It's not Grim down South - Grim Night Terror Report

'This has to be the most stupid thing we've ever done.... and we've done a lot of stupid things'

This statement made by both me and eatingtrees pretty much simultaneously at 5pm on Saturday night summed it up I reckon. Here we were, sitting in a parked car, wrapped in a lot of layers with snow falling around us, just about to run around in pitch black with only a head-torch for company on a course that can make your balls shrink just thinking about the cold and in which eatingtrees has fallen over into a puddle within the first 100m once and gone over on his ankle on a different occasion. Oh yeah and we paid £25 for the 'privilege'.

CAN YOU GUESS WHO IT IS YET?

Once we couldn't put it off any longer, we headed to the start and jumped and jigged around a lot trying to keep some feeling in muscles that were getting colder by the second where it was announced to a series of jeers and boos that they'd had to divert the course a bit owing to the 4 inch solid ice covering the larger puddles that 'would cut us to ribbons'. At that point, I wasn't overly disappointed as I was still expecting some puddles, just not knee and waist deep ones.

WHAT ABOUT NOW?

The route was 2 laps around the forest, in the snow, with loud speakers playing screaming and heavy breathing noises throughout the route. Think horror film, not porn. It was really well marshalled and all done in good spirits but it didn't take long to realise that even the smaller puddles were sheet ice and the only way you were going over those is on your arse. So pretty much everyone followed the same route diverting around the big puddles and 2 laps were completed in about an hour and 5 minutes. Pretty quick for me over 8 miles. Only is wasn't 8 miles because of all the adjustments the organisers were forced to make through not fault of their own. It turned out to be between 6.5 and 7 miles which is more than I usually run on a Saturday night in Feb I guess!

Would I run it again? Yes but only if it was a proper Grim. It has potential and this one could have been great but a week of below freezing temps leading up to it just gave the organisers no choice in shortening it and making it safer. All in all it was a bit tame. I've never been able to drive home in the same clothes and shoes from a Grim event before!!!