The first issue I bought of Zest in 2012 featured a race-recap of the annual women only run and obstacle course. I was so excited and awaited entries to open for the Zest 10k Challenge 2013!
Jenny and I arrived early, after getting a little lost (Tom-Tom still is not a fan of country lanes). We checked out the sponsor tents, including Freya, Itsu, Vitamix and Exodus travel before heading over to Alpro the main sponsor for some breakfast. We tried the smoothie and the cereal and berry pots and both were amazing and the perfect light breakfast before the run, no heavy or nauseas feeling.
After watching the 5k runners set off, we made our way to the energetic dance warm-up led by Gym Cube. Feeling warmer (and a lot sillier) we set off behind the quad bike around the paddock and up the first hill. Although Bolt round the Holt had been partly trail this was my first full trail and the mix of grass, bark and rough terrain was harder than I had anticipated.
We reached the first obstacle and ran high knees through tyres, then after a very steep hill we spied the slip and slide down a nice steep section of hill, my section seemed to be extra slippery with bubble soap and I quickly slid off the end and continued down the hill. My choice of bright (but not dark) leggings had me convinced I looked like I’d had an unfortunate accident, although fellow runners reassured me this was not the case!
The obstacles really took their toll on my pace and I struggled after 5k to keep running but was determined to finish strong, then I saw the queue for the next obstacle. The pyramid was high, every other person was taking multiple attempts to make the ascent and I was tempted to run past, but then I watched as Jenny sprinted and leapt, gazelle like, straight over the top. I took a sprint, certain I was going to copy Jenny’s magnificent leap and hit the pyramid hard, rebounding onto my butt. I took another sprint and again slammed the grass. I took a long breath, sprinted hard and hit the pyramid hard, I managed to hang to the top and thankfully pull myself over and slide down to the other side.
Back into the forest we tackled the final few kilometres and obstacles, then through the clearing I could just see the final obstacle, a bouncy castle and slide. I bounded in so happy to have reached the end but then the rain started, unfortunately it was too slippery to make the scramble to the top of the slide so I bounced my way out and sprinted to the finish line.
Although this was a hard race, it was really fun and will look for more adventure or obstacle races in the future.
After collecting our medals, water and goodie bags we posed on the podium, looking like fools!
Zest 10k Challenge 15/06/2013 (1:30:24)
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