The Rat Race Dirty Weekend takes place at Burghley House in the pretty little town of Stamford. Many people come and camp in the grounds, making a great party weekend of it. After the races there’s a huge after party with live bands, plenty of food and drinks. Technically, I was still recovering from having completed the Marathons des Sables last month – but this is a race that takes place virtually on my doorstep. So it would be rude not to, really …
When I went to get registered the night before the race, the atmosphere was already buzzing. Participants have the option of the “half mucker” – 13 miles – or to go all in for the “full mucker” of 20 miles and around 200 obstacles: enough to lay claim that this is the biggest obstacle course in the world. This year I also signed my kids up for the junior race, the first time it’s been held. It was great to get them involved rather than just having to stand in the cold waiting to cheer me on as usual. Though they are very well trained at cheering …
Having taken part several times, I again put myself into the first wave of runners setting off at 8am. There are some really fast racers heading up this bunch, who are way out of my league, but I like to stick my neck out and give it my best.
So at 8am around 300 of us set off, heading for the first obstacles. Over the next 20 miles these vary from simply carrying a sandbag, log or traffic cone, crawling through cars and tyres to climbing some massive structures – including the world’s longest monkey bars, scaling eight foot walls or even spending half an hour in and out of a reservoir, jumping, wading, swimming, sliding and then back to running again.
It doesn’t take long before I’m face deep in thick mud, forced to get down low under the caging and crawl elbow deep in the slop. I can’t help but laugh pretty much the whole way through and – despite the anguish, lack of breath and fear of what’s next – I see smiles and laughter all day long from others around me.
The course is broken into sections with different themes such as the Ewok village with many log structures, ropes and netting to tackle. One of the toughest sections is the reservoir: here you start off having to wade through, chest deep, for about 100m or so while below the surface you’re knee deep in silt. You finally get out at the bank, only to run around, grab a life jacket and jump in the deep end to swim (or attempt to swim, with your tired cold arms) across the lake. Though not before having to pull yourself out to climb over a series of floating platforms. The camaraderie is fantastic, and we all help each other out. As if dragging your own weak and cold body out of the water isn’t enough, we all turned to lift a few more out before heading for the next platform.
At this point was a terrifying 30ft tower from which we’d have jump into the pool below. I bypassed the lower platform option (all or nothing, right?) and headed to the top. Maaaan it’s a long way down when you’re up there. On the count of three from the marshal, next to the another chap, I made the heart-stopping leap off and down into the muddy water.
However, despite all this activity, I’m still only around eight miles in. Hours of slog lie ahead, before I finally cross the line after three hours and 45 minutes, claiming a respectable placing of 56th out of around 4,500.
But despite crossing that line … this was only halfway through the challenge. This year, the Rat Race organisers had thrown in the “dirty double” option. Yes, twice, all the way around this immense course. Only 33 of us were stupid enough to take this on. So I had a quick rest and refuel and then joined the next available wave of runners and started the whole thing again.
The second time round was quite a different race, a bit of queuing, lots more banter, and after several thousand had passed through it the course was a lot more “people shaped”.
In the evening there was a slight “admin error” on stage when I was called up as the winner of the double, but I was chuffed to bits to make second in such an enormous race. I’m already booking in to go again for 2016.
Rat Race Adventure Sports Dirty Weekend is open for 2016 ratrace.com
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