12 Labours of Hercules

"We're in a lovely spot here in Church Stretton, the heart of the Shropshire Hills. We're directly in the valley between them all, which is great because it means no matter which way we sent you, it's going to be up".

This is the opening line of the race briefing. It's a fifty minute affair, which sounds far too long normally, but this race is a little different. The concept is simple. Well, relatively. We're about to take on all twelve of the labours that Hercules did in Greek mythology. So there are twelve legs of this race, in ascending order. So Labour One is one mile, Labour Two is two and so on up to twelve. The Holy Grail at the end is seventy eight miles.

The Labours are mostly out and backs to 'Olympus', the school we're now in, and at the end of each, or somewhere along the way is a task. Some are as simple as just dibbing the timing chip in, others you have to retrieve something and others still you have to complete some other random act we won't find out until we get there. Richard Weremiuk, the Race Director, takes us through the navigation of each one in detail. He then explains the course is malleable and we can choose any route we please to reach them.

My plan is to do the only Labour with a time limit, Five, then go down in descending order so that each Labour gets easier as I get through the twenty four hours, thus slowly giving me less reason to give up. At the last minute, when I get up to mark my name next to the Labour I'm heading out on (we have to check in and out each time so they know which part of the countryside to look if something goes wrong), I have a split second change in heart and write 10:00 next to Labour Three. Duane mentioned he crashed on that in the night last year so was getting it out of the way in daylight, the task on Labour Five doesn't open until eleven and I'm worried I'd arrive too early so at the last minute I decide to add Three in first.

It's a very detailed briefing. By the end I feel like I'm entirely in safe hands, despite not really having any idea what I'd got myself in for until an hour ago. It looks like a beast, but a bloody fun one. It also looks like a logistical nightmare to organise, so I'm already in awe of what these guys have achieved and the race hasn't even started...

Last night I arrived to Church Stretton. As I caught the train and pre-booked a taxi all went smoothly and I didn't even need to take time off work. The campsite was nearby and I got the same taxi to pick me up this morning. The race doesn't start until ten o'clock so it's no rush.

When I arrive, the first competitor, I'm greeted and find a spot to perch my stuff. The cafeteria is just off the main hall so I pitch up on the table closest to the door. Slowly other people start arriving as well and I get chatting to a couple of them.

Kit check time arrives and I'm a little worried. I forgot the reflective gear listed, I had a visibelt sat at work then forgot to add it to my pack. One of the other guys I'm chatting to, Duane, has kindly offered for me to borrow one he has. Phew.

Then I actually get my kit checked and I'd completely skimmed over the necessity for a spare head torch. The first person to check me is unsure what to do as I have a strong head torch and the charger, and was planning on using my phone torch as backup as I have used that in a pinch before thinking it wouldn't pass a kit check but that was fine as it wasn't on the kit list. Wrong.

Lorraine, who is actually Duane's wife, goes to get Wendy one of the organisers to check me again. I explain my situation and apologise. Then we have an extremely British moment of both sides profusely apologising. She's sorry to be strict but wants to make sure competitors are safe, I'm sorry for causing them all hassle. It's very British, but at the crux of it we both know it's completely me in the wrong, being a pain in the backside and giving them extra hassle.

In the end not one, but two people offer me a spare torch they have brought along and the problem is solved. Thank God I happened to meet Duane who fully saved my arse here lending me his kit. I'm annoyed with myself though, as following the kit list is something I always try to be strict on and I frown upon people who try to dodge carrying everything. Shame on me, wrist firmly slapped.

Labour Three: Cattle of Geryon

After my self-inflicted disaster narrowly averted, we're all stood outside the Church Stretton primary school, and for the first time in a long time on a start line everyone looks relaxed, happy and jovial. A couple of minutes later we're off.

I happen to fall in next to Duane as we go out the main entrance and turn left. As we double back around the school, a few competitors have cut out next to the building, saving themselves doubling back like we mugs have, so straight away I see people are definitely planning on using the option to cut corners wherever possible. A wry grin settles over my face. For something notable to happen three seconds into a race, it's got to be interesting. It's going to be a good day.

A few hundred metres up the road, we take a right turn to head up towards the National Trust Park at Carding Mill Valley. It's quite a lengthy road up to the car park, and by then Duane has shot off, so I settle into my own rhythm. After the Coastal Trail Series finishing, my training has been haphazard at best, non-existent at worst. Actually, I may as well be honest, it's been the latter. I managed to blag my way through the Three Rings of Shap a month ago with no training, but in that month since I've only gone on one proper training run and I nearly snapped a tendon so I'm feeling fat, slow and ultimately...under confident.

But I'm here, I've started and I'm going to have a crack at it. Because there is no such thing as failure at this race, everyone who completes even the one mile labour gets a medal and onto the leader board, there is absolutely zero pressure. After my last major failure at the Thames Path 100 last year, and the subsequent one at the Wealden Waters where I just quit because I couldn't be bothered, I've spent months doing the series and now trying to build up big in the hopes of getting the experience to tackle and actually finish a hundred miler later in the year. Which means no DNF (Did Not Finish). One of those would knock my confidence a bit; despite entering races I'm unsure I can finish. So it's nice not to have that pressure as, to be honest, lately I'm skirting a fine line between dedication to the cause and burning out.

But I hit the carpark at the top end of the valley. I'm in a good mood, today. It already feels like this race could be a little something special if only I let it. So I try to open myself up to do exactly that. No misery, just fun today. The gradient has been ever so slightly uphill along the road so I can already feel my calves burning as I take a turn off the road and start my way up Cow Ridge. 

I go around the back of a tree then straight away it's hands on thighs territory, meaning it's bloody steep straight away. I look up ahead of me and it really is just a ridge line up to the tops. There are a few of us who've decided to do this one first, but most of them push on ahead of me. I'm happy to let them go. Within a couple of minutes I'm already up quite high above the valley and a few more minutes later I turn around and get a fairly lovely view. 

I turn back around though and see a fair bit more hill ahead. Nothing much for it other than just slugging it out. I try to keep the pace steady and most importantly manageable. The last thing I need ten minutes into the race is to be struggling to breathe because I've pushed myself too hard. I find my normal and just carry on. Another five minutes or so of scrambling up rocky little outcrops, already on hands and knees, I start to notice it flatten out a little. Duane comes back down my way. I grin and applaud how fast he is as he gives me directions then bosses down the hill intently focused. He clearly doesn't want to slip again this year.

The ridge flattens out and I take a slight diversion over to the side and see the lone tree I'm looking for. I make a beeline, or as best I can with dodgy trails underfoot, and head over to it. When I arrive there is a little laminate card attached to the tree with a quote about Hercules obtaining the cattle of Geryon. I'm then directed to obtain one for myself in the biscuit tin down in the roots, but to beware for enemies. I open the tin and there are dozens of little plastic cows. 

There is also a few lumps of dried cow poo. I laugh, and debate whether or not to bag one up and retrieve that for them, but decide against it. I don't really want to carry around a bag of shit just for a laugh. Plus there's the risk that I take it back and on presentation of said poo everyone looks disgusted at me and tells me I've taken the joke too far, branding me the weirdo of the event. 

I grab a plastic cow instead and am on my way.

I turn around to head back down the valley and am presented with a brilliant view out across to the hills on the other side and many more further away fading into the distance. It's just beautiful here. I've climbed a hundred metres in only the distance of six hundred metres since the road and seeing this view makes it amazingly worth it, despite feeling knackered barely three kilometres into the race. 

I dally no more, though, and make my way back over to the ridge to go back to Olympus. Coming up I hadn't really appreciated quite how much of a ridge Cow Ridge is, but coming back down it's enthralling seeing the hills drop away casually to either side of me. It's not a knife-edge, or even a narrow ridge, but it's definitely a ridge. Now having reached the Labour and obtained the cattle I can also appreciate the irony of the name a little more.

It's a fast descent, but not too fast. After struggling with mad blisters at the Shap race with my Inov8's, I've decided to risk running in my Skechers GoRun Ultra today from the beginning. The positive of this is my muscles will fatigue more slowly and I won't suffer blisters (helped along by the fact I actually taped and lubed this morning before putting shoes on). The negative is proprioception will be severely diminished and as the stack height is so high on these shoes I'm twenty times more likely to roll or snap an ankle.

