Nayland 9 Mile Mudfest
Now the Christmas and the New Year festivities had been concluded we needed to start making plans for the new year! I am mindful that I was booked in to an Endurance Life trail race down in Dover on the 14th January 2017 and we had not been out training enough on the right terrain. This plus the fact we had entered the Stour Valley Marathon in June 2017 on NYE inspired us to venture out to Nayland on the 3rd January 2017 to under take a bit of time running in the mud.
The event was organised by the Mid Essex Casuals and the link will hopefully show you the main events they host throughout the year. The event was not a race - but more of an organised fun run. You sign up online or could pay on arrival. It cost around £5-£7 depending on whether you are affiliated to a club or not.
The race did not have any checkpoints and was 100% self navigating. This is why when you view my STRAVA route you will note it took us some time to get around 9 miles. Upon arrival at the starting location you confirm your name and that you are ready to start. Before leaving you receive a set of instructions. These instructions take a bit of getting used to, but you quickly get the hang of them. For example SA means straight ahead and TL means turn left.
As you could leave as and whenever you were ready it meant that you actually have to read the instructions rather than following others who had done the route before. This was actually really tricky as its hard to run and read at the same time. On several occasions we had to stop and recheck the next section of the route as it was too dangerous to read at the same time as avoiding mud and tree roots.
The route took us through some beautiful scenery and followed a section of the course we will complete as part of the Marathon next June. I have attached my STRAVA route so you can view where the route specifically took us. It was freezing cold when we set off and I could hardly feel my feet or fingers, but soon we were trekking up relatively big hills and avoiding mud and quickly warmed up.
It was surprisingly how many hills there were. For a circular route we always seemed to be going upwards. This was hard work as the day before we ventured out there had been lots of rain. The mud was everywhere and by the time I got to the top of the hill my trainers had an additional stones worth of mud to carry round. It was super heavy! Urgh!
The route also took us through some very muddy woods! This was the first time I had tacked such mud since the ankle incident. I took my own advice and ran straight through the middle of it all. It's the safest way as trying to avoid the mud by skirting around the edge normally leads to people slipping over. I was shocked that some people survived getting through the mud in non trail shoes however! Quite impressed nobody fell over!
The route was really well laid out - and to our surprise the organisers had even left a water supply half way round to provide us with refreshments. The instructions were easy to follow and we met lots of happy trail runners out enjoying the course. The most important thing is to remember to sign back in with the organisers when you arrive at the finish. This is to ensure that everyone has got back safely. The icing on the cake for me was actually cake! We got to have a bit of Christmas cake at the end! Yummy!
It was a really fun experience, great training for my forthcoming races and a great way to learn new trail routes that we can visit in the future. We will 100% be returning for another adventure run by the Mid Essex Casuals in 2017.