It’s not too often I get up at the ungodly hour of 5.30am, but when I do it has to be for a good reason, today it was for Judgement Day. They had promised an event like no other, something to test you mentally and physically. Now wait, I’ve heard that before and I like the sound of this. This is is the kind of thing I like to do at the weekend, and I wasn’t alone in being mainly attracted to the 10 mile unknown obstacle race with a Cold War army village that was going to feature.
I took four other Muddy Race enthusiasts to Salisbury. Mark, a.k.a the beard man, a health and safety expert during the week and mud addict at the weekend. Keith, a super fit fitness instructor and training for Rat Race Dirty Weekend. The two Chris'; Borders, a 49 year old obstacle race veteran who was done more hills than Lance Armstrong. And finally Lamby, a junior athletics champ and super competitive soul who battles it out at the top, and ran two sub 3 hour marathons in a week this month.
Unexpected and exhilarating, jam packed full of mental and physical challenges that will test your weaknesses. It lived up to the hype and has loads more potential.
The event began in the 1988 Bavarian style village built to train the best Military Forces and it felt like a scene from Medal of Honour or Call of Duty fighting scene. The run down houses and shanty towns closely knitted together, creating dark twisty alleys perfect for an obstacle race. If you don’t want read here’s JD in 2 minutes and 20 seconds!
The race start lingered and we snuck in at the start line surrounded by barbed wire topped walls to keep the enemy out adding to the suspense. The course ran across the hilly Salisbury Plains, consisting of muddy farmland and forests perfectly suited for an obstacle race. We encountered the usual cold water wades, a tyre carry, some mini hurdle jumps early on, but the first few kilometres were very much of the trail run variety to spread out the field. I mention tyre crawl lightly though, this was up and down a huge hill for around 500m.
The course meandered throughout the plains, dodging the cows, water pits and anything else before hitting the walls. The course was overflowing with sets of walls, two sets 6 foot, 8 foot and 10 foot walls in a row, with no foot holds in sight. The first two are doable but the 10 footer would require a leg up or some strategic positioning on the sides. Not contempt with these we had the classic overhang walls that require the foot hook to leverage the body over.
Carrying was also a prominent feature of JD, with some incredibly heavy carries along the way. In addition to the tyre carries, at around an hour in, we approached a lump of large sandbags that weren’t shy of 20kg.
These were whipped on the back and carried for 1 mile. For the first time we had a memory test feature 500m into the sandbag carry. ‘This was a twist I liked, which came out of nowhere” found Lamby.
Here we were told to memorise the painting to be asked questions at the top of the hill. How many angels? Who was the artist? I ended up with 30 burpees and didn’t like it. Keith loved it though, “I glanced at it and thought it was a joke, only to find confused group later answering questions. I got mine right, which is probably why I look back it fondly”
It wasn’t finished there though, and after the memory test we had a rope and ladder climb. Mark found this part particularly tough, “One of the hardest parts of was having to put down and pick up that heavy sandbag, definitely a psychological challenge as well as a physical one, my shoulder and back still haven’t recovered!”
This wasn’t all though for the carrying, other obstacles throughout included carrying a bucket of gravel up and down a hill, as well as a lump of concrete that was also easily 20kg. Sounds a little bit like I’m working on a building site.
It felt like a lot of the course was just the build up to the village with mutterings amongst the racers ‘what’s it going to be like’ or ‘have you heard about the drop?’. It was clear everyone was there for one thing. The obstacle course section was not much different to what we see on the calendar with perhaps more carrying than usual and three miles longer than your average.
The FIBUA Village
Let’s get to business, the FIBUA village was exceptionally brilliant. After 10.5 miles of battering elongated hills and a variety of full body exercises the time had come. From a distance we saw the village and we were led into the disused train and helicopter area.
The helicopter and derelict trains proved popular
We began by going under and over the broken down train, through abandoned helicopters and headed into the concrete village where some burpee/pull up combination was the task. Judgement Day was really coming into its own now as we then led into the buildings. I think everyone had that inner child loving this section though and Keith was in full agreement. “Crawling under a train and through helicopters boosted my mood tenfold heading into the village after 10 miles of a hard slog. Where was this place when I was a kid?!”
The rope climb and the Dutch guy who carried a tyre for the whole course
From then on it was up ladders, down ladders, into the first floor windows, walking beams into the next house and climbing back down ladders again.
Ladder Climb to the second story
All the things your mum told you not to do when you were a kid, but finally we had a legitimate reason to do rather than fixing the outplaced TV aerial or wind swept roof tile. We were still pretty terrified to be honest as we didn’t have a clue what or where we were going, but it was still brilliant.
Confined Spaces were popular
We ran through the houses, up and down the stairs and crawled through pitch black concrete drainage pipes. These were 3-5 minutes of crawling, with just a few carefully placed glowsticks to help guide the way. I quite liked these, but Lamby found them a little tough “I can’t say I enjoyed the pitch black tunnels, but they really made you face your fears”
These ran under the houses in maze fashion with glimmers of light every now and again. If you didn’t like confined spaces then this would be your nemesis. According to Mark Buller, Race Director, “even the Marines struggle with this obstacle, when you can’t see light the mind can start playing tricks and you start doubting yourself”.
I can’t say I enjoyed the pitch black tunnels, but they really made you face your fears
Darkness was a common feature with a frightfully scaring pitch black drop from the first floor of the house. We were literally told hang down and drop, not knowing what was below. Loved it.
The vertical floor drop into the dark!
Getting in and out the buildings was a challenge for many though, and Borders, not a huge fan of heights felt this “I’m not brilliant with heights and that really made the race a mental as well as physical challenge. But I felt great at the end knowing what I had achieved”
The Infinity Jump
The Verdict
Overall brilliant. The course had a mix of obstacles, some better than others but it was a great first event. The marshals were encouraging and super smiley. It has loads more potential, dropping a few obstacles perhaps, the kettlebell rope springs to mind but the village offered something completely new. The team seem committed to offering something new in every event they do with Mark Buller telling us:
“There are over 150 races in the UK this year and to stand out you have to deliver something memorable that most people will have never experienced. I wanted to design a course that would test all types of fitness and I think we did that. Fear Nothing and Conquer Everything will continue to be our philosophy!”.
Their next event is planned for 15th November which you can pre-register for now.
Final Thoughts From The Team
Lamby “It was tough, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve done tougher. I supposed it pushed me in different ways to most OCR’s though in the way that I was facing the unknown and doing a lot of things that I’ve not done before. My favourite parts were climbing in and out of the second story windows via ropes. As well as taking pretty standard tasks like tyre and sandbag carrying and made them a whole lot tougher and adding a twist”
Mark “It lived up to hype for me. Going through the first window in the confidence course, that was a step into the unknown. In one word? Exhilarating”
Borders “The series of upper body challenges made it different to others. Rather sadistically, I really enjoyed the sandbag carry. Overall this was a cracking event and future JD’s can only improve, although we now have an idea of how the organisers minds work”
Keith “This event lived up to the hype – not knowing beforehand gave me a different outlook going in to the race and meant each obstacle/challenge was unexpected. One word to sum it up – unexpected”