Coming downhill I notice this lack of control rather distinctly. I have to focus a lot more on foot placement to make sure I don't roll, but still do my best to keep an eye out on the lovely scenery. As I take a glance up to do exactly that, the ground drops out from below me.

I've come to a gap in the ridge, where there is about a metre drop and then the ridge continues as normal over the other side a few feet away. Kind of like a mini valley. I manage to just about right myself before I slip down into it and smash my patella into several pieces on the other rocky side of this, then gingerly take a step down into it then over. I'm guessing this is where Duane fell last year. I'm not surprised, in the dark there is no way I would have noticed this very quickly at pace.

Luckily the only thing slightly bruised is my confidence, but that's fine. That's a good thing. I make my way down the rest of the ridge to reach the road again and start back to base. It's good to have tarmac again to give some variation and is another area where these shoes really come into their own so I get a wriggle on down the Carding Mill Valley, turn left at the main road and then go into the school.

I head over to 'Zeus', the electronic dibber here and put my chip in, cross of the 10:00 I wrote next to Labour Three, and put 10:45 next to Labour Five.

Labour Five: Capture of Cerberus

I don't wait around at Olympus at all and head straight back out the door. There are other competitors coming in from all directions having completed various labours to begin with. I head out towards what most of us are expecting to be the most fun labour of them all. This labour has to be completed between eleven and one o'clock as that is the only time it's open, which is why we all have to make sure to fit this into our respective schedules for the race. 

First up I turn right out of the school and follow the road for a kilometre. It's a main road so I'm a bit careful of traffic, but that also means that it's nice and easy to get a bit of speed up for a bit. I turn off the main road and head down a quieter one in towards the eastern side of the hills, which I can see looming ahead of me now.

I meet up with a pair who are running together here and get chatting to them for a bit. They're part of a team, but wanted to do this section as two rather than one, given the nature of it, and we all talk about our plans for the rest of the day. Given they're a team and they'll have a lot of downtime, their plan is rather different to mine. It's nice to get a chance to talk to people, but, as I imagine the field is going to spread out massively over the day and I'm likely to spend most of it on my own.

I cross the main trunk road, then it’s back onto trails. There are a couple of fields to cross. In the first one I find the race medic who has decided to do this labour himself with full gear since he knows the whole field will be concentrated around here for the next couple of hours. As there are several of us around it's not hard to follow others while trying to keep an eye on my GPS tracking, the Route Oracle printout and ultimately my common sense to make sure they're going the correct way.

There's a field with a handful of cows in the middle which makes me wary so I take quite a wide berth to approach a stile on the other side at the same time as a couple of other solo runners. They're looking a little confused as the description of the route doesn't match what we can see in front of us. I take a check, though, and see that we've exited the field in the wrong place so we just need to go a bit further up which we do, and find the path okay.

We go around the side of a little reservoir then reach another dead end. The path is leading us to the reservoir and nowhere else. I check the map again and realise we're still a little down the hill from where we need to be and as there is a gate behind us leading up I head through that. A little further on and we find the correct path to follow, confirmed by official waymarks straight away for peace of mind. It's a flat section skirting the base of the hill and leading towards some woods. 

I start to feel like I'm warming up. Like I'm ready to have a good day.

Then I roll my ankle and hear a crack.

I fall to the ground and a shooting pain stabs at the tendons in the top of my foot. God damn it. It's always the flat bit that gets you. Those surreptitious moments of complacency where you're not watching as rigidly for potholes until you step in one.

A couple of other guys come past and ask how I am. I can't talk normally because it hurts so much so take a deep breath and in a couple of staccato sentences tell them I'm fine and not to worry, thanks. They carry on. I'm not fine.

It feels exactly the same as what put paid to my attempt on the Thames Path 100 last year, which the medic then thought was either a horrible sprain or a stress fracture. Tears come to my eyes when I realise that I might have to go home with my head in my hands having done all of six miles at this race. I take more deep breaths. Several. Dozens. It's not helping, but the shock of the pain has subsided so I can look at things a bit more rationally.

I've had sprains many times before in a race. They've never once been close to this bad, but every time apart from one I've been able to carry on. And even then I got to eighty miles, which is all I'm after today anyway. I just stay seated and a minute later who should pop up but the medic.

Two possibilities cross my mind. One is that he'll tell me I'll be fine, give me a magic fix and tell me to be on my way. The other is that he'll tell me he can't fix it and pull me from the race. I'd understand of course, and there would be no hard feelings, but it would still be humiliating this early on.

He asks how it feels and whether it's okay to take my shoe off, which we do gently. He check around key pressure points, informs me he thinks it's a sprain but that I can carry on if I feel up to it. With the advice that I go very carefully and am lucky it's a nice hill so I don't have to run for a while. He offers me some painkillers, which I decline.

I've never been a fan of painkillers. There's a lot of debate around about the topic, but I'm of the opinion masking a potentially serious injury is not a bad idea, especially if it's with the strong NSAID's that can wreak havoc on your insides. I'm not sure if it's out of wanting to make sure his professional integrity is clear or whether he thinks I'm being disapproving, but either way the medic mentions it's fine to take paracetamol as they're not NSAIDS so don't cause internal damage. 

I think I had assumed that's what he meant anyway, so hope I didn't seem disapproving, but it was nice to see someone who clearly cares enough about what they're doing to make these things clear. We're clearly in good hands today if we can have a random fall on a hillside and a medic arrives to gives quick, succinct but obviously still thorough help within a couple of minutes.

I get up and move along my merry way, feeling a bit better having been lucky enough to have it checked. Each step is a stab up my nerves, but I move through the gate into the woods and am bloody careful of the tree roots popping out everywhere.

I come out the other side and take a turn upwards to begin the ascent. Straight away it's an extremely steep section of rocks, to get up to the ridge taking us up Three Fingers Rock. It's very slow and as always I monitor my pace to make sure my breathing is okay. Even more so now that I've got a throbbing ankle to worry about as well.

I reach the top and get a good view back towards Church Stretton then take a turn up the direct ridge that takes me up Caer Caradoc Hill. There are a few little bumps here and a lot of rocky outcrops. The problem is the Oracle is telling me to follow a faint path when I reach the biggest rock at the summit. I don't know which summit I'm looking for. 

My watch tells me to follow a faint path that I can see off to the left and there is a rock to my right, but I'm not really on a summit and two guys ahead carry on up the main distinctive path. I follow them, hoping I'll get a clearer idea soon.

The other problem is that Richard was very insistent in the briefing that if we follow a path too high, we will definitely not see the cave where Cerberus is hiding as it's not visible from above. I start to get a feeling I'm going wrong and make my way over to a path I can see lower down. Looking ahead of me I can see half a dozen people strewn about the hillside staring as gormlessly as I now am.

Everyone is looking around, knowing we're nearly there but not being able to work out exactly where we're supposed to be. From what I can see on the GPS we're still a little too high up and a woman ahead points down to a little outcrop back and downhill a bit. Well, the Oracle did say that we need to lose about thirty metres in height so I think she's onto something and start scrambling my way through the tussocks on an increasingly steep gradient. This is hell and agony on my ankle, but I guess that's what Cerberus wants.

I'm nearly at the outcrop when above the same woman shouts again that she's found the cave. I look up and she's about five metres from where I was only a moment ago. I clearly need to open my eyes a bit more. For a second I don't want to believe her looking at the outcrop I'm now just beside, then sense gets the better of me and I start the clamber back up through the tussock.

At the top there is a cave that's about two foot high, with a control point and a tiny soft toy of Cerberus attached to it. You've got to love the irony of this race. Safe in the knowledge I've now found the correct place after now having two navigational errors in a very short space of time, I make my way back up the hill to the actual path above. At the top there is once again a stunning view back across the countryside. This time I've climbed two hundred metres in the space of a bit over two kilometres in half an hour.

