I've been trying to find the time and the place for an obstacle course type race for ages now, ever since my buddy did a Tough Mudder like a couple of years ago. I work a lot and most weekends as well so it can be quite hard to find time for stuff like this, but mid-May we found the perfect one on a free Sunday.
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| Pre-Race (Clean) |
There are quite a lot of these obstacle course races now, the most popular being:
Of course there are many others, but these three are the most heard of. Recently, through Reebok sponsorship etc the Spartan Races have got quite a lot more publicity, on the back of the publicity going up it also seems the prices have as well.
Being popular in Essex but not quite as well known as the other races, the Nuclear Race was so much more reasonable than other races I'd looked into. There were two options for the race, a 6km or a 12km. Being someone who seems to enjoy punishment (take that how you will) I opted for the 12km, which was around £60. One of the great things about this race in particular was that it was is Brentwood, Essex which is only like an hour away from me.
On the 12km race there's about 85 or so obstacles and these range from muddy ditches, to 10m high walls, to death slides! I'll pop in a few photos for you guys to see below.
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| Para-Plunge (SO MUCH FUN) |
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| Ebenezer (The most sticky, stinky and disgusting pool of mud ever...) |
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| A group shot with some people we adopted getting through the trenches and rope nets. |
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| Action shot! (Yes... I did fall in) |
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| Sizing up the drop before sliding down. |
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| A happy grimace of muddy goodness. |
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| A 'we're alive!' photo at the end |
Pre-Race
So first of all parking; parking was free and there was plenty! A short walk from the car park was the entry way, racers would go through one bit, non-racers another bit. Racers get a tag to attach to their shoe for the race for timing etc.
Facilities at the track were great, loads of loos, tons of food and drink places and a couple of shops to get race supplies you may not have thought of or forgotten about, or for #LoveMud memorabilia. There was an announcer who actually sounded like Bradley Walsh (but wasn't...) and even a fun warm-up area which had a small climbing wall and monkey-bar type obstacles.
Before the race proper all the racers go into a giant pen and the organisers take you through a warm-up which is led by a local fitness instructor, air squats and dynamic stretching galore.
The Race and Obstacles
The actually running part of the race wasn't that bad at all, with the amount of people going through the obstacles you had plenty of time to rest if you needed it.
The obstacles ranged from easy as pie to pretty testing, especially as the race wore on the obstacles got muddier and muddier, and slippier and slippier. Things like rope climbing, or swinging got really tough, there's just no way with that much mud caked on you and the ropes etc that some were possible later on in the race. Some, like the rope swing pictured above were designed so you couldn't get to the other side so you had to fall in the mud, which was cool 'cos it was fun.
Most fun obstacles were definitely the Para-plunge and the Deathslide, I could just do those over and over again.
Overall Opinion?
#LOVEMUD
Really, really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to anyone who fancies something a bit challenging, a bit fun and a bit messy. FIVE STARS.
P.S. Bit obvious, but don't wear any clothes you're really fond of...
