Event 2: The Brrrrrrrrutal 10k

3 days into 2011 and our final day of the long break from work, Tommy and I thought, ‘I know, let’s get up at the crack of dawn, drive down to an Army training base just south of Hindhead, and run something simply called ‘The Brutal 10k’!

Not sure what we were expecting here given the title, but funnily enough it was quite, well, brutal! We arrived at Longmoor around 8:45 to register. Registration was in a hall, a little like the one I remember scouts was held when I was a kid.

It was freezing. So after turning down the optional camo paint that was available, we spent the next hour sat in the car talking about how fit everyone looked and who we thought we could beat (namely one, slightly chubby lad, whom we both agreed would struggle). 10 minutes before the gun we decided we couldn't justify waiting anymore and left the warmth of the car to warm up, trying to look as 'I do this all the time' as possible.

We stretched as we watched the start of the ‘Canicross’ race. For those of you who know as much about canicross as we did before arriving, it is where runners strap their dog’s leads to a harness around their waist, and essentially get pulled around the course. Cheating we thought. Jealousy ensued.

Sully. Changing after finishing. Cold.

We were relatively happy at this stage aside from the cold, but the running would sort that. Until the organizer informed us that there were three lakes we needed to traverse as part of the run, but not to worry only one is over waist height! I was lucky, having opted for some running tights which helped, poor Tommy however was only in football shorts. If this wasn’t bad enough the organiser then added that they had been kind to us runners and broken the ice on our behalf!!!

Much like the Santa run, there was no gun as such but the man with the megaphone counted down from 3 and shouted go go go go, very military!

To cut a long story short the lakes were deep and properly cold, so cold that when I gracefully fell over in the first one, I managed to hold myself above water by grabbing onto the ice that hadn’t be broken yet. The hills were sandy, long and steep. One of which we had to climb up rather than run up.

Tommy, After finish. Colder.

The final kilometre or so they had seemingly just made a series of 15ft high hills out of purely sand which felt like running in treacle, bastards. And to add insult and realisation to our naive outlook on how well we would fair, only one of us managed to pip the chubby guy from the start to the finish line.

In summary, we ended up finishing somewhere in the middle to top of the bottom half, we put this down to there being very few people there, like us, who were stupid enough to just do something like this on a whim. It was physically gruelling but somehow a shed-load of fun. It was also good training for our next challenge on the 31^st January at the Helly Hanson Challenge. More on that to follow soon.

There is a video that the organizers put together. Fortunately for Tommy and I and unfortunately for you, we don't feature. I doesn't do the course justice so I have left it out but go find it if you so desire. (www.brutalrun.co.uk)