Turbo X trail race...

For the second week in a row the plan was to get extremely muddy, this time on the army training land at Bordon where the Saab-Salomon Turbo X race was held.
The race organizers sent out an email on Friday advising that the military had been out testing their vehicles on the course and had churned it up nicely! There was also the prospect of snow falling during the race.

As it happened, I nearly missed the race altogether. I was poodling around the house on Sunday morning, thinking I had plenty of time to spare when I noticed that the race started at 10am and not 10:30, as I'd somehow gotten into my head. So I grabbed my gear, jumped into the car and shot off - arriving with about 10 minutes to spare!

Luckily the snow had stayed off but the conditions were still pretty miserable with sleety rain and grey skies.

The first 4 or 5 miles of the race was a fairly quick x-country run with the odd hill and a few sandy puddles thrown in. After the half way point though it become much more hard-core with deep, freezing cold water to wade through and a lot more in the way of hills.

Towards the end of the race came what is known as the X Zone, which is a sort of race within a race; through deep, foul-smelling bogs which, at one point, I was so stuck in that I couldn't get my legs out and had to grab an overhanging branch to pull myself free. This sort of challenging stuff continued for about a mile and then it was a back to relatively dry land and short-ish sprint to the finish. I got round in 1hr 37 which put me about halfway through the field, and not bad for a 10-12 mile run in such conditions.

The next race I've entered is the Grim Challenge which takes place in two weeks time on the Army tank testing ground at Aldershot - so I'm anticipating more mud on that one!