Nuclear Rush: a muddy 10K

Full album here

This was a killer.

On a happily glorious day in May 2018, I joined four of my colleagues from Mother Nature's Diet (all considerably fitter than me) for a ten-kilometre 'muddy run'. Not only was 10k a major stretch for me (then and at any time) but the 'assault course' element pushed me further out of my comfort zone than I would have believed possible.

All clean before we started! L to R: Karl, Jane, Jason, Cassie, Kim.

We not only ran but shimmied under cargo nets (through mud), scrambled up slopes, splashed through streams, jumped off high platforms into a lake, and much more. Some hilarious, some deeply uncomfortable, some terrifying, some exhilarating. 

I found there was just one area where I was further into my comfort zone than most of my colleagues: the swimming. I'm slow but reasonably confident, having been thrown into a swimming pool when I was just months old and having no fear of water. So diving under a float to come up the other side posed no problems; it was scary coming down the 'death slide', but that came under the 'exilarating' heading; and jumping off a tower into deep water was a challenge but manageable.

I ducked out of some of the challenges - especially the later ones as I tired - but was still pretty proud to have managed quite a number of them, and - even though I was tail-end Charlie throughout, to have finished the thing at all.

Was I glad I did it? For challenge, cameraderie and personal boundary pushing - yes. Would I do it again? Probably not!!