Apologies in advance for a very delayed race report on Survival of the Fittest. I was aching for the week following the event and was unbelievably drained! And then life got hectic!... enough of the excuses though.... here it is...
Despite our nerves in the lead up to the event I can honestly say that we all had a fantastic time! We had to arrive at Battersea Power Station a couple of hours early to register, pick up our timing chips and our Survival of the Fittest t-shirts. Registration was quick and easy and before we knew it we were stood with our Bromley by Bow Centre tops on and race numbers pinned in place.
As with any team challenge we were keen to stand out and the Bromley by Bow Centre top was just not enough so out came the face paint! Just as the All Blacks have the Haka we needed something to intimidate the other teams – our face paint varied from camo stripes to a cat through to the evil eye!
The atmosphere in the event village was electric and we enjoyed watching others tackle the obstacles before our race began at 3pm. And that is when the fun really started…!
The course starts with some innocent looking hay bales which in reality were a devil to climb over. As we progressed around the course the obstacles came thick and fast growing in difficulty from monkey bars to climbing nets through to scaling walls and crawling through cars! In the cold Nov afternoon one of the most breath taking obstacles was crawling through cold water under a net whilst being sprayed by a fire hose…!
After tackling these obstacles and a run through Battersea Park the finish line was looming. What is usually a welcome sight was being met with dread as the 8ft final wall stood between us and the finish. With team work and perseverance we all managed to scale the wall only to be confronted with the 8ft drop on the other side.
This event is special – not only because it is harder than anything I have done before but because of its focus on team work. We were not only supporting our own team mates through the obstacles but every other participant giving a much needed leg up or words of encouragement.
I may have suffered from sore arms and bruised knees but this has only added to the sense of achievement. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we will be showing off our medals with pride!
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