Saturday 5 March 2016

Jemma Tackles the Endurer Dash Sherwood Pines- A Review

Endurer events popped up advertising a new location right near home- so close an opportunity not to be missed at Sherwood Pines. By December last year had convinced a few girls from Crossfit Hexis to join me. Though it came to race day and ended up just being me at the start line. I am used to that and it meant I could just plough on ahead and see what this event company had to offer.

I had heard that the Endurer event company put cracking events up in the Peak District and should be by now a well-oiled event.  I turned up at the Endurer well early before I was due to run.  The plan was sign up go back to car put my Talons on and get self all ready but.I have not seen a queue so bad at an event before. I arrived around 9.45 and the 10:30 wave were not even signed on yet. This got me wondering if they can’t get registration right what’s the race going to be like?  By 10:15 I finally got to get my chip and bib number.  At First look my chip was a wrist strap that was far too big for me.  Though was later pointed out by Muddy Duck aka Alan that should put on my leg so now look like a runner who was let out of jail on tag.

The Queue to Register Really Gave a Very Bad Impression of Endurer Dash Event Management

At this point I saw Liam who was fresh from the muddy trails of Sherwood pines and already talking to some OCR regulars we know.  Once I got my x-talons on and other bits I needed and Liam got my keys for safety I felt a little better.  Though no key drop which would been nice for those who wasn’t in a group.  As the fear of losing your car key could easily happen.




The 11:00am wave ended up going at 11:20 due to again runners trying to sign in to run and no actual warm up whether a proper one or a fun one.  This was unusual but with the delays could have been a reason why we didn’t have one.  Finally get sent off the views was lovely twisting in and out up and down through trees you almost forget how gorgeous Sherwood Pines is.  The weather in the past week has made a lot of the trails into gloopy muddy mess.  Perfect for OCR and get used to running as found 90% of this event was that and the Obstacles that was there was made very well which when credit is due it there.  The walls as hard as they was for me there was a step for girls to use which I still found hard to muscle up to get over but the lowering down I found a lot easier than I did at MHSOF series.  The monkey bars though was a thick rung ladder strapped to scaffolding which I couldn’t grip my small hands round making for me making it difficult to even attempt so left this obstacle.

The runs was broken up with more wall climbs a tunnel crawl, commando crawl under cargo net and log carry.  There was large sections of the course where was extremely muddy and wet underfoot. But found to now starting to run a little better in these conditions better than did in previous races so using that as a positive step forward what started to achieve from winter training.  Not sure if the total distance was 10km as the Epson Runsense me and Liam are trialling decided to pause halfway through run and must have run quite a bit till realised what it had done which isn’t good if wanting to track your runs OCR style. It certainly seems to need an isolation switch to prevent accidental button bashes during an event. 

After doing this event I don’t think I will repeat and come back as now see as ticked off list as done now.  Looking forward to doing the Deerstalker event next weekend now and I have a time to beat and hopefully be in full health.  As it seems I am fighting off some flu like symptoms for the past few days let’s not have a repeat of last year where was sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk

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