This was run by High Fell Events (aka Barry the Chief Pain Giver) who did the Hedgehope wipeout race that I did in January. I don’t know the Thrunton Woods area well, I think I may have orienteered there in the mid-80s, but got the impression that there would be Ascent, Terrain and Mud to contend with. It’s a popular mountain-bike area and some of the trails we were on looked pretty technical and we felt a lot safer on two feet than we would have on wheels!

My sister had entered as well and we’d both opted for the longer course on offer – roughly half marathon distance. I was humming and ha-ing a bit about whether to race it or treat it as a training run. I managed to completely offend my poor sister by pondering aloud about this dilemma with words to the effect of “I might not race this and just stick with you to make it a nice easy run”. She didn’t actually lamp me for suggesting that her race pace was my easy potter but I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. I decided in the end to grace her with my company as I’d done a long back-to-back on the West Highland Way the week before and hadn’t exactly tapered.

The start was slightly chaotic – the race briefing was totally inaudible even though it was given twice – the only words i manage to catch were “….and if that happens call 999….” so I assumed that there was nothing terribly vital to impart. Then we were hanging around for ages before being set off, not sure why that was. But once underway the course was very enjoyable. Initially we were held up in a few spots due to too many people on a narrow path but once everyone had spread out it was fine. There was a little bit of rain but not enough to need to put on waterproofs and the sun was out for most of the time. The route wended its way through tranquil woodland before the first short but steep pull upwards. Then more woodland paths and tracks before the first checkpoint which was around an hour in I think. They had loads of sweeties and even gluten free flapjack which was fantastic. Then over a stream, or through more to the point and inevitable wet feet. After this came a longer hill which carried us up to the crags overlooking the forest. There seemed to be a lot of runners around at the top and we realised after that the short route had joined the longer one at this point. We skirted along the edge for a while with lovely views towards the coast and up to the cheviot hills. The descent off was very eroded and quite tricky – I passed one bloke who was in road shoes and not having a terribly good time by the sounds of it. It was good fun so I popped down then waited for my sister at the bottom. After this we hit mud, mud and more mud. Sloppy mud. Claggy mud. Deep boggy mud. You name it, we got it. I was very glad indeed not to be racing this bit, the first mile or so in particular was mainly a slight uphill and ankle deep most of the way. We reached another checkpoint which had more flapjack, hooray! The long course diverted away at this point and we had another long stretch of mud but at least this time was mostly downhill. I was wearing gaiters which helped keep my shoes from being sucked off. Becky was just starting to get a bit of a sense of humour failure when the mud finally came to a stop and we headed back into woodland for the last bit of the course. There was another fairly technical descent but otherwise it was quite straightforward running. We weren’t sure how long the course would be so guessed anywhere between 13 and 15 miles was likely but both felt fine to keep trotting on and quicker than anticipated we spotted the finish below us. Of course there was the obligatory “sting in the tail”to come. I’d have welcomed a river dunking this time but no handy river nearby so we were sent on a wee loop back up into the forest before the crossing the finish line.

It was almost 14 miles and just over 2000ft ascent. We took a steady 3 and a half hours to finish. We both really enjoyed it, the course was pretty challenging if you enjoy a lot of mixed terrain and running through mud gives you a bloody good workout. It was very well route marked and marshalled. The medal was crap and went straight in the bin – I’d have preferred another mug myself! I would definitely do this one again, though.