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My First Mayhill Massacre - Duncan Mounsor - February 2010

I think I got talked into doing this by Matt Reid and Mike Wood around November time. It is funny how I seem to get talked into all the tough races, like the Cleevewold and Cotswold Way relay..you would think I would have learned to say no by now!

So I duly entered and continued doing some fairly crazy off-road night runs with Mike and Matt for training (including a few totally mad night runs knee deep in snow drifts in January).

Sometime in Jan I realised I was being sent to Phoenix, Arizona with work the week before Mayhill and would arrive back in Blighty the day before the race. Perfect race planning.

So after a week of being very good in the USA (no burgers, steak or fries) and doing some desert mountain biking, road running and some gym work in preparation, I turned up in Huntley at 10am, less than 24 hours after landing at Heathrow, freezing my you-know-what's off (it was 20 Degrees in Phoenix) and completely jet-lagged.I was there in body, certainly not in mind.

But I was OK, I had done some training, not put on any weight and had a lovely brand new pair of Salomon off-road shoes to break-in.

I'd been told that Mayhill is pretty full-on, a big hill from the start and lots of mud.

Lot's of mud!, that is an under-statement, more mud than the Somme!

After narrowly avoiding running into a big traffic cone at the start, I was off.

Within a few minutes I met that big hill that I'd been warned about. I think it went on for about 2.5 miles, unrelenting, up and up and up. Finally, the hill finished and then the mud, and mud and more mud. My lovely Salomon's!!! They were black 30 minutes earlier, now completely brown. Why don't they just make them muddy brown in the first place??

So after the first hill and once on the top of Mayhill, I think there must have been about 3 miles of mud-plugging. I have NEVER seen mud like it, brown, squelchy, sticky like treacle and never-ending. I started laughing at one point, it was laugh or cry to be honest. I kept thinking, you have just been on a 10 hour red-eye flight and should be at home in the warm, in bed, NOT getting covered from head to toe in mud and charging up and down hills..

Then there was that last hill at what, 6 miles? You can tell it is a steep one when the sensible types who had given up trying to run up it, walk up and are almost as fast as the fools like me trying to run it, slipping and sliding in the mud!

Then the downhill, yes, no more hills, no more mud, light at the end of the tunnel!

Around that last corner and then big sprint to the finish!

I left enough in the tank to just get past the Almost that I had been chasing for a few miles, and I stealthily snuck up on him on the line, rotten sod that I am!

I was happy with my time of 1 hour 15 mins and even happier when I hosed down my new shoes!

Great race, great atmosphere and great camaraderie, I will certainly do it again next year! Well done to Mike Wood for organising and all the Almosts that I saw marshalling who spurred me on with their enthusiastic chants of "come on Duncan, put some effort in!"

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