The race is centered around the legend of Hercules who had to complete 12 labours in order to atone for slaying his kids and wife while mad.(I had so many witty comments to put here but I wasn't sure my wife and kids would share my humour.)
In the weeks leading up to the race we'd been sent a participants handbook which described various aspects of the race control, location etc.. A few days before the race we got the Race Oracle which was a list of directions to each labour. At registration we were given an A3 printout of a map of the area with the recommended routes to each labour marked on it. We were also given a goody bag which contained the electronic tag that we'd use to register our presence at each checkpoint, a race
number and a nice gift from the sponsors Racing The Planet.
A comprehensive race briefing was given and at 10:00 we were all sent on our way.
The beauty of this race is that you are free to do the challenges in any sequence you choose. The only limits were that two of the challenges were only open during limited times. Challenge 5 from 11:00 to 13:00 and challenge 12 from 16:00 to midnight. All other challenges were open for 24 hours. The closest challenge was 0.5 miles from the HQ, and so had a round journey of 1 mile, the second had a round journey of 2 miles, the third a round journey of three miles and so on until challenge 12 with its round journey of ... yup, you guessed it, 12 miles.
Warning: it's possible there's some slight exaggeration in the following post.
The early opening, and limited duration of challenge 5 meant that the majority of the field chose one of the first three tasks to complete as their first task.
I chose task 2. I mean seriously, how hard can 2 miles be? We set off from the school and after about 500 meters hit the first hill.
The road wound its way up a hill. Okay, it's steep, but nothing too bad.
Then we hit the first trail. Had the hill been just one degree steeper you would have had to have sherpa guides help you get to the top. I had never been to the Shropshires before and so I blissfully assumed that this hill must be the exception, How many hills like this can there be? The answer was pretty soon in coming. Having slowly clambered up and peaked that hill, there was a lovely downhill before we hit the twin brother of the hill we'd just climbed! At the highest point of this second hill were the objects that this task require we retrieve.
The following picture is taken from the top of the climb of labour 2. The arrow in the center was the checkpoint, the arrow to the right hand side shows some runners and the arrow at the top is showing Church Stretton which is only a mile away from where I was standing!!!!!
Now I'd been thinking that having uphills was no major issue, after all, Newtons third law of running states that for every uphill there is an equal but opposite downhill, and so, in my mind, any time I lost by walking up hills would be clawed back by running back down them. I hadn't factored in the fact that walking uphills would be more like climbing up mountains and as for running down them ... hah! If you had tried running down them gravity would have taken a hold of you and admittedly your downtime would be a lot faster than your uptime, but a trip to hospital would be pretty much guaranteed. And so I climbed up and then climbed back down the hills. I got back to HQ, checked in and checked out for challenge 5.
I studiously followed the map and joy of joys, the first 2 km were on road. Nice, I'll make up some time here. Cross the A49, enter the fields and pretty soon discovered that those twin mountains I'd met earlier were actually part of a really large family. Again I crawled my way up the side of the hill. The cruel thing was that as I crawled up, I could see the peak and thought, yes, I can do this! But as I reached the peak I saw that 200 meters in front (and 2 kilometers above) was the next peak.
At this stage I hadn't quite realised that the aim of this race was to take you to the 12 highest points around Church Stretton. Consequently I ignored the 200 meters in front (and 2km above) peak and started looking for the path that I was to descend to the entrance of a cave we were to find. I couldn't find it and my worst fears were confirmed when I saw a runner plummeting down from the 2km above peak.
I climbed up, and sure enough, once we were at the highest point on that hill I found the path to the cave. At this stage the reality hit, don't bother looking for the tasks until you are at the highest point of the mountain you are on.
On the way back from the cave to HQ we were presented with the labour required by this leg. Archery. We were given three practice shots and then three shots to count. The person scoring the highest won a prize (as all my arrows only just made it to the target I was never a serious contender for that prize). Back at HQ I checked in and then chose to do task 1.
This task was half a mile from HQ. But of course by now I'd learnt that between HQ and the task was bound to be yet another huge climb. So there I am, puffing and panting after having fought my way through assorted shrubbery to claw my way to the top of yet another of the high points on the outskirts of Church Stretton when I read the task. The task was to to make a sword, dagger or some similar weapon ... from a balloon!
The balloons were the long thin types used by entertainers to make all sorts of objects from a sausage to a fairy castle depending on the skill of the entertainer. Following the script of a famous kids story I huffed and I puffed but sadly the balloon was suffering an identity crisis and thought it was a house made of brick. It stayed uninflated. I stretched it and blew, stopping only to pick up my left eardrum that shot out under immense pressure as the balloon fought back. Finally though I won, just as I thought my foofie valve was about to blow the balloon inflated. I made my sword, and what a wonderful creation it was (Would I lie to you?). I started to leave the checkpoint when I had a flash of reality. Getting a balloon sword down the side of a mountain might not be that easy. I took a spare balloon just in case.
I set off back down the way I'd come, doing my best not to look too stupid as I pranced tenderly down the hillside holding a balloon sword out of the reach of all that sharp and pointy shrubbery that was desperately trying to pop it. Halfway down the mountain side it happened. I slipped, my hand went down to stop my fall, there was a loud bang and all that was left of my amazing work of art was a droopy piece of rubber (or whatever it is that balloons are made of).
When I got to the bottom I did debate trying to blow the spare balloon up but my foofie valve, eardrums, eyes and cheeks just wouldn't have stood up to another round of trying to inflate a balloon and so I returned to HQ and placed the unblown up balloon on the stage.
I'm not going to go through every task for two reasons, one it would be boring and two, because I didn't do them all. If you read the blog entry before this you'll see I had a mountain biking crash and cracked a rib a few weeks before this race. Well one of the falls I had on this race jarred my ribs which then started tightening up and I eventually called it a day. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
Not all the tasks had an activity associated with them. Some of them just required that you retrieve an object and one of them you just checked in at and returned.
This was a FANTASTIC race. Yes it was hard at times (of the 29 runners who entered as solo runners only 4 finished all 12 tasks) but wow, some of the views that you were treated to were amazing. And the whole concept of the race is just so brilliant, it's so different from running point to point or a large circuit. The organisation was amazing. The food that was available at HQ was the best I have seen at any race. I mean there were even chips and pizzas available at one stage!
I will definitely be back next year. Details of the race can be found at http://beyondmarathon.com/12-labours-of-hercules/
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