Halloween Hellraiser - Race Report

Halloween Hellraiser - Race Report

by Alan Budenberg

From the name of the race, pictures on the website and the description of multi-terrain, this looked like it could be an interesting morning, so it was with some caution that we met up at Crewe Vagrants sports club.

It was all pretty well organised on arrival, I was entering on the day and the organiser I spoke to said “better tie up your shoe laces tight today lad or you won’t see them again”, referring to the mud we were about to be running through.

We took a short walk to a side road and off we went, somewhat intrigued by the course ahead, after about half a mile we took the first style and the mystery tour started.

It was about at style number 3 (of about 20), when there was a queue of about 20 people waiting to get over it, I realised this was not going to be a day for my PB. The first field was also one to “give the trainers a wash”, whilst I tried to step around the mud, other runners near me, just ran through it, I wondered if they knew something I didn't.

We then carried on over more styles, more fields, though the church and graveyard. Overall it was really well marshalled, with volunteers every few hundred yards to point you down the next passage across the field or help you across the road, plus a number of them had sweets (nice). Being Cheshire it was fairly flat although there were one or two climbs, when I looked back on my Garmin report, well anything is really a climb for me, as my usual training is along the canal.

Then after 8 miles came the moment of the race, for anyone of you with children who have been to a maize maze, it was rather like that. We ran into a corn field, the corn was 7 or 8 feet high so you couldn't see where you were going and there was a small track and every 20 yards or so there was some red tape tied around the corn. By the time I got there, there were no other runners around so after running for a few minutes through the corn, I was relieved to get out.

The run home then consisted of marshals, telling me I was almost there, after which another field appeared. The goodie bag was an unusual mix, some chocolate squares which I ate on the way home, sat in traffic on the M6, some porridge and some Halloween Hellraiser beer – see the photo.

Overall a great event, you didn’t really know where you were going next, great organisation and beer as your prize……much better than some sports drink!