Day 1.
Leading up to this event we all had a very hot mini heat wave however, for this weekend, the weather was forecast to be really bad with heavy rain and thunderstorms all weekend. So, I made sure that before I left home that I had everything I could possibly need just in case.
I set off on the 2hr drive north at the crack of dawn to be on site for 7am, it rained very lightly all the way, was this a sign of things to come!?!?
I was given the Whopper again to cover. When the competitors had completed the obstacle, they pressed the flames of the grill. Well, by the time I had got to the obstacle, the heavens opened, and it poured it down and didn’t let up for the rest of the day. Fortunately, I have my home-made shelter that I have used many times before and it works a treat in keeping most of the rain off me and most importantly the camera.
Even though it was raining it didn’t dampen the spirts or enthusiasm of any of the competitors and they all still had loads of fun with the flames and were still up for a little posing fun.
As you can imagine we were all pleased to see the last runner come through as this meant it was time to head to the B&B, dry our kit out and head to the pub for some hot food to chat about our days trials and tribulations with the weather.
Day 2
The day amazingly started with no rain. I quickly checked the weather app and the rain was supposed to hold off until 3pm. I really hoped it would.
The obstacle for the second day for me was the Peaks of Pain, a section of the course made up of about 10 mud piles which ended with a sharp drop down into a muddy moat.
This obstacle never disappoints, and the competitors quite literally threw themselves at it. They didn’t hold back at all, as you can see from the pictures. They got covered head to toe in mud, they certainly looked like they had fun! The obstacle was at the top of a hill and straight after they went back down again. It was only after the first 100 people had gone through that I noticed some shouting and looked over to see people running down the hill. I realised then that they had made a mud slide down the hill and were throwing themselves down it. This was not my obstacle to photograph, but I needed to get some images of this! Its not every day you get to see such a sight. So, I dodged the speeding people coming down the mud slide and got some fantastic images. One of the things I love about these events is the people designing the course can make all the plans they want but no one is going to argue with a team of people who have a very different idea about how to tackle an obstacle/part of the course.
With this obstacle you need 3 sets of eyes to see what everyone is doing as everyone wants a photo on the peaks. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a big group of white t shirts coming up to the obstacle and thought to myself this looks like the advert on TV for Ariel. Well it turns out they all had Ariel t-shirts on, and this was to good an opportunity to miss getting them all together for a group shot with the mud sign in the background.
Well the rain did stay away and soon it was time to head back to the car and get changed out of my very muddy clothes which I managed to do but only just in time before the heavens opened.
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