After a busy and food fuelled Christmas and New Year I was looking forward to getting back into the swing of things and so I found myself heading down the M6 to Ram Run Winter, this was to be a great mix of highs, lows and cold induced exhaustion.
Race options: 12K (timed) / 8K (untimed) on Saturday and 24K (timed) / 12K (untimed) on Sunday, plus an 8K kids race both days and on Saturday they run an “Intensity” short course directly outside the venue.
I selected 12K Saturday and started to think about what winter training might involve. The plan was to have a couple of dips in the river during my New Year stay in the lakes, maybe a cold water swim etc. Yeah that didn’t happen, basically I tipped the cold water bucket over my head (twice!) in the spa and I ate enough food to ensure that I had a “protective layer” who needs neoprene!
Having received a comprehensive welcome email the concerns started to set in! “Bridge of Despair” uh-oh. It seems that some other competitors had less concerns about the bridge and more with reading to the bottom of the email. However the Ram Run social media team seemed to do a good job of handling all the last minute requests to ensure that those that wanted them got the yellow “Elite trophy hunter” bibs, basically the race number was printed out with a yellow background and the marshals would keep an eye for them, ensure they completed obstacles (or time penalties) and of course us lesser mortals have to dodge out of the way when they come flying past on lap 2.
So I’m having successfully navigated a very windy drive down the M6, I found myself turning into Stoneleigh Park…. And this is the first clue that this is going to be setup somewhere a little different as it appeared to be a business park not the normal muddy fields grassy car park.
I joined a queue of people snaking out of the Stoneleigh fitness centre, luckily the rain hadn’t kicked in at this point and I chatted with the Barnsley Boys (you know who you are). It was also evident that some of the usual faces were there and eyeing up the podium places and the great looking trophies! Having made it to the front of the queue I received a sticky race number bib plus additional stickers for arms & I was sent to the next table to collect my ankle bracelet timing chip. I wasn’t offered a goodie bag, some people had them, some people didn’t - Unlike the formal administration & signup process of some events, The Ram Run does have a really fun and relaxed feel to it, they trust people to take just one goody bag etc - My own fault for not asking!
A quick dash upstairs to the changing rooms (a very nice change of pace to the usual muddy field) and having locked my stuff in a locker (also a massive win, obviously limited availability as the event gets busier) and I headed down stairs to mingle with the other muddy racers that had turned up including Sara and also Paddy on his 2nd event of his 30 for 30 challenge, both of whom will be at X-Runner Winter Warrior later this month as part of a big green team!
We headed outside and started to warm up. Some announcements were made and we started to form up into waves. A set of charity runners were set off first, running a longer version of the race in memory of a friend.
Then the yellow bib “elites” were set off and then everybody else, we just formed up into groups and got set off with the minimum of fanfare. Overall around 5 or 6 waves were set off, with around 45 seconds or so in-between them.
We headed out into the field, hopped a fence into a horse paddock area, hopped another fence out and headed towards trees. I very soon found myself at the back of a queue, waiting to go through an old-school turnstile, so within a few minutes the people I’d left for dead in the field (all 3 of them) plus the wave behind us & the 8km fun runners, were stacked up behind us and the previous waves were in front of us waiting to go through the turnstile. This meant that we started cooling down after running less than 1km. Having got through the turnstile it then became clear that the queue didn’t finish there, it was in-fact a queue to the first proper obstacle, a set of commando rope bridges across the river Avon (see the Q&A below for a follow up on this).
Having crossed this and ran back over the bridge we headed into the woods where we were swiftly met with more queues. At the end of which there was another standard set of obstacles (cargo net climb, mud crawl etc) at the last of these some runners frustration was evident and they skipped the obstacle and headed off into the course whilst the rest of us queued. Each of these obstacles was well setup and well marshalled, but it was very frustrating being tied up in so many queues so early on.
I could have started a little earlier but I don’t think queues should be a penalty of those that don’t push into earlier waves (this was possibly rushed due to the late start). A larger gap between setting off waves or some more demanding obstacles before this area, would have broken up the field and made it much smoother (see the Q&A with Ram Run Race Direct below for a follow up on this).