Once back on a far more secure path I start my decent down the other side. This labour is one of only two that aren't a straight out and back. We've still got the task to complete. There are a few people heading back roughly the same way we've come, but I'm pretty sure we were advised to go down the hill to join a road rather than follow the ridge. I'm keen to follow the suggested routes where possible today, more for simplicity's sake than anything else.

I see the medic standing on the ridge line looking down over the countryside and he asks how I am. I say I think I'm fine thanks and I hope he enjoys the rest of his morning. He gives me a thumbs up, a cheery fellow, and I'm on my way. 

Some other people, including the woman who finally found Cerberus for us all, have the same idea and start descending down a faint path so I tag along. Downhill is quite painful still so I'm not particularly speedy here, making sure to be desperately careful not to twist my ankle again and we reach the bottom in one piece.

It's a well-kept gravel road so I'm pleased to be able to follow this along after the worries on the hill and start putting it behind me. We divert down another road, past a farmhouse and through between the outbuildings and come down towards the task ahead.

I'm the first of a group of half a dozen to arrive, having utilised the flat ground to go a bit faster and I round the corner to see a row of archery butts across a field. I go over to the desk and am told to put on a wrist guard. I've no idea what I'm doing, never having seen one, so I just try to put it on and ask if I've got it right. I'm met with a resounding no that suggests I'm the closest thing to an imbecile he's seen today. He starts to tell me what to change then gives up and tells me to remove it altogether so he can do it.

I'm taken over to the line and told how to stand, how to hold the bow and am guided into my first arrow's flight. It's not great, but I manage to get it in the red circle, just outside the gold, so am pretty pleased with that for a first ever attempt. The second one is outside the circle altogether and my third is not much better.

I thank the trainer, who is apparently an Olympic trainer, and go back to drop the bow off. Richard is there, asking how I got on and I point. He tells me someone else has beaten my as far as the spot prize is concerned but that I did well. I grin away then head off, thanking everyone as I pootle along to the main trunk road.

From here it's pretty straightforward heading back to the quiet road I arrived on then back to the main road, Ludlow Road, through Church Stretton back to the school. I dib into Zeus, cross off Labour Five, then put 12:15 next to Labour Twelve.

Labour Twelve: Golden Hind of Artemis

I grab a few snacks and then I'm out the door again for the big one. I want to get this one done and out of the way given the size of it. Again, it's a left turn although this time a spend a minute or so trying to find the shortcut the other competitors took when we were heading out for Labour Three earlier. 

I head up past the earlier turn off and this time into Church Stretton itself. I take a turn east down through the main road to the train station, then over a bridge crossing the trunk road. The directions say it's a right turn here so as I'm waiting for that I notice I've gone a bit far. Again. I double back and take the turning through the residential area, then go steadily uphill through the 'burbs of the town until the road ends and a path starts through the woods behind the town.

There is another guy ahead of me, who passed me on my little detour earlier. I try to keep a steady pace to catch him for a chat, but he stays firmly in front. It's as expected, quite a bit of a hike up through here at a decent gradient, but it's nice to be inside some woods above the town.

Soon enough I pop out the other side of the woods and the sun is really out now. I follow the fence line for a bit then take a sharp turn up the hill to the first summit. At the top here I see yet another wide ridgeline across a small col to the top of Ragleth Hill about a kilometre away. Again there are just lovely views across in every direction I can look so I just potter along the extra kilometre or so until I'm climbing up to control point Twelve A.  

There is a summit mast here and luckily I've seen the guy ahead looking around as the instructions are again on a laminated card, which is rolled up and shoved up a pipe. I pull it out and find that the first task on this section is to remember the number One. 

I roll it back up, take a look around the hill from where I am, then try to work out where I'm supposed to go as I can't see a clear path leading away. The map looks to be pointing me west so I start that way, then doubt myself and double back a little before realising that I'm supposed to be heading east and I'm looking at the wrong bit of the map. Oops.

I descend down the hill to pass through some technical little bits with long grass and bushes hiding potential pitfalls so I take it carefully until I'm over the stile and onto the path that takes me past a few houses and back down to the main trunk road a few kilometres further down the line.

I cross it into Little Stretton, then go down the opposing road to find myself at last night's campsite. It's a lovely little place, tucked in another valley, though there are some pretty vocal sheep all around that aren't bothered about waking up campers at five in the morning. All part of the fun.

Instead of going into the campsite, though, I take the driveway up to the main farmhouse then behind it to the path taking me up into the valley. There are some mountain bikers here taking a break so I smile and say hello before starting the climb back up to the tops.

It's a pretty solid ascent, not really changing other than going up. I know there are two labours that use this section as well so I'm going to have to come back for another visit later in the day. Near the top I see the marker to help divert people to the right direction for the labour they are on. Unfortunately I'm on the one that instead of saying to follow the path around, just says carry on straight up.

The gradient increases yet again to the point where I'm now actually just crawling on hands and knees as it helps give a bit of better purchase and spread the load. After a few gruelling minutes I'm at the top of Callow searching around for control Twelve B. I find it, number Five to memorise.

I come down off the top, trying to find a path that isn't there so just aim roughly west until I come down onto the same track that I left to ascend Callow. The good news now is that there's no navigation for a while, just following this path for two and a half kilometres or so. It's still moving up, but at a small gradient so more than easy to fast hike up until I'm back on the tops.

There is now someone else ahead of me, a woman now, who looks to be feeling about as good as I am. After a kilometre or so I catch her and stop to talk for a bit. She did the race last year, and did around forty miles so is just hoping to get further than that today. It's nice to have someone to talk to for a bit and we approach a tarmac road and see the checkpoint gazebo in the distance. This is the only checkpoint available, mainly to help give people a bit of a boost on the longer section.

We arrive smiling and asking how far it is. I'm told about half way on this loop, which is fine by me. I grab a couple of cups of Coke and a few crisps then start making my way along. I follow the road very briefly then as per usual miss the slight turn off to the path I need. I notice fairly quickly though so make my way across to meet the path. 

There's more of a climb up and apparently somewhere along the way I'm supposed to pass the dibber for Labour Six at the highest point of the Long Mynd National Trust park. I don't notice either and just plod on. Once over the top it's a very well kept gravel path, the Shropshire Way for a few kilometres along the tops and is a really lovely stretch. Up on the tops so great views. Quite windy but the sun is out so the conditions complement each other for a nice temperature. Easy path to follow, so I just drift off into my own little world. The only slightly discerning thing is that at five hundred metres or so I've a good view of all the hills around and there are a hell of a lot of them that I'm going to have to climb. 

There is another race going on at this time as well using some sections of the same course as us. Both organisers have been in touch so there's no animosity or anything and at this point I come up to one of their checkpoints and am passing a handful of their runners here or there. One joins me for a couple of minutes and we trade stories on our respective races, which is quite a little buzz for both of us before he heads off to finish his marathon.

At the far end of the path I reach another road and join it for a few hundred metres until I come up to a cattle grid with control Twelve C. Number One again. One, Five, One. Must remember that or I'll be in a right state if I have to repeat the labour.

I take off down the hill, double check the map and double back as it says to take a right rather than cross the grid. I take a right turn then realise it's right from the other direction so sheepishly double back again, with a couple in a car parked up probably wondering what the hell I'm doing as I finally cross over to go the correct way down the path.

It's easily followed, the path on the other side and takes me down off the tops to another road to follow briefly before the final drop down to a couple of quaint houses and the final control at Twelve D. Here there is a box with a padlock. The laminate card tells me the final number is Two, so I open 'Pandora's Box' to find a bag of jelly babies and some transfer tattoos with the Beyond Marathon, the race organisers, logo on them. This is to represent wearing the mythical Hind. I apply one as the item I'm to retrieve, putting it on the inside of my bicep to avoid a Beyond Marathon shaped tan line.

At this point the woman I had been chatting to briefly arrives as well so I explain the tattoo and offer to wait, but she tells me to go ahead as she's going to have a little break for a couple of minutes. There's a short section on a country lane before reaching Ludlow Road again and the final two kilometre stretch back into town. Having left due south, I'm now approaching from the north.

