turn of Water Wipeout! I was looking forward to this until I saw the course and the obstacles. Normally these events don't bother me but when I saw 100m swim, 30m swim, wild rivers - moving water swim, and 30m swim, doing them twice with the two laps made me think why sign up for this? I might enjoy almost everything health and fitness but I'm no swimmer. Being very short sighted from a young age, school swimming lessons weren't enjoyable at all as I couldn't see the other end of the pool so ended up panicking. The only time I enjoy swimming is on holiday with a snorkel and goggles watching the fish but this event doesn't include nice fish, just a Ford Capri.

The course.

I really didn't need to worry about the water obstacles as they weren't anywhere near as scary as first thought, in fact it was a brilliant event! I would happily do it again next year. The rapids were brilliant fun and I wish I had my gopro camera with me to film it. The reason I didn't is I didn't have the float in case I dropped it (currently on ebay buying one).

I was running the event with Rob and Danny, Jo was also running it with some friends in the wave after us. So 4 members of IlsonGlowsticks were at the event which was cool. It was all of our first time running the event and it was Dannys first ever 10km and first obstacle run so a major achievement. His effort levels were amazing for the event even including a funny to watch fall on "boxed in". The three of us stayed together and finished in about 2 hours.

On a personal note I managed to finish 100% of obstacles, technically about 110% as after jumping over some incline walls I saw others struggling so ran back around to help them then jumped back over myself again.

Before the run, all nice and clean.

Obstacle no.33 and no.34, water slide to swim on lap one.

As I've already said the event is brilliant, the course was really well set out with a good mix of obstacles, The water did stink at times but what do you expect jumping into a pond and muddy water. Who cares it was great fun!

Post run  #IlsonGlowsticks we all stink!

Danny did this as his first ever 10k and his first obstacle run, the medal means so much to him but not as much as a donation to Crohn's & Colitis would mean, please visit his JustGiving Page.

Bring on Wild Mud Run in 2016 to finish the 4 XRunner events, but first I think I'm rerunning Winter Warrior with a couple of clients as a Postnatal treat!

Wollaton 10K

Run 2 of 3 in a row now. Last week was the Ramathon and next week is Water Wipeout, but this week is Wollaton 10k. Back to Nottingham after last weeks visit to Derby, all nice local runs meaning minimal travel to the events which is nice.

Last year I set a 10k PB on the course and I haven't got a clue how, it just fell into place. (Wollaton 10k 2014) I then set a new PB this year at Derby 10k so knew I was up against it. Last week in the half marathon I had slowed my pace from around 4 min 30 sec per km to around 4 min 50 / 5 min per km. I knew it would be tricky trying to get the pace back up with only 1 short run mid week to try and get the pace back.

On the morning of the event it was throwing it down! I don't mind running in the rain as I sweat buckets so it helps keep me cool but there are limits. The state I'm usually in post race is how I looked at the start line this time. It was the same course as last year and my first of the 2 5km laps felt ok, I was only about 15 seconds down from my PB time. However I seemed to just hit a wall at 7/8km and my pace just dropped for no reason what so ever! I think the last couple of km were run at about 5min per km, way down on what I needed. I finished in 47 minutes 25 seconds which I was disappointed with. On the plus side I did finish 37th of 262 runners, compared to 52nd of 477 runners last year. This shows how the weather effected the race but the turnout as well.

This years winner was Ian Hunter in 38 minutes 9 seconds, last year he finished 3rd in 35 minutes 57 seconds. So I shouldn't moan too much as the conditions effected everybody in a similar fashion.

I also had a client running the 10k too, it should have been one client but after an accident involving stairs, dog toy and falling over it resulted in a broken metatarsal a week before the run. Another client stepped up and transferred the place and he ran in her place. With minimal training time for the 10k and the shocking weather he managed a respectable 1 hour 7 minutes, down on his PB but a cracking results in the circumstances.

Bring on next year for my third year at the event.

A tad wet post run.

Great work Rob.

Robs work deserves some donations for a great charity. Please visit his JustGiving Page.

Cossall Walk

Yesterday we embarked on a smaller walk - Walk 3 in Broxtowe Borough Council. The walk is based around Cossall, Awsworth and the disused Nottingham Canal. I picked a shorter walk this week as I knew a few people were on holiday and would be gutted to miss a longer walk in Derbyshire.

However I decided to run to the starting point to meet the other walkers there to give myself a mini practice for the Isle of Wight Challenge in August where I will be running and walking half the Island. So I did the 5km to the starting point in a steady 22 minutes 53 seconds, a quick change into some different walking clothes then off we went.

 

We thought we were following the correct route, we had followed the instructions "correctly" and the next little path wasn't exactly easy to walk along.  Having just re-read the route and looked on the map we actually did follow it correctly through the bushes but we then missed the turning we needed thanks to so much foliage covering the stile we needed.

The bit of grey right in the middle is Lee making his way out.

 

I can't say it was easy walking through that, I think a good set of pruners were needed, but we managed it eventually with only a few branches swinging back into the person behinds face. Having just looked back at the route this was the correct route! However we went wrong just after this as the buses baffled us and the foliage was covering the stile we required.

It only took us a few minutes to get back on track knowing the local area. So a quick walk up Awsworth Lane and we were on the correct route again. It's not getting lost it's taking a detour, something we manage to do most walks.

The route back was really easy to follow with some really nice views over the local area. Cossall Church looked lovely as we approached it. We then bumped into Will.i.am and Sir Tom Jones thanks to Cossall Scarecrows it was a slightly surreal moment on the walk. It wasn't long until we had re-joined the Canal and were heading back to the cars. Once again it had been a really enjoyable walk with great company and some randomness thrown in too. For more photos visit my Instagram account.

Overall the walk took us 2 hours 42 minutes and was 10.25km long. That takes the years total up to 116km (72 miles). It's only just the start of June so there's time yet to reach 200 miles by the end of the year especially if I drop in Rutland Water with a huge 26 miles one weekend.

I'm doing this for Cancer Research UK so hopefully walking can help save lives too please visit - www.justgiving.com/adamfretwellpt