Sunday 17 March 2013

Rock Solid Race

Some may think I'm mad for doing this, but truly I am. On the afternoon of Saturday the 16th of March, God chose to show us all his might by sending us hail, rain, snow, sun, clouds, and eventually a rainbow on the day that 6 friends and I decided that we would embrace nature and all it can throw at us by completely a 5k obstacle course (which turned out to be more of a mud-fest) or in other words, The Rock Solid Race.




This man-made obstacle course is made up of either 25 obstacles for the 5k dash or 37 for the 10k race, and is a race which is very team-focused. You are required to help your team mates over the pyramid walls, through the ice bath and over the rope climbing frame, and your individual chip timer will show you later how well you did as a team. Honestly, as painful as it was getting my hair stuck in barbed wire whilst I was nearly drowning in thick mud, I had such a blast!



So with a spare change of clothes, towel and fancy dress gear in hand, we headed off to Escot Park in Devon where we waited in anticipation for our race wave at 2.20pm. Before this, I could never say that I had waded neck deep in boggy water, nor could I have said that I had jumped over 6 consecutive hay bails whilst the worst of all hail storms was quite literally spearing my face, but now I can!






Before the race, we were treated to an intense but incredibly funny warm up session run by the South West Armed Forces. To get us used to how muddy the course would actually be, we were doing push ups, sit ups and rolling around in the mud (quite literally stuck in the mud) to boost ourselves up for the tough course ahead of us, which definitely got us all in the mood!

















And this was probably a very good idea. Although I live in the countryside, and love a good knee-deep muddy welly this was something totally different. It was genuinely like running through mud lava. At points we were required to crawl through tunnels in water, run through fast flowing rivers, slide down into a lake and even jump over (what was supposed to be) a bonfire, but was more like a couple of flaming cinders. (However, we'll just say it's a bonfire so it sounds more hardcore).









Overall, a cracking experience and one that I will definitely do again- although next time hopefully we will be lucky enough to have some sunshine, as after submerging your head in an ice bath it would've been nice for you to at least catch some rays.






If you want to find out more check out the website, which tells you all about each individual race and the obstacles you will be facing next year! Although it was quite pricey, I would definitely say that it was an experience and such a challenging but exciting thing to do with a good group of friends. Even better, Rock Solid nominate a charity partner for each year, Help for Heroes being this years chosen charity. So get signing up boys and girls in anticipation for next year!! If you go to Exeter as well, check out Rock Solid Circuits which is an evening circuits session held at the University Sports Centre which will get you geared up for the challenges that lie ahead in the actual race!!

Good Luck!

Pin It Now!

No comments:

Post a Comment