When I arrive I take a seat and find some food. A few days ago the team released the menu for the full twenty four hours of the race and there is some nice pasta available. I grab a plate and wolf it down as quickly as possible, then grab a couple of sweet snacks, swap over my Oracle notes and repack food before dibbing into Zeus. 

I cross off Labour Twelve with pleasure at a nice journey, then put 15:15 into the box next to Labour Nine.

Labour Nine: Augean Stables

Now, despite saying I was going to take these all in descending order, a few things have been playing with my head over Labour Twelve. There is the fact that Labour Eleven is entirely road so there is no navigational and therefore much more suitable for a night section. That said, there is a checkpoint that's only open until nine o'clock so I kind of want to break that up. There is also the fact that both Labours Nine and Seven are recommended in daylight. But mainly there is the fact that Labour Nine has cows and that's why it's recommended.

Because of that I change the game plan for the second time today and head out for Labour Nine. The first section is the same as Labour Twelve, heading through the town then east over the trunk road bridge to the 'burbs. This time I take a slightly earlier turn off, but still going up the same hill. 

There are a couple of older guys ahead and it looks like this is just a lane straight up through the back of the roads so is straight and narrow. I stop and chat for a couple of minutes and it turns out one of them is Richard the RD's dad. He's having a nice time just walking the course and planning on getting a few labours in across the day. Seems like a nice bloke, but soon enough we reach a gate and he tells me I better head off rather than sticking to their walking pace, which I do.

I'm off the lane now and onto a path that is just as direct up the hill as the last labour was, albeit on the other side of the same woods. Slow and steady does it until I pop out at the top for a nice view over where I'm going, not that I can really tell exactly which parts without taking a while to study the map so I just make my way down the track to a road, which I follow briefly.

I then take a turn down another road which has a nice steep descent for quite a while. Somewhere near the bottom I know there is a shortcut but I can't tell where. As I'm going at pace I notice as I go past another guy coming over a stile that I'm passing right by the shortcut. Oh, well, I'm on the road so that will take back a little of the time as I double back at the bottom. I'll catch it on the return journey.

I come off the road, luckily keeping an eye on where I'm going as the turn off is just what looks like a driveway. The gradient has flattened out now so there is a nice seven hundred metres or so through the woods with no stiles or anything so a good chance to take a casual few minutes plod.

Again I reach another road and the Oracle tells me to cross it and find the slightly obscured stile behind a hedge. Directly opposite is a gate, but I don't think that's it? A little further along is the intersection with a more established road but all I can see there is the gate to a farm. I wander back and forth between the various options for a couple of minutes, find a sign pointing at a tree by the farm gate.

Where the hell is this stile?

You're kidding right?

Nope.

Yeah, of course it's easy to find from the other side.

I dig around behind the trees and find a stile. In this instance, slightly obscured means about as hard to find as the entrance to Narnia. Again, another little mind game on this race that seems to be full of them. I love it. I clamber over it, dodging the overgrown trees and make my way into the adjoining field.

There are a few horses in this field but they're behind a bit of tape strung across the field to give them a barrier and people a chance to pass by. They're right up by the tape, which they could obviously push through without hassle, but I'm fine with these beast being that close. It's weird, the tape is literally no more than a fabric tape measure yet it serves as an acceptable barrier. Odd.

I climb the stile at the far side and make my way into the next one. There are a couple of other runners passing through the opposite way. It's quite tall grass here which makes for slower moving despite being flat. I wave a hello to both of them and at the other side of the field is a herd of cows.

They're right by the stile I need to cross. I feel pretty thankful I've just seen two other guys go through without issue, raise my arms wide to appear bigger and walk directly towards and past them. They're really close but look more like they want some company than to kill me like I'm worrying about. I climb the stile and wave at them as they stare back and approach closer.

I get a bit confused which hedge line to follow yet again before going in, unsurprisingly, the same direction. Over another stile and I'm in a field full of loads of the buggers. And these one have massive horns. I spot the stile at the opposite side of the field directly through the herd.

Unfortunately they're quite spread out so I have to take quite a wide detour to skirt them and end up getting quite close to one who stares back at me confused and wobbles its horns. I scarper over the fence. Over the next field there isn't much of a path so I just take a rough bearing for the corner of  the field I think I'm supposed to be going to, then tucked away in the bushes around the corner is another stile with the control. I dib in, read the instructions and this one is a collection labour.

It's a horseshoe with a joke about how lightweight they are, so I grab one from the 'Stables' and turn around to head back. Over the field and I'm back in saying hello to the horny cows. Minds out of the gutter, please. Unfortunately this time they've all moved so my previous route has been blocked off. This means I have to detour around them the other side of the field with much more distance between me and the fence if one charges. It also takes me around the ones with calves. 

I take it cautiously and as anyone other than me would expect they just look at me bemusedly. I get to the fence and find the woman from Cerberus and her pals coming over, point out the stile with a smile and carry on over the next field and onto face the next cows. They also have moved, and are now in the middle of the field so much further away and much easier to avoid. I still give them a wide berth, but am less nervous as they were so placid last time.

Past the horses and onto the path through the woods again I take the time to do a little mental check of how I'm feeling now, being about a marathon through the race. Everything actually feels fairly okay. My legs are definitely feeling it, but I'm still within my pace schedule of trying to go around seven kilometres an hour to build a slight buffer for the night section. Who knows, maybe I might get close on this one?

Out the other side onto the road and I start the ascent back up the hill. As I'm too busy daydreaming I forget to even look for the short cut until I'm already half way around the long cut so don't bother. As I remember how long the descent was here I just settle into a rhythm and potter my way back. It's a relatively steep gradient but easily doable if you take it at the right pace, made even more so by the fact that it's on road.

I get to the top, go along the road a bit and take the first turn back up towards the woods. It's called Wagoner's Way and for some reason that makes me laugh and I start humming a little made up ditty about wagoners. I get near the top and don't recognise where I am. Uh oh. 

I fancy a rest anyway after climbing for the last half hour or so. I perch on a stile and see I took a turn off too early. I could go on ahead and re-join the path from another labour back, but the stickler in me wants to go the right way so I run back down the three hundred metres to carry on up the road to the right turn off not far away. As I reach the signpost I curse the wagoners. To be fair though, I'm still finding the word funny. Try and say wagoner ten times and tell me you don't giggle.

I make my way up the correct path to crest the hill then boss down the other side happily. This labour has been quite fun and straightforward so I'm in quite a good mood. I can't stop thinking about how much fun this event is. Such a basic and simple concept but it really adds a huge amount more to the fun.

I come out the bottom of the woods and on to the lane down the road. The sharp and constant downhill starts to make my legs and feet feel a bit wobbly, but I try to take it easy and soon enough I'm at the bottom plodding along back through the town to the school.

I grab some more food and take a bit of a break now. I know I shouldn't take too long, but if I give myself twenty minutes I'll be leaving fresh for the next one, so I do exactly that. I want to make sure I refuel between each one with solid food and most of all I want to have fun, which means taking some breaks here or there.

I dib into Zeus, cross out Labour Nine and put 18:00 next to Labour Eleven.

Labour Eleven: Mares of Diomedes

I've been tossing up whether to do this one or Labour Seven next for a while, as that one should be good for daylight, but this one has a checkpoint. In the end the thought of going out for eleven miles with no food or water refills in the middle of the night just seems a crap idea so I opt for this now.

Again I head down the now familiar road into the town proper. When I get to the normal eastern turn off, I instead head west. There is a small flat section before going over a cattle grid and a car with a bunch of teenagers get stop to ask me if they're going the right way for the Long Mynd. I tell them I don't know I'm not from around here. One of the girls in the back shouts something, either abusive or supportive I'm not sure, and they drive off without a thanks. I then see the National Trust sign indicating I'm now heading into the Long Mynd.

The road curves around then starts a very steep ascent. I should have seen this coming. I look down below me and see Carding Mill Valley and all its bumps and think about how many times I'm going to be on a part of that over the course of this event.

