The Beast.

Boots Waterproof Camera!

The day of reckoning! Up early this morning to head into work for 7.30am and drive out to Banchory with the girls. As we approached Knockburn Loch we could see obstacles dotted along the side of the water and in the woods leading up to the hills on top of a ridge. Eeek! I was immediately regretting the lack of training I'd done! We got ourselves signed in, took our numbers then sat in the cafe with a cup of coffee until the warm-up. Just enough to build up the nerves :o)

The warm-up was ace, taken by a guy I used to surf with and a guy who used to work for the same company as me and all the girls I was running with. We were just dressed in our t-shirts with our company's name and normal running gear, but there were a group of men in Borat-style green mankinis (most of them had opted for shorts underneath, but one was just running in the mankini. He must have been very uncomfy at the end) and a group dressed as cavegirls... Very entertaining.

Myself and the 9 other Enviros (and two token non-Enviros from the office!) were in the 4th wave, and set off up the hill last out of everyone! The hill at the start pretty much killed me. I take two gym classes a week and M and I usually do something active like a nice long walk or some surfing both days of the weekend, but I was out of puff 10 minutes in! The group split up a bit and N and I were left to bring up the rear... Well, someone had to :o) After the horrible hill to start, we encountered our first obstacle in the forest - a bog which I fully fell into and which had me waist-deep in cold, muddy, smelly water. Disgusting! We picked our way over climbing ropes strung between trees and crawled under more ropes through a mud pit, before starting the descent through thick heather which scratched our legs, hid big ankle-twisting boulders and was super-slippery and steep. When we reached the bottom we had to climb over some sheer wooden sheets which were protecting the drystone wall, then it was a further run through heather (thankfully, no gradient this time) until a massive pit of what smelled suspiciously like cow poo. We had to crawl through on all fours, elbow-deep, then take on another hill with a few more wall-hops until we got to the 'hurdles': massive felled trees laid out like jumps for horses, which I had to climb rather than spring over! If we thought it was bad at that point... Cue lots of screaming as we hurtled down a slide (as a man with a hose did his best to soak us) before we hit the deep, peaty, freezing water of Knockburn Loch. The temperature took my breath away! We half-swam, half-waded to an island where there was a vertical wooden wall with no handholds or footholds. There was no way we'd have gotten over had a lovely man in a green t-shirt not hauled first N and then me up. We were then straight back into the loch for another dunk and this time flinging ourselves over inflatable logs. We had quite a long run before the next set of obstacles - tiny dark tunnels which my hips barely allowed my into - then a climbing frame in the woods. As we left the woods we were faced with a series of incredibly steep (but thankfully short) hills covered in sticky clay that sapped at our remaining energy levels. Clarted in red mud, we were quite glad to reach the next part: wading upstream to the loch again through a narrow, steep-sided burn (where our boss was helpfully hanging round to take photos)! We knew we were nearly there, but the last few challenges (climbing a hay-bale wall, running knees-up through tyres and another swim in the loch where we had to duck under floating barrels) were extremely hard. I've never been so glad to see a finishing line before! We were only 15 minutes behind the fastest of our group but I don't think I could have pushed myself further at the time. 10 kilometers, countless obstacles and a LOT of swimming in icy water. Surprisingly, it was highly enjoyable and a good way to spend a Sunday morning!

I realised how freeeezing I was almost as soon as I stopped, so after a quick change, M took me home in the car (he’d come to watch me over the last few obstacles!) and made us some soup while I took a really long shower. After lunch and a nap under the duvet I finally felt warm enough to venture outside again. To stop my muscles seizing up, M suggested we play a short (and slow) game of golf, which I lost spectacularly (I think that’s OK, given the morning’s exertions, though)…

M offered to make us a roast chicken for dinner which was AMAZING – and he didn’t let me help at all, I was just told to lay on the sofa and call my Mum for a catch-up. He’s very, very good. We decided to run a bath after dinner and open our bottle of well-done-for-getting-engaged Taittinger the girls from work had bought us – bliss.