Bootneck challenge

I'd heard about another OCR that was being ran from Gaz, so rather than discount entry we took the option of marshaling and running the same day. I ended up staying over at Carly and Matt's as my earliest train wouldn't have gotten me there in enough time. We got to the event site a little late so we were assigned to different places than we had been given.

We were directing runners on course and when the first runners came through there were no markings so they ended up going the wrong way but it was luckily only a slight deviation to the course route, once one of the organisers came over it was sorted out and I ended up directing people up to the field where they ran round towards Carly and Matt before crossing the water and continuing on. There were some clay pigeon launchers in the field and loads of undamaged clays, so we through a few around and smashed them off trees, which was great fun. We were supposed to be the 12 o'clock wave but they put on a 12:30 marshals wave for us, they also taped off the part of the course we were at to direct people.

We headed over to the main area to pick up our numbers and get ready for the wave, we met John who had been taking photos for the event. At first we thought there was going to be just us and another runner but soon after we had 10 people taking part. After starting my watch we ran across the field and then back up to climb over some tires, then up a mound, round the top and through some water and back down the field, a couple of beams to climb over and under, then down to the part we were marshaling, we headed through the water which was biting cold on the feet, then a wall with wooden blocks attached to it. Through some more water and onto a sandbag carry, then through another field to a climbing obstacle. We then had to pick up a make believe rifle and carry it through a tunnel and hold it above our heads and run back round to where we picked them up.

Up another field with a bit of an incline and sadly the water slide had no water left so we headed onto the next field and some orange segment, which was refreshing, over an undulating part of the field and through a spider web being squirted by someone taking great fun with that water gun. Through some water where Carly hurt her ankle then through another field and some angled walls which showed how out of shape I am for these events. Then under some tyres, which reminded me of birth canal but was infinitely harder due to the weight of the tyres, another thing to climb over before heading through a large body of water and back to the start for the second lap. I liked the idea of having one or two laps to do, after skipping a couple of the obstacles we headed up the field to the quarter pipe which was steeper than everest but I don't know if it was my speedcross shoes or that there hadn't been many runner on course but I managed to get up without incident, then across the finish line to pick up our medals.

It was a nice little obstacle run, that could do with some obstacles that are similar to other events but overall aside from the marking issues at the start it was a good day out and a great start to the year,