After an evening spent drinking lovely brown booze in the company of my mate Jonathan who just happens to live in Skipton. I woke with a bit of a thirst. Staying in a house means that your running gear gets a chance to dry. We enjoyed a bacon sandwich before I got myself sorted and said goodbye before hobbling along the street wearing one shoe, as I thought I'd heard Stuart pulling up to the end of the street. We drove across to the event ground and Tom was waiting for us neat the entrance. we were hoping to be in the 10:20 wave but watched an entertaining bit of dancing and wrestling between Batman and Two Chains. Batman was the people's champion to start with but after some rather good dancing and generally being better at each event, Two Chains was the people's champion.
We finally got the warm up done and onto the start for 10:40, which I guessed that they must have been spreading the waves out a bit, to cope with the course having bottlenecks on the Saturday. Stuart worked out that with Dom, the man who dresses as a minion, Ben and Marc from the legionnaires group, Stuart and myself, we have a combined amount of 150 events under our collective belts, which is pretty damned cool. We set off and wound over the field and my vision was playing up as I lost Tom and Stuart but found them again, I was struggling on the first hill but carried on, till we reached creek crusade and it was a slightly quicker working our way through the water, I got chatting to someone and giving bits of advice, about what to expect. I needed a little help on skidmarked, then when we got to the second creek crusade we sailed straight through in a much quicker time than the day before.
Cry baby was about the thickest I've ever seen it, so very strong, Stuart did his nifty trick of putting his headband over his eyes and went through which seems like a great idea, although it was strong it wasn't as unpleasant as the Scottish event. Birth canal was a bit trickier than the day before but nothing too problematic, round the field and back under a fence taking the easier option this time to bale bonds which were harder than the day before but that's what happens when you drink a bunch of pints the night before. Mud mile had a whole load of mud between the mounds and we gave help to a large bunch of people which was a great feeling. The hill just after mud mile was so very slippery with a lot of people falling over and sliding down the hill. We made our way up to sewer rat and I tried to push with my feet but that didn't work and unlike the day before it wasn't a pool of mud but a tarpaulin that had been put down so I landed with a heavy thump onto it and a large smooth rock underneath it, which was unpleasant.
Down over the rocks again and up an incline that people were crawling up, which I couldn't get any grip on, so slid back down the hill and had to part crawl to get up and of course, I caught my hand on some thistles or nettles. They had separated the paths between kiss of mud and the last part of the course, so no one was sliding down the hill or going the wrong way. Kiss of mud was really muddy and as I wasn't wearing my camelbak managed to catch myself on the board at the end of the obstacle. The hill back up was just as slippery as the day before, we walked for a bit and chatted to a couple of lads who were from up home and they'd managed to sink 12 pints the night before, I think they were challenging some wedding party or stag do. The slide down the hill had been re-routed and now we ran past where it was, killa gorilla had been ruined by a large slide cutting across the tracks, Tom and I decided we would run the proper way and encouraged others to do the same, which I was pleased when they did.
Back up over sewer rat an onto king of the swingers, I tried to clean my gloves off as best I could but when I got up the the platform the bar was covered in mud so I decided to just jump in the water, which was quite pleasant to swim through. Quagmire was hard to get out of and even with Stuart's help, I fell back but made it out on the second go. Hero walls were slick again and I almost got up by myself though did need a little help for the last bit, I got across a few more rungs on funky monkey but still went in, Tom made it all the way across which was pretty cool. Up and over the moors, our 15 minute mile time was getting longer as the course wore on, I definitely need more hill training for this course next year. Devil's beard was pretty hard to get through as the ground was quite muddy and hold your wood, had Tom and I taking the wood as Stuart was helping another group, so we didn't manage to do it properly but we still carried a huge wooden pole around.
I started to really slow along the swamp stomp which was really thick and tiring, then I caught up to Tom and Stuart and then onto liberator, where I managed to easily help pull a woman up to the top, I tried to help a man and had great difficulty, then we got up to pyramid scheme, where Stuart ran up to the top, I couldn't get all the way up, I did get hooked over the top to help a group of up to the top, we made it along hero carry and then balls to the wall. The queues for Everest weren't too bad so we waited and I started to fall asleep, which wasn't good, I must have been worn out but I woke enough to get up to the top to get helped over the top, I stayed up helping a few people and managed to get a smack to the face by a stray elbow or foot. I skipped dead ringer and decided against electroshock where we met John volunteering again, there had been a few bad falls, still I get the option to skip.
I used the rinse showers and managed to dry a bit in the change tent before heading back to the station for the journey home. Agreat end to a great Mudder weekend of mud and boozing.
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