The climb really takes it out of me, but I just press on at a slower pace and manage fine. It levels out slightly, but not much as it winds away for Carding Mill and towards Pole Bank, near the checkpoint. Over the space of five kilometres I only climb three hundred metres, which is not so bad when on road, but what I now notice is that this is a desolate journey. There are not that many distinguishing feature that you can't see for ages around, and the gradient doesn't change much at all. 

Basically it's just one long slog up a hill for ages. Eventually I get nearer what I think is the top and it slowly starts to flatten out a bit. I have to hand it to Richard, he managed to make even the simple easy road section sadistic by making it mind numbingly boring. Had I not realised this on the slog up I think I would have struggled a lot more, but now I'm just thinking it's funny and quite enjoying it. There's no new directions really from the Oracle so it's just a matter of pressing on and not letting the mind get too down at how much you're not enjoying the hill. Conversely, I think it makes me enjoy it more.

By the time I get back to the checkpoint, which I've only just now clicked is the same one as earlier for Labour Twelve I'm actually grinning and joking with the volunteers about how beautifully sadistic this labour is. They agree and proffer the thought that Richard's mind works in a slightly different way to the rest of us. Brilliant.

I'm not actually feeling that hungry so just have a cup of Coke or two and put my cup aside to use on the way back to save on rubbish. I thank the team and tell them I'll see them soon. Next is quite a lengthy flat section similar to the gravel path of the Shropshire Way behind me that I travelled earlier, only now it's on road.

It's not flat, but it's not hilly either, so again I just drift off and take my mind away from things. When there is lots of navigation or hard terrain to worry about it's easy not to think about how much it hurts or how much is left, whereas in this situation I've got loads of time to think about  those things if I so choose. Hence the sadism, mainly in the juxtaposition of going from one to the other.

I meet the other guy who was going to lend me a torch coming back with his dog and say hello. I then make my way a bit further along to a point where the gradient suddenly drops hugely. There is a massively steep long downhill, which I boss down, knowing I'm going to pay for it later but figuring it's the lesser evil than going down tentatively.

Each step slams my quads but by God I'm enjoying knocking down the hill. By the bottom I'm really hurting but I don't mind. It was quite a good release for some of the pent up energy I've had building for a while. I take a turn at the bottom into an area called Handless, find the dibber and again find I'm to retrieve something. As the Mares of Diomedes were flesh eating and this area is called Handless, they thought it fitting that the item to retrieve is a plastic severed finger, complete with sugary blood water.

I sit down for a second, then out of nowhere my left hamstring cramps harder than a vice on wood and I'm in agony. I sit there with a voiceless scream on my face trying to breath but not able to until slowly it subsides. Best not sit down again for a while. As soon as I can I get up and head on my way.

As always, given the lovely downhill was only around the corner and I'm still hurting from it, it now becomes a massive uphill and painful. Apparently last year this bit took someone an entire hour. Over the next two kilometres I climb nearly two hundred metres. Again, I just have to laugh at how perfectly brutal this labour is. Turning friend into foe within the space of minutes the way this hill now has done takes a special kind of planning.

I get to the top and find there are two or three other people coming along towards me. I'm smiling and saying hello as I potter along and soon enough I'm back at the checkpoint still grinning away. Again I'm not terribly hungry as it's mostly sweets here so I just have a cup of Coke, chat and head on my way with a thanks.

Soon enough I'm over the hill and on the descent. It is definitely much nicer than coming up it, but it still has quite an impact on my quads. Most of the time I'm used to short sharps bursts of any type of running, but this is a five kilometre stretch of descent and that takes a toll. By the end where the really steep bit is, I'm having to take a break here or there just to stop the burning in my quads. I pass a few others coming up at this point and stop to say hi and good luck on this beauty of a section.

I reach the bottom and head back into town for another quick rest. I again don't stop too long, wanting to keep the buffer I've built as much as possible as I know I'll be needing it soon. So I scoff some food and take a few minutes to sit and get ready. I decide to leave Labour Seven, not worrying about the daylight as, if I leave Ten now, he'll become the elephant in the room.

I cross off Eleven next to Zeus, then put 21:00 next to Labour Ten.

Labour Ten: Lernaean Hydra

I head up again to the National Trust car park in Carding Mill Valley, a little slower than last time I was here. When I get to the turn off for Cow Ridge up to Labour Three, I instead carry on the way I'm going up the valley. There's still that same easy uphill gradient, but I'm okay with that, I'd rather have it now than later on the way back when it would hurt all the more.

The valley is quite peaceful. Being that this is the family friendly part of the park, the path is quite easy to follow and well-kept and literally just runs up the middle of the valley. When I reach the end of it, there is a signpost with a left and right fork. I take the right one. This leads me straight back up the hills over the back of the valley and up to the top of the Long Mynd. It's quite a steep little bugger, but luckily not too long so I'm over the back of it pretty quickly. It's definitely taken a fair bit out of me getting up to the top and as I do another runner comes down towards me.

As he passes he asks which one I'm doing. When I tell him Ten he says that's most of the vert for a while and it's a nice easy stretch ahead. Great. I reach the path and turn right, realising this is the same gravel path I was on earlier for Labour Twelve. This course is becoming second nature now. Best not get too ahead of myself though. I'm likely to still get pretty lost ahead. 

The sun is starting to go down so the temperature is dropping a bit and now that I'm back on the tops I'm definitely feeling the wind a bit more. I put an extra base layer on between the last two labours and I'm pretty glad for it now.

I reach the road and make my way back down to the cattle grid that I took every exit except the correct one from earlier. I see that control for Twelve on the post, but know that this time I actually am turning left. I take a little short cut down a small rise then back up the other side to find myself on a farm track through a field.

This goes through several fields, with a lot of sheep. It's actually quite steady in terms of gradient so I manage to keep the pace as mostly running, though visibility is starting to fade a bit. I count the fences I go through, as there are supposed to be five and on the sixth I'm supposed to change direction.

I'm quite liking this little bit, despite there not being much going on, and start playing a game that I want to try to get to the control before having to put my head torch on. It's quite short lived, though, as I come around the back of a shed and head to the final gate only to find there is no gate, just a barbed wire fence in the corner. 

I get out my torch, which leaves me none the wiser, then see another torch coming up from ahead. It's someone on the other side of the fence so I at least now know where I need to be. The problem is getting there as it's barbed wire and there are some stabby looking bushes on the other side. Plus my legs aren't exactly up for too many contortions at the moment.

So I find a place where there is a post to make sure I'm steady and won't damage the fence, flick my legs over then jump into the bush on the other side. Correct, they are stabby. I come away with a few minor scratches, though it definitely could have been worse.

Finally I'm on the right path, having chatted to the lady coming up the other side and getting a few more directions I know where I'm going. I head further down the track, through a couple of gates and find the finger post signing me off to the left. I take that and find myself on a gradual but cambered descent on slightly slippy ground with low visibility, seemingly a recipe for disaster. I take it easy as I also can't see a definitive path and as I seem to have a pretty big penchant for getting lost today I figure I best keep an eye on my watch as to how far off course I may be going. 

After a few minutes I find the path which winds down through some woods and over a footbridge to the bottom of this hill in the Golden Valley. I nearly miss a sharp right turn but as I'm being a bit more vigilant on the navigation side of things I manage to stop myself pretty quickly and go the right way. 

There is an eerie field to cross with a couple of trees looming out of the gloom of the finality of dusk and I wonder briefly if the boogeyman is about to jump out and get me. He doesn't. I pass by the trees and see something glinting over by the fence. It's the control.

I sit down for a few seconds on the stile, feeling pretty good. When I started this morning I wasn't sure how well I'd manage these longer sections, and I'm now in a position whereby I know I'll get through all of them. I'm feeling rough. I'm hurting. Darkness has descending which will take my vigour with it, but I'm at the very least going to make it to the fifty mile mark when I get back from this labour. Even if I can it a day now it'll be okay.

I have to admit the idea has crossed my mind a few times earlier in the day to give up. As my training has faded quite a lot, there's of course a reason behind it. Motivation. I've quite simply got a bit burned out. It's been a full on year and it's taken a lot of blood, guts, glory and failure all mixed in together and sometimes I just feel like it's time to call it a day for a while. 

