Event: X-Runner Winter Warrior
Venue: Donington Park Race Circuit
Date: 31st January 2015
Distance: 5k laps, (timed distance 2 laps)
Pre-race & event village:
Having travelled through heavy snow it was a pleasure to find the Car-parking and pre-race administration was the usual slick operation that we have come to expect from the X-Runner team. The bag drop was well located next to the start/finish area, some things were less than obvious to find but there seemed to be a decent number of marshals handy to point you in the right direction. Overall the event village was decent, with changing areas for all and plenty of toilets. Plus a nice large warm room for pre/post socialising, no muddy clothes allowed understandably.
Video
Video filmed by Mark Turner
Course:
The bad weather failed to materialise so after a decent warm up in the Pit Lane area we were taken out to the start and finish lane, not just the X-Runner start and finish lane but the Donington Park one. It had wow impact enhanced by the fire and pyrotechnics set off as we headed through the start gate and down the track. They did a great job of utilising not only the Donington Park aspects, such as setting up tyre wall climbs in the middle of the gravel traps (I never want to run through gravel again), running along the race track, but then also breaking us out into the Derbyshire countryside, up some hills and getting us really muddy. The mix of tarmac and mud did present some shoe choice issues, but with the level of mud overall trail shoes were the best choice and some of the running on the track could be done on the grass verge.
Obstacles:
There was a healthy helping of standard obstacle course race obstacles, such as hay bale climbs, cargo net climbs and crawls, but it was also clear that the X-Runner team had used the off-season wisely and spent some cash. The new slide ‘The Cresta Run’. The Cresta Run was excellent and wide enough to prevent queues and with plenty of water (just a shame no photographer waiting at the bottom during wave and lap one, as I threw myself down in true “here is my next profile pic” style!) The new tube slide was also setup with plenty of lanes and slippery enough to come flying out of the end. Another nice touch was the grading on some of the obstacles, including a healthy dose of walls, inverted walls and a traverse-climbing wall.
This provided options for runners of all abilities, with small, medium and large walls, plus with the foot holds on the walls you could either attack in the normal fashion or get a sneaky foot push up. There were some pretty hefty trenches that had been dug out of the countryside that by wave two had turned into thick muddy pits and tried to claim a number of trainers! The only obstacle that disappointed was the ‘fire jump’, which hadn’t been lit for waves one and two but was up and running for later waves.
Bling, T-Shirt & Goody Bag:
Standard X-Runner medal, as previous years but with new colour scheme, T-shirt is a decent tech tee with location and date on it. The goody bag was just a drawstring boot bag with a bottle of water, but there was hot free soup and also lots of foil blankets being handed out which went down a treat.
Summary:
Well run, good course, not super challenging but enough to keep you busy and entertained, plus accessible to many including first timers with the 5k only and graded obstacles.