My Event Ratings

Overall score		100%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		80%
PB potential		60%
Atmosphere		80%
Organisation		40%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: Muddy, hard and fun! Wettest race I've ever run, felt like I'd got into a Grim run by mistake.
In full: If it had been a rugby match it would have been cancelled due to waterlogged pitch, but as it was you had time to get used to soaked feet way before the start because ALL the grass was more or less under water. Started by running down a (paddy) field, listening to every one squeaking and splashing through more or less water, then settled down to the usual lovely variety of woodland paths (deeply muddy or churned up), sandy bridleways (even they were puddly) and grassy bits (aka bogs). Highlight: that lovely downhill to Watts Gallery. Low spot (not literally): plodding up that ploughed field to the top of the Hog's Back, seems to get longer every year! It wasn't the run I'd expected, but what a lot of fun!
Date of review: November 5, 2012

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Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		40%
Atmosphere		60%
Organisation		80%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: Hard, very hilly, very muddy, grow bigger lungs! Also rehydrate and refuel like mad afterwards.
In full: No description of this could possibly live up to the sheer muddy, breakneck, lung-bursting fun of the experience. Very little of this was level (well, that's how it felt) and the level bits were pretty muddy and often in trenches. The downhills were fantastic, really bounding descents. The uphills - well, I have never done an event where I've seen so many people walk for so much of the time. St Martha's hill (the steep way) made me think of ladders. An inspired touch to put a photograher just beyond the top if that ascent! Good, no-fuss organisation. The shakes were lovely, although necking a cold shake on a cold morning didn't agree with me.
I would love to do this event again with either spikes or dry weather for the week before it.
Maybe in June, once I've forgotten how absolutely wrecked I felt at the end of it.
Date of review: February 15, 2011

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Overall score		100%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		40%
Atmosphere		80%
Organisation		100%
Value		80%
Beginner-friendliness		80%

In full: My first cross-country, and it will be hard to beat. Fabulous route, lovely scenery, just hilly enough. The uphills were never viciously hard and the downhills were glorious, with surfaces good enough that you could fling yourself down with complete abandon. Very varied too, including sandy and stony tracks and bridlepaths, tarmac, grass and a ploughed field. The numbers of people and the width of the paths did mean that you had to slow down sometimes, but that was compensated by the big hill up a ploughed field and the big downhill stretch on a public (but traffic-free) road. What an absolutely wonderful route! I'll definitely try it again.
Date of review: November 8, 2010

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Overall score		80%
Would you do it again?		Yes
Details:
Scenery		60%
PB potential		60%
Atmosphere		60%
Organisation		60%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		80%

In short: Terrain from smooth to rough to muddy
In full: Thi is my second time on this course, and the pebbly bits were a bit slippery (we were warned at the start), but there weren't as many muddy puddles as last year. Organisation was good; although arriving after 9am meant a longish queue for the loos I still managed to do that, register and drop my bag off by 9.25. I thought the post-run massage tables were a lovely touch - I've got my name down for one next year! The scenery is very nice, but the rough running surface in many places gave me no tome to look at it. Talked to a first-timer who said what a lovely friendly atmosphere there was, which I think sums it up. Oh - and I set a new PB, 5 minutes quicker than this event in 2009!
Date of review: October 19, 2010

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Overall score		60%
Would you do it again?		Maybe
Details:
Scenery		80%
PB potential		60%
Atmosphere		40%
Organisation		20%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: A bit of a shambles, too few loos, registration did NOT stop at the specified time so start was late. Course was nice but half of it was run up a busy road which included traffic turning across the route and dodging roadworks.
In full: There was no PA, so if you weren't in the right place you didn't know the race had started because there was no starting gun/horn either. There were too few loos, not enough staff for registration so it took ages, twice as many people seemed to have entered as were specified. The first part of the course was up a busy road, as detailed above. The end was a joke - you could not get off the Finish mat because everyone who'd finsihed ahead of you was penned into the run-off area, God knows why! Apparently to receive T-shirts and medals. Competitors who'd finshed earlier had to hand out drinks and bananas while the (very few) marshals struggled to deal with medals, t-shirts and bag return.
Date of review: November 9, 2009

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