That said, it was a very sociable start with lots of chatting but I was hoping that there was more challenge to come. I wasn’t going to be disappointed! As we exited the forest we headed up to a small but very wet slide, a different design to normal, rather than utilising the terrain for the slope it started as a chest high wall that you climbed up and then slide down, or in my case you run, jump, flip and slide down. A quick set of log jumps and it was back towards the business park, over some tarmac and across a live traffic area where it has to be said that the marshals suddenly became a bit light on the ground, with one sending us off and one collecting us and sending us around the pony track. I saw a number of people in front of me go wrong and there was no signage to indicate that cars could (and were) driving around unconnected to the event (see the Q&A with Ram Run Race Direct below for a follow up on this). Whilst the wind had done its best to blow away the course taping overall I found it to be quite a well marked course.
Once we’d found our way to the pony track it was time to pick up a log and head out for a lap of the track, log dropped back off and it was off into the estate, over a series of walls, not particularly tall but 3 or 4 in succession soon take it out of you and then back out into the fields, up a rope climb hanging off a tree, through a split tree (random but kinda cool) and off into the woods for the start of the lapped section (two laps for the 12km race).
From here we had muddy slopes galore, much of this is a 4X4 course. Nothing too big, but they felt fairly taxing on the old legs and dodging a branch to the face led to that extra OCR challenge! Having negotiated our way out of here we headed out into a big field for a long out and back, before a quick dip in some specially dug holes and a scramble under some tarpaulin, before jumping a ditch, ducking under a fence and heading back into the muddy bogs close to the river Avon in another bit of woodland.
However the noise suggested that something worse was waiting in our near future and so it was! The headline attraction - the bridge of despair! This is a jump into the River Avon a climb up either, a single rope (no knots required for elites or time penalty) single rope with knots in or a cargo net.
I have to admit that my initial reaction on reaching the bridge was mild disappointment, there was no raging torrent of water, no 100m wide river crossing and the gap from the water up to the bridge was a little short. I’d ran through enough swamps and ditches at this point, it wasn’t that cold, was it? Well let me tell you, once you’ve plunged into the freezing cold water which rips the breath out of you, swam across to the ropes and looked up, it all starts to look a heck of a lot longer, tougher and I’ve never felt my confidence fade quite so quickly.
Both times round I opted for the rope with knots, having failed the rope climb earlier I knew my glove & grip combo wasn’t going to cut it on a single rope. I didn’t feel 100% confident with it and my worst nightmare was falling back into the Avon (did I mention it was COLD). So it was a convoluted process of throwing my leg up, jamming it in between a couple of stanchions and levering myself up.
Once you have dragged your cold wet body onto the bridge, there is a dilemma. Get running & warm, or grab some of the free coffee/tea to get warm. Lap 1 I chose running, lap 2 it was a very quick coffee and then off into the forest & some deeper than expected muddy bogs - then off towards the business estate again. Lap one you turn left and continue past the climb through tree and repeat the lap, Lap 2 you turn right and head back towards the fitness centre.
Here I ran into the back of a queue of decidedly nervous looking people. Peering round it soon became clear what the source of so much trepidation & concern was: A Cage Crawl / Sheep Dip - whatever you want to call it, it’s not nice! (Awol, the free onsite photographers have called it “watery grave”!!!!) With around a 6 inch gap between the water and the cage, meaning you need to lie on your back and pull your self along by your fingers. Ram Run did a particularly vicious job of making the gap between water & cage narrow as you get closer to the end, meaning you had no choice but to take a big breath and desperately pull yourself backwards to the end. Plenty of people skipped this one, plenty of people said naughty things as they did it and not one person I saw said they enjoyed it. However it was the thing most people talked about once they had finished and I personally think it was excellent! It’s not often that you can compare an obstacle to a Guantanamo Bay style “spa session”!
From here it was a quick warm up run, into the field outside the fitness centre, over some low walls & poly wrapped hay bales, over a monkey bar structure and then one of the oddest finishes I’ve ever seen. The only indication that you’d finished was the fence in front of you and having crossed a timing mat. There certainly was no high fives, goody bags, medals (more on that later) or fanfare, however I did have a (free) tasty warm soup thrust into my hands very quickly!
