For many runners, deciding whether to run a 10k or a 10 Mile race can be a difficult decision. But Rob Wishart has an easy solution, just do both.
On separate days of course.
I’ll let Rob take over..
Total Warrior Weekend
3rd & 4th August 2013
Report by Rob Wishart
And now for something completely different.
Total Warrior is an assault course race. On Saturday it’s 10k and on Sunday they add a 4 mile detour of fell running to make it a 10 miler. Most of you “proper runners” wouldn’t dream of doing this in case you twisted an ankle on the obstacles! But there’s more to life than running. Really!
My friend H and I entered as a team but he entered too late to get a place on the Saturday. So for the 10k I was the sole member of Team Desperadoes!
We drove over to Shap, Cumbria and put our tents up, in time for my start on the 1pm wave. On the TW website a lot of the runners are guys with their tops off – poseurs, I thought, but of course I ended up doing it too! It is practical, as whatever you wear will get covered in mud. Try it, you too, ladies.
Thanks to XC experience I knew to tie my shorts and shoes on super-tight so they’d stay on in deep mud 
At the start enclosure I was at the back. It was packed.
D.J says “Total?”
Crowd says “Warrior!”
It’s chip-timed but I wondered about there being queues at the obstacles…. but when it started we were soon doing zigzags on a steep hillside and I swiftly and efficiently got through the crowd 
After that you hurdle a burning log, wade in mud, climb walls, carry logs, crawl under nets/ barbed wire, along tunnels etc etc. Plenty of running in between. Before this I’d felt my fitness was poor, but on the day I was zooming past the T’Warriors from the previous wave, tackling the obstacles a.s.a.p and feeling good! Ran, climbed, crawled, swam and it was grrreat.
one of the many, many obstacles during the race
Post-race, team Desperadoes respected the next day’s challenge by halting the afternoon drinking (saw some Elvet Striders from Durham in the beer tent, they’re a good bunch!). We got fish & chips and returned to the campsite.
….but there was no wi-fi there and we ended up back in the pubs!
Sunday: no hangovers, #professional, and we got there for the 10:30a.m wave. Now, my team mate is a lot stronger than me so I knew he’d have no problem with the obstacles. But let’s just say, I had to make all the conversation during the 4 mile fell run! He cheered up once it was downhill though. It had rained all night and the course was a lot slippier and sloppier. I got stuck in waist-deep mud for a while! I told H that I’d catch him up but it turned out I was very, very stuck! Two guys helped me get out, pulling my arms. You do see co-operation at this kind of thing – earlier I’d helped someone over a wall, so the good karma came back
More swimming, crawling, climbing etc later and we were nearly finished. I couldn’t resist zooming ahead now – but anyway H had his own plans – last obstacle is monkey bars, a ladder across a pool of water which you cross by swinging hand by hand (“brachiating”). A photographer is there and H planned to pose by hanging from one hand, looking cool…. but his hands were wet and he slipped off the first rung and went straight into the water! I shouldn’t laugh…
Anyway, that’s Total Warrior for you. I really enjoyed the weekend, it is the BEST thing I’ve done this year!
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