Vertigo, Sandbag Hill, Spider Swamp, Piranha Pond and The Iceberg were all obstacles that were teased leading up to Forest Warrior’s inaugural event on 12th April 2015. On a sunny but windy day in the Forest of Dean, Trimax Events’ Forest Warrior put on an event that showed they mean business.
The Warrior
With this being the Forest of Dean – full of trees and trails, we were treated to great sections of woodland running, muddy bogs and natural obstacles in the form of stacked logs, boggy ditches, water tunnels and hills – oh the hills, as a course advertised at 10k there must have definitely been an extra 2k at least on top of that due to the zig-zagging up and down some tight inclines and further ditches to take in leaps and bounds!
Of course that wasn’t all we were given – right from the get go we were forced to tackle a series of four foot walls, followed by an eight foot wall giving all participants a challenge from the offset. This was closely followed by a heavy sandbag carry up and down a hill just to make sure nobody was feeling too energetic at any point throughout the race.More walls were located throughout the course as well as the old OCR favourite – the tyre carry. A tyre carry up what felt like the steepest hill in the Forest again made sure everybody’s legs would be reminding them of this the next day – if anybody attempted running up this hill I applaud them, for myself and everybody I spoke to however it was a slow walk at best!
Some great twists on some classic obstacles
We were given another tyre carry later in the course up much less steep hill but this time were tasked with rolling our tyre back down from the top into the wake of oncoming runners – health & safety aside that is a hilarious twist on an old challenge that must have seen some brilliant take-downs or avoidance techniques. I know that I felt like the tyres were constantly veering in my direction no matter how hard I tried out-stepping them.
Among other obstacles that make it hard to convince people that this is a serious sport were an angled trampoline bounce into a lake (I failed miserably to get any bounce and pretty much just crumpled into the water) and of course the aforementioned Iceberg – a huge inflatable island in the middle of a lake, pulling yourself up out of the water onto this slippery structure, then climbing to the top was an epic struggle in itself, happily followed by a slide or jump down into the refreshing lake below! This was just a great fun, unexpected portion of the course and must have drained any remaining energy of those taking part before hitting the final stretch.
The final stretch of obstacles included haybale climbs, overhanging walls, crawling under some barbed wire while at the same time over some tyres (again, a simple but excellent twist on a classic obstacle) leading into an epic structure provided in association with the local Go Ape – a vertical wall climb into monkey bars, into a rope swing into a fireman’s pole slide. There was serious amounts of fun to be had by everybody on this finale, with many overcoming fears of heights and tackling the rope swing with varying degrees of success!!
The Forest
The location of Forest Warrior was absolutely spot on, with the hilly trails and muddy bogs all perfectly fitting together while the obstacles came around with enough regularity to ensure you never had a chance to wonder where the next would be – it felt like the Forest was designed for the course rather than the other way around.
The course could have perhaps done with a few extra marshals dotted around as not only did I go off course (twice, oops!) there were others later on who weren’t 100% sure which way to go at times – a hazard provided by a forest being full of arrows and direction markers for horses, walkers, cyclists and more!Back to the event village itself, spectators were able to watch the whole final section leading up to the finish (not to mention there were spectator maps to help those watching get to the best obstacles to see friends and love ones suffering enjoying themselves), with hot food on offer and a charity Monkey Bar Challenge, with the sun being out it was a day the whole family can enjoy. With the welcome relief of no parking charges, innovative & unique obstacles and one BEAST of a medal, Forest Warrior made a storming entrance and the next events, held in July and November will come highly recommended by anybody who was there on the day, who will no doubt be looking towards the Cotswold Warrior with equal excitement and dread.
To find out more about Forest Warrior and their Mission Impossible challenge, visit www.forestwarrior.co.uk