But that day isn't today. I've got to a good place, and hopefully I can get to a better one. All fodder for the bigger races I'm hopefully going to be doing later in the year. If I don't test myself now, I'll have no hope then. So I get up and push on. I pass the eerie trees, go over the footbridge and start my way back up the Golden Valley.

I pass a barn through a field of sheep and it doesn't look all that familiar. The route guide is still taking me the right way and the GPS says I'm in the right place but something just doesn't feel right. I get near the top and I just don't quite recognise where I am. Then, for the second time I find myself facing a barbed wire fence. Bugger. It looks like I'm a little to the right of where I need to be, so I move over and find the corner of the field with the track on the other side of it. I've obviously just cut a corner.

A hop, skip and a jump and I'm over the other side heading back up the track. I see the other barn I passed on the way down on the wrong side and see the gate ahead of me with the way marker on it. I'm just about to go through when I see a whole pile of eyes glinting back at me. There are dozens of cows all sprawled over the track. 

Nuh, uh. I ain't going in there. Especially when I know there is a really simply route through the field next to me. I go through that gate instead and follow the small path on the other side of the fence, past row upon row of cow eyes glinting evilly.

There is one sheep in the second field who seems particularly perplexed by my presence at this time of night and starts bleating profusely at me. She doesn't move or anything, just bleats loudly. I move on so she can get on with her evening.

I'm starting to feel a fair bit of fatigue now, probably because night time has set in. These fields that I quite enjoyed on the way out aren't quite as nice going back, though I'm still not minding them. More indifferent.

Then it starts raining. It's only a drizzle, but enough to make me a bit concerned. As far as I remember, this is supposed to stay all night as well. I just push on for now and deal with the wet and wind until I'm back at the dip and rise that takes me back up to the cattle grid.

One there I turn back onto the tops proper and face the wind and rain. Okay, it's not just a drizzle now. It's getting a little blustery. I'm not feeling too cold or anything yet, but I learned the hard way that once cold gets in it stays in. I don't want to risk anything like that, so I get my waterproof out and whip that on.

Instant gratification. It's still a bit crap running dead into the wind and rain, but I can't complain as it's not cold. I reach the path diverting off the road and make my way down. As much as I liked this path earlier in the day, it's not so nice at the moment so I'm keen to get off it.

But the damned fatigue is here to stay. I run a hundred metres then slow to a walk. I chastise myself and run another hundred then stop again. This continues on for the whole kilometre or so until I reach the turn off and triumphantly punch the rain.

I turn down the hill and straight away the weather stops being so crap. It's quite treacherous coming down here now, not to mention a bit painful on my legs who are suddenly starting to give up. I just take it a bit easier. I've got time. It's okay. Fifty miles nearly in the bag so it's fine.

I hobble and wobble my way down the steepest bits to the finger post at the base of the hill in the Carding Mill Valley and there is another guy not far behind me. I expect he'll catch me pretty soon as he was a bit behind me when we passed as I was leaving and he was approaching the control a while ago. For some reason he doesn't catch me even with my slow pace down the hill. Maybe he's feeling just as bad.

Going up the valley on the outward journey.

I break into a bit more of a normal pace once back on the easy descent down the valley towards the car park and again enjoy this little section. It's still as peaceful as going up it earlier. I reach the car park and not long after the guy behind finally catches me.

We run together for a while. He's a few miles ahead of me and looking strong. I realise at this point that my pacing is fine to finish, but as I've gotten lost so many times I'm now behind schedule. Bugger. We chat away and it's nice to have a bit of company as we make our way back in to the school.

I sit down for a bit and get some food. I think I'm ready to give up. Fifty miles is enough and I can't really be bothered going back out there again today. So I sit down and get some food. I chat to the guy who I ran in with, we get chatting to some other people and all around it's a nice vibe.

Everyone is feeling happy and enjoying the event, but most of us are now at the point where we realise roughly where we are able to finish up at the end of the day. The guy heads off again to knock Nine on the head but I stay here. I've been chatting to a couple who are working as a team, but a bit behind their own schedule. I keep saying I'm going to call it a day but they keep encouraging me.

About an hour has passed before they get up, pack and go out for Seven, telling me I can still do this and to carry on. I smile and wish them well. Then finally it clicks. My brain goes from miserable can't-be-bothered man to why-the-hell-not man. 

I mean really, what else am I going to do? I wouldn't be annoyed at only fifty miles, but I would be sat here all night thinking I should get up and carry on. So with that I do. I quickly pack my stuff up and head out the door.

I plug into Zeus, cross off Ten and write 00:45 into the box next to Eight.

Labour Eight: Symphalian Birds

I set off from the school, this time heading north again the same way as I did on Five. Because I sat down for so long, I find that I now have a huge amount of energy. As it's a flat section, I end upsetting off at the same pace I did on Five all those hours ago. 

Then I grab at my bottles. Oh no. I forgot to fill them. I was sat down for an hour and I didn't even fill my bottles up. What an idiot. But I'm quite far up the road now to turn around. Should I? Eight miles is a long way. But the couple that I was speaking to said that Eight was pretty much boring annoying road all the way to the base of a hill then just straight up and down. 

Hmm. Screw it. I'm going to just try for it and be damned with the water. It's going to hurt, but hopefully not too much. I pass the turn off for Five, then another kilometre up the road I find mine for this labour. I turn right and make my way down another quiet road. I know I'll be on this for a while. 

Team Couple, as they shall hereby be known as I forgot to ask their names, mentioned they thought this route looked boring and they took a trail route, but after such a long sit down a few kilometres of long open road is brilliant for me so I'm more than happy to keep cracking on this way. I cross the busy trunk road and there is another couple of kilometres, this time a little bit bumpier, but still very much runnable and I'm flying along.

This is great! To think only twenty minutes ago I was contemplating giving up. What an idiot. I need to remember to focus more on how much I am actually enjoying this thing. I pass the odd runner but only a handful. Possibly Cerberus woman, I'm not sure.

View from Twelve

I go over a particularly lumpy bit, then drop down to an intersection. A couple of hundred metres further along I see the sign to take me up the hill. Off the road I go and up through between some bushes until it opens out onto the hillside. 

I go up a bit further and the next and final instruction from the Oracle is to go through the wooden gate then up to the summit. I find the gate soon enough, but it's broken and leaning up against a fence with a proper gate on it. I assume it's just been taken down and replaced so go through the metal gate.

I'm feeling quite pleased as I'm now only a short while from the summit, less than half a kilometre. The track peters out a bit then pretty much disappears altogether so I end up getting a bit confused and moving between various sheep tracks trying to find the correct one. None of them seem quite right.

I then come up to another one that looks a bit more firm so am pleased to get off the others as the weeds and bracken were starting to get a bit annoying. A bit further long and I see a fence above me on the hill, so assume I must be going around the base of it before coming up to the summit.

It then dawns on me I'm in completely the wrong place. Again. The summit is directly above me. To the side. I'm supposed to be on the ridge on the other side of the fence. Damn. I make my way up to the fence and follow it along, but can't really see anywhere that is going to be feasible to traverse as there are trees in the way and quite dense bracken.

I go back and forth a bit then just pick a spot and hurl myself over. It's an honest mistake, but I don't think I should be this side of the fence and feel uneasy, so try to get out as quickly as I can. The bracken is extremely dense. It's also extremely steep here.

I have to get right down onto my hands and knees at quite a few points, picking up bits of sheep shit along the way. And guess what? Climbing steeply uphill is really tiring. The sort of thing that really makes you need a slurp of water. 

I am my own worst enemy most of the time.

I scramble my way up. Not really understanding exactly how far I need to go, but presuming I'll find the correct path at some point soon. It takes quite a while, but eventually I do. I sit down on the ridge, huffing and puffing and stare back at the hill I've just come up. What a pain in the arse that was.

I get up again and move along the ridge a little further, over a false summit. Then out of the darkness the real one looms out at me. It looks like one out of a ghost movie in the three o'clock mist and is really quite haunting. It kind of adds to the drama of my own stupidity only a few minutes ago.

