Plan A for any runner is to make it to the start of their race well trained and at the peak of their fitness. Sometimes we have to settle for Plan B: make it to the start fit and well. Today was a Plan C kind of race day. Plan C being just make it to the start.

I’d been in bed with a cold for two days and an unwise decision to do some yoga for the first time in a gerzillion years had left me with a bad back. But if I’d been looking for a fast time this wouldn’t have been the race to find it anyway, so the plan was to take it easy, have fun and not break any bones.

The Eskimos are supposed to have many different words for snow. They spend so much time with it that they can see subtle differences the rest of us are blind too. I feel the same way about mud. Before today I thought mud was mud. Not so. There’s sandy mud, peaty mud and, my least favorite, clay mud.

Mucky Races The Gauntlet had all of these and more and I’ve been chest deep in it all. I wasn’t prepared for the unrelenting energy-sapping nature of the course. I longed for the grassy section where the course takes you four times up the same hill in quick succession – this was nothing compared to the mud.

The 12k course took me 1hour 53mins to complete. That’s almost the same length as a flat 13 miler – that’s how tough it was. Would I do it again? No. Was it fun? Yes, and I’d recommend it. Just be prepared to throw away all your kit after.

Big thanks to TC who pulled me up hills and out of mud. A sterling performance from him.