There's not a lot to fault with the organisation of this race. The marshals are enthusiastic, the course is easy to follow, the feed stations are well stocked with water, jelly babies & Jaffa Cakes and the whole thing is kicked off with a 2 minute silence for Remembrance Sunday and a rendition of the National Anthem.

If you like mud and hills, then this is the race for you, however there seems to be a lot more up than down which completely sapped my energy by the end, but that's a personal fitness thing rather than the race. The first 3 miles are steeply downhill to a feed station, and straight back up again passing the faster runners along a narrow track. The last 2 miles of the loop are the hardest as the ground is hard to get any grip on because of the rubble in the mud but the absolute hardest thing is doing the second loop when you know what's next!

The views are stunning and this year was lucky to have such lovely weather. Although chilly, you could see for miles and apart from a very short shower at the start, it even became fairly warm as you ran. 

Both the HM and Ultra 10k (12k) distances set off at the same time, so the course really thins out for the HM, especially if you're slower, like me. Embarrassingly, I was 3rd from last but I did get a CPB by 3 minutes - so every cloud and all that.

At the finish, you're given a medal & a mug, with the option of more jaffa cakes, carrots, flapjacks and a bottle of beer. I was however, disappointed that the medal was of a much lower quality than last year (which was bespoke and had an integrated bottle opener) and there was no t-shirt this year, but the high price of the entry fee remained the same. Last year's top had all finishers names on the back and was a good fit but it was replaced by the mug - which I will probably never use.

Overall, a good event but too hilly and expensive for me to return for a third year.