I climb up to the top and find the summit mast with the control. Brilliant. I punch in. I think there is supposed to be something relevant to the labour here, something about the birds, but as it's pitch black and I'm buggered I fail to notice what it is.

Another view from Ragleth Hill on Twelve, since I couldn't take any of the hill I was on in the middle of the night.

Like the fat kid on school camp who hides a Twix until the last day when the craving becomes too much, part of my brain has been avoiding thinking about the fact there is one small sip of water left in my bottles. As it's now time to celebrate I have a go on them.

Yes, that's right. My idea of fun is making my shins bleed scrambling through bracken collecting sheep shit at three in the morning then celebrating with about four millilitres of water. Boom, take that Ibiza.

I really want to get this over with. I actually am enjoying this labour, but I know I need to get back to some water pretty quick as it's going to start to get uncomfortable pretty soon. I start to make my way back down the hill. Unsurprisingly, if you follow the correct path it's actually considerably easier.

It's quite an easy trip back down, though again the pounding really slams my quads quite hard so it is relatively slow. Not as slow as it was going up, of course. The ground is a bit uneven as well, so even though I'm not going that fast I'm also wary not to twist an ankle as the sprain has been giving me the odd bit of grief every now and again through the day. Just the odd reminder not to do that again. 

I hobble through the correct side of the wooden gate and this time notice the post, connected to nothing a few feet away, which is what it should have been latched to. There must have originally been a fence going away from this, so it now makes sense why there are two. A little late now, though.

I get back down to the road and start moving back. The firm ground again is quite a relief after the unexpected extra complications of the last while, so I'm able to get a little bit of pace again. I walk the bumpy bits to try not to make myself too parched again. 

There's is something odd about running on your own through the darkness. There's a  sort of hazy mist that seems to appear at some point through a night no matter where you are and it really makes it into quite an in your face experience. I guess the factor of not knowing what is out there beyond a few feet from your face.

The road stops being lumpy and I make it back to crossing the trunk road. I settle back down into the rhythm of running for a few hundred metres then taking a short walk break. It's annoying as I don't think I'd need to if I had some water. I can't really blame that on anyone except myself.

I reach the turn off back to the school and now know I'm around two kilometres from the school. The need for water increases as does the panic. What if I'm doing damage to myself? What if this really affects me later down the line? 

I tell myself to calm down. I'm being irrational. It's like when you really desperately need the toilet but are on the tube or somewhere you know you won't be able to go for a while. Your mind gets so desperate your body reacts and tells you its more desperate, then as soon as you are near a toilet you don't need to go anymore. I keep telling myself that's the situation.

I get back and sure enough am fine. I do grab plenty of water and fluids though, as I definitely need to restock the reserves. I stop again for a while. Team couple and the guy I ran off Ten with have both arrived back from the ones they were doing. We all have a little reunion and chat about how our respective labours went and how we're feeling. Like group therapy in a way. I get myself a hot dog and a burger. Yum.

Duane turns up as well. I've seen him every now and again through the day. He's just come off ten and has had a struggle with it, so I leave him to himself. He's still flying along though, so in fine fettle looking from the outside in.

Team couple decide to call it a day. They know they can't finish now so have decided to rest and allow themselves to be ready for the next one quicker. Before the go, they throw me some more really insistent encouragement that I can still do this and need to carry on. I've been contemplating calling it a day again, and mull it over for a while. 

Both Duane and the other guy head out again and I'm left on my own. Again, I've wasted an hour. Should I just give up? No, I'd just sit here annoyed. I've got loads of time to even just walk a couple more. And the next one takes me over a hundred kilometres. And Team Couple said I have to.

I dib into Zeus, cross out Eight and put 04:00 next to Seven.

Labour Seven: Girdle of Hippolyta

Again, as I've given myself a break, I feel pretty fresh coming out of the school and heading south into town. The sun is potentially going to creep out in the next hour or so and I'm looking forward to it, given it's been raining on and off all night.

This time I head straight through the town and another couple of kilometres up the road. Again, I'm able to keep a bit of pace up and reach Little Stretton and the campsite again without any hassle. It's odd, but even though I only stayed here for the night before the race, I get a weird, good feeling of familiarity. Maybe it's my mind latching onto the last time I wasn't running. 

I take the driveway past the house and onto the path up the hill. I know what I'm in for here, I think, given it's pretty similar to the same section on Twelve. Only without the painful scramble up to Callow. As I'm walking up this farm track the sun does start to come out enough that I turn off my head torch. I can still barely see anything though, as the mist is incredibly dense. Welcome to a summer sunrise in Britain.

It's steep, but as usual if I keep the pace and breathing, most importantly the breathing, in the right place it's doable. The fact that this one is only seven miles helps. That mental game of the descending order is working its magic. Each one gets that little bit easier. I wind between Callow and another hill then up ahead see the three trees I'm looking for, where the control is. Wow, this one is actually going to go without a hitch and be simple.

Guess again.

I reach the control, and the instructions say I need to turn around and go through the heather to the summit of Grindle for the task. I turn around. There is heather. It looks sharp. There is no track that I can see, despite being told there is one. Not much for it then, best get on with it.

Just as I enter the heather, another runner comes down and we say hello as we pass. I then see the odd bit of tape tied to the heather so do my best to follow it. As it's still relatively misty, though, I can't really find a path. More just lumps of ground that don't have heather on them. I do my best to get through, and my shoes get soaked from the overnight dew.

The tape is relatively clear, but as the path is not, nor is my mind I get a little confused. Rather than a straight line, it's more of a drunken fumble up to the summit, with a break or two to give a lamppost a bit of a what-for. I do make it to the summit, though, and find a cairn with a few handfuls of belts strewn across it. The Girdle of Hippolyta, on top of a hill called Grindle. Seriously, you couldn't make this stuff up.

We've been told to collect one and take it back. As it's now five thirty or so, I decide to wear the bloody thing. I can't look like more of a munter anyway so I may as well. I turn around and can't see the path I took to come up here. Or the tape. I can't be bothered to work out why, so I just give myself a rough bearing of where I think I should be heading and go that way. 

I visit a few more lampposts, then get into a pub brawl with a heather bush before finally finding myself back somewhere near the trees and the control point. With bleeding, bruised and sodden shins; not to mention a woman's belt around my waist this is like a drunken night without the memory loss. I look down the hill, over the track, and it's just a steep fade into the mist. Best not go that way. I turn left and stumble my way down the hill instead.

Compared to the heather, the pootle down is a breeze. I have to laugh at myself thinking this one was going to be straightforward just before turning around to face the heather. Surely by now I should have learned that this race simply does not do simple?

The light starts to get ever so slightly clearer and soon enough I'm back at the bottom of the hill, where I saw the mountain bikers what seems like an age ago. I pass the campsite for the final time and make my way back to the main road at Little Stretton. 

As with Eight, I settle into a run/walk strategy on the way back. It's three kilometres, and I know I can just walk it in and still have just enough time for Six, but the idea of just walking the whole way when I can run some or even most of it just seems like a waste of time.

Sure enough I arrive back to the hall. I have got enough time for Six. Now that the sun is up and I know I could walk the entire thing as I wouldn't have time for any more anyway, the thought of stopping isn't really a bother. Nor is wasting too much time. 

So I have a quick bowl of rice pudding with jam, a few minutes sitting, then clock into Zeus and write 07:00 next to Six.

Labour Six: Nemean Lion

I actually feel pretty good right now. I know I don't have enough time to complete all the Labours, but I also know I've given it a pretty good go and didn't give up despite my recent lack of motivation and training. So this is my victory lap for the day. I like to make sure I get a victory lap in on every race as it means that I make sure to enjoy the final moments of running rather than just the finish and medal. Those things are superfluous to me, which is why I treasure my race bib numbers far more than my medals. To celebrate the journey rather than the end.

Duane was in the checkpoint as well, so as I head back into town, then up towards the Carding Mill Valley National Trust car park once more, he flies past at a speed I can only imagine this deep into a race. I wish him luck, as he does me, and then he pushes on like a Terminator.

