(Haven’t posted in a while due moving
back from Paris and generally, life).
There are two ways of looking at
the foot racing calendar. The first is as a succession of essentially similar
races, from 10ks to marathons, none involving much more than putting one foot
in front of the other, as quickly as you can. But the second way is to look out
for the pleasing number of events where the inner weirdness of running sprouts
into external form. What follows is a list of some Wacky Races that I’ve come
across, plus one that I’ve run in myself.
* An annual race in Prescott, Arizona pits humans
against horses over 50 miles. Apparently humans have begun to win over the last
ten years, proof that running is not just about the natural build of the human
body.
* Run for your lives also
pits human competitors against… zombies. Unlike the horses, their aim is not to
win the race, but merely to eat the human participants. Unsurprising really,
given zombies’ famous fixation on their main activity (you’ll recall their
marching cry: what do we want? Bra-a-a-aains. When do we want it? Bra-a-a-ains).
* The Barkley marathon takes the
prize for sheer difficulty and also gets a special award for cultishness: read this
article.
* Finally, there’s Tough Guy (scroll down for video), which
I ran on its habitual date of 30 (yes, thirty) February a few years ago. The
first half is just a cross-country course, with some silly course planning – it
zigzags up and down the same hill ten times – as a warning of what is to come.
The second half is then an assault course with some real teeth to it. There’s
all the normal parts – rope courses, six-foot walls to climb, barbed wire to
wriggle under. But there’s so much more. The burning haybales that we had to
run over, or the forest of dangling live electric wires. Then trenches full of
watery mud, or having to swim under an enclosed section of English river (this
was February, whether the 30th or not). I’m pleased to say I came
something like 30th out of 3,000. This meant that the ex-sergeant
majors who were employed to bawl at stragglers silently watched me slither
up out of the river with a strange satisfied glint in their eyes. I wonder how
we all got to be like this.