The soup was soon gone so a dash upstairs (yes they even let us in with muddy shoes!) and into the changing rooms (did I mention what a nice change that made?!?!) . I decided against joining the queue for the showers and just warmed my hands in the sink and threw on a warm top.
Making my way back downstairs my mind switched to my next priority: Bling! At about this time someone jumped on a microphone and announced that the bling had been delivered to Stoneleigh Park, but they didn’t know where. So I opted to keep my spirits up with a very tasty hot pork bap from the stand and started spotting some of my Team Muddy Race buddies as they came up through the final field of obstacles.
A quick announcement that medals had been found meant the hall soon filled up with eager obstacle course race bling hunters. As I stood in the queue I took the opportunity to return my timing ankle chip and punch my number into the DBmax system - It was great fun to get an instant printout of my time & placing - a very nice idea I haven’t seen elsewhere (yet).
Overall, this was a really fun and friendly event, some of the finesse it may have lacked in some elements of organisation is easily outweighed by the friendly feel it has about it , you had a real feeling that they wanted to fix issues, both the social media team fixing issues for lazy elites before and also after the event for the few that didn’t get medals as they had already left. The facilities are excellent, hot showers, indoor space, excellent food plus free coffee/tea (on course) and soup (at finish) are all real wins.
Competition wise, it seemed to do a good job of attracting enough podium level talent to make it an exciting competition and those guys and gals certainly love the trophy, but also there was enough mid level talent for us all to have our own challenges.
The course was challenging, yet accessible to people of all levels. Especially with the 24KM option available on Sunday, there is something for everyone.
Will I be back? Yes absolutely. Whilst there were a few niggles on the day, nothing too serious and more importantly the Wild Ram and his team have clearly been keen to take on board feedback, learn from mistakes and implement changes for the next event. We caught up with the Wild Ram himself and put a few of our concerns to him….
Muddy Race : The start was a little late, seemed a bit rushed with only around 45 seconds between waves, this led to some lengthy queues over the first mile / obstacles. Any plans to change this in April?
Wild Ram: We make changes to the course and obstacles every time. It did not help that on Saturday morning we had gales blowing the course tape away. I did not get to the first obstacle, the
rope bridge. Now see the photos I see they missed the single rope, effectively a 3rd line, 50% more capacity. Following discussions with some of the podium finishers we already have a very different first kilometre planned
Muddy Race: There seemed to be some confusion pre-event by some runners regarding the elite system (which seemed to work well on the day) was this just competitors not reading their emails or will you look to make it simpler in the future?
Wild Ram: I was brought up in the days of fountain pens and, it is very obvious, I am happy with long sentences. In todays world so much time is spent texting that I think long words and sentences are found to be boring. Some people said the race day instructions I sent out, 6 pages including a page on race numbers, were the best set of instructions and information they had ever received. There was also a full post on Facebook showing the different colour numbers and explaining what they meant. But still some people did not know what was happening. I think I have the answer worked out in conjunction with Dbmax. I learned this weekend that it saves a lot of time if we use the same race numbers as the chips. Registration was confusing Saturday but very easy and almost no waiting Sunday, we learned how to handle the numbers better!
Muddy Race: You’ve recruited some great marshals; even in the cold weather they were full of beans! However there were some critical areas (for example with cars driving around) that had no marshals or signage?
Wild Ram: Point taken, the road system is actually blocked off in the areas we use. The cars, trucks, quad bikes you saw were the head marshal, his helpers and photographers. I will ensure they are marked next time, you’re right.
Muddy Race: What can you tell us about your spring event that will have team muddy race heading to the signup page?
Wild Ram: Spring should enable us to be more adventurous with the river Avon. The concourse will be a different obstacle set up and will be run twice, again a suggestion from an obstacle race runner who enjoyed last weekend.
Muddy Race: What other improvements can we expect?
Wild Ram: Following consultation with some competitors, including all the podium finishers we have agreed that except in summer we will run intensity as the first event. Intensity is the 600m Obstacle sprint time trial competition. Also in future car parking will be close to the shower block. If the ram run numbers continue to grow as I expect we will be looking at a large headquarters marquee behind the gym.