I keep the run/walk strategy going. I know I could just walk, but I actually want to run and it feels better. Walking too much when I don't have to just make things a boring slog. I reach the end of the valley, the same turn off for Ten, but this time I take the left fork marked 'Waterfall'. 

A few people earlier have mentioned that there is a much easier way to get to this control by following the road up to Eleven. I did consider it, but I'm not here for a fast time, I'm here to explore so I'm pleased that I chose to come this way as I'm literally following a small stream coming down the ravine towards me. 

It is absolutely lovely hearing the rushing water next to me. What's not quite so lovely is the rushing water from above me as the heavens open and give me a what-for. The path quickly becomes slippery and hard to get around as there are a lot of slippery rocks and uneven surfaces.

I reach one of these, which is just one massive jagged rock. There are a few footholds then at the top is one that is solid to launch up and over. I get up and put my foot on this, then just as I'm putting all my weight on to push over, I slip. 

I continue trying to push my weight up and over, to try to get my centre of gravity on the right side of the rocks. It doesn't work. So now I'm standing full height on one leg on a slippery rock and going backwards. I whirl around like an amputee ballerina and notice something I didn't on the way up. 

Directly below me there is one tall, long and sharp jagged rock. I can almost see an evil smile on it as it await a connection with my back as it skewers and cripples me. I get an image of myself wretched and broken, in pieces on the ground. I imagine having to call mountain rescue, or worse still being knocked unconscious until I'm found in a few hours as carrion.

I snap out of it, stop being so dramatic and fling my right leg out. My shin connects very harshly with a rock on the other side, but I do get a little purchase, enough to change my trajectory and I fall on my arse in a heap halfway down this little group of rocks.

Well, that was intense.

I gather myself and move on. There's no point in staying here wondering about it or making it into anything more than it is. I screwed up. I managed to not make it far worse. Now I'm moving on. My shin is extremely sore, but as with my ankle, I still just ignore it, knowing the throbbing will go down and I can deal with it once all is done.

I hobble my way up the hill and soon find myself at the waterfall. It's a few steps extra, but looks lovely so I take a look around. The next bit is some steps carved into the rock, which in my befuddled mind looks like the road to Mordor or something similar, but I make my way up it all the same.

At the top of this it flattens out little and I make my way further along to the tops again. There are more than one option of paths here, so I follow the one ahead. The Oracle tells me to go straight at the top. There are three options and instinct tells me I need to fork left. But I don't. I go straight. 

Pretty soon I can tell this is wrong. Everything around me looks the same on the tops here, but my gut feeling is that I'm going on the wrong one. The GPS is now telling me to go right so I start scrambling over the heather to find a path that way. 

I can tell after a couple of minutes this is wrong too. The GPS is obviously struggling get a bearing as it can't tell which direction I'm moving in so is pointing me the wrong way. I scramble over the heather again for a few more minutes just trying to find a path so I can head in the direction I was and find the Shropshire Way gravel path.

I reach a wide one and follow it back to where the GPS is telling me I should be and three minutes later arrive back at the point where I left the path off the waterfall. Okay, this isn't funny anymore. At all. I'm getting seriously pissed off with myself now.

I head back along the path I started on and just aim for the road I know is there, taking a left fork wherever possible to get closer to the correct place. Eventually I do find the Shropshire Way and its lovely gravel. I turn left, knowing I'm still definitely too far north and start to make my way along.

I pass a signpost telling me I'm at Shooting Box and finally have a definitive answer as to where on the soaked map I now am. Confident I'm finally not lost any more, I press on ahead. After another kilometre or so I take the final climb up to the Nemean Lion at Pole Bank, the highest point of the Long Mynd at five hundred and sixteen metres. The control point tells me to find the answer to a maths puzzle within ten metres. 

Clent Hills + Titterstone Clee + Nesscliffe - Founders Folly = ???

It's a random, obtuse arithmetic puzzle and I've no idea what it means. I'm really not in the mood for this right now. Then I see a topo dais. About five metres away. It's huge. Duh. I go over and find the names of the hills mentioned. Even this takes me a while to see them all. 

I'm not fully confident with my maths so work it out partially then think maybe it would be simpler to just use a calculator. There's nothing in the rules to say I can't right? Maybe not, but my phone is soaked, as am I so can't dry it, meaning I can't even open the damned calculator. 

I'm going to be honest, this labour is seriously given me a sense of humour failure and I start swearing and shouting at this frigging dais. I go back to the maths, take a breath and work it out. As the answer dawns on me, my sense of humour is slightly restored. It's 666.

I decide there's no way I'm going back the way of the slippery death trap and will go back via road. I've worked out the way on the map, and the first step is a path directly behind me. I turn around and, yep, you guessed it. Heather.

It's a really narrow sheep track but I'm so tired I don't even care and just push through shredding my shins. There's even one bit stretched across the track as a trip wire which gives me a stumble. I come out the other side onto a gravel car park and start to move along the road. Then I realise I didn't dib in. This is just too special to even get annoyed at. 

I turn around and shred me shins a little more going back up the hill to the trig point. I dib in. I shred my shins a final time going back to the car park. I know now that I'm done. The annoyance fades and I move along the road. I start to think about what's happened over the last day and the people I love.

My two grandmothers pop into my mind at this point. I don't get much chance to see or even speak to them any more as I'm so far away on the other side of the world and it's not always appropriate to call elderly people up out of the blue.

So last year, my Nana had a fall and went into care. I knew I couldn't call, but all I wanted in the world at that point was to tell her I loved her. I was terrified she wouldn't know. So instead I had a book of all my photos printed, one each for her and Grandma and posted it to them to show them I care.

This all comes into my head at this point as they were both, in very different ways, extremely supportive of me. I wouldn't have ever been able to grow into the person I am today without the belief they always showed me, and gave me in myself. Most big runs I go on I think of them and how I should make up another book to post out as an update.

A car pulls up to ask what I'm up to. I first get a bit worried then notice it's one of the team. He's just going around collecting up some of the controls and stopped to offer a bit of encouragement which is good of him and gives me a bit of a boost mentally.

There's another guy up ahead, but he stays ahead as I make my way across the tops to the five kilometre descent of Eleven. I start to take this and again have the odd stop here or there and then all of a sudden the enormity of what I've just done hits me. I can't help it, the tear start to flow.

I do this to learn more about myself and to push not just my own boundaries but also my perceived limitations and today I feel like I hit those limitations when I kept wanting to drop out overnight so it makes getting here all the sweeter.

I make my way down the steep section of the hill and catch up to the other guy. He's also coming off Six, having had the same idea as me to come back this way. This makes his first fifty miles ever, so we're both in a really pleased mood and just chat excitedly all the way back to the school.

I've still got Four, Two and One to go, but I've run out of time. If the time limit was longer I feel like I could go on to complete, but perhaps I shouldn't have spent so much time sitting down overnight. But then I wouldn't have enjoyed it anywhere near as much so it's not a decision I regret. 

I check my watch and find that, despite officially doing only seventy one miles, I've actually done approximately eighty two, so well over the distance I set out to do, just with some of those miles in the wrong direction... Any other race and I’d be annoyed at something like that, but today all I can do is laugh at the irony and am genuinely not bothered by it. 

I collect my medal and chat to Richard and thank him for such a brutally sadistic race. Despite being my worst experience of getting lost umpteen times, not completing yet doing more than the required miles and nearly snapping both my ankle and back, this is possibly the most fun I've ever had on a race. Simple concept, perfect execution. I'll be back next year for definite to knock the bastard off.

Officially I placed ninth of thirty four, my best ever placing though I imagine a lot of those people never intended to go for all the labours or even very many of them so it is proportionate. Massive thanks to Duane, who came second, for helping me in a pinch with the kit check and also Team Couple for convincing me I should carry on. Also to all the other people I met along the way.

My biggest thanks, though, have to go to my Nana for helping raise me in a way that gave me the guts to turn up to the start line. When I got home later in the day, I got the call to tell me that about the time I was thinking of her she passed away. Nana, I couldn't make it to your funeral. But I'm so glad I made it to your life and blessed that you made it into mine. So this one is for you.

Tracking for the event can be found here.