Saturday 14th June 2025

A little something different by Claire Keith 🍒 …..

I’d been looking for a muddy/obstacle run to do for a while, but most of them clashed with another event or were the week before a marathon. And out of loyalty to the mighty Winter Tough Guy (my proudest running moment to date), I refuse to do Tough Mudder, who now seem to hog the OCR calendar.

Then I stumbled across the Dirty Rotten Scramble, and it was the day after my birthday, so it felt all the more perfect!

The event takes place at Hole Park in Cranbrook and offers a 5k, 10k, and 30k distance. I opted for the 10k this time (which turned out to be almost 7.6 miles, so I expect the 30k was close to a full marathon in the end).

It was a lovely sunny day, so I took my trail and XC shoes, not sure which would be best. I was assured XC would definitely be the ones to go for when I checked in, and they were right!! Some runners wore road shoes and really couldn’t cope with the steep muddy sections.

I started a little way back from the front as I’d been struggling a bit since getting back from holiday and didn’t want to get in the way of faster runners. I took the first field slowly to ease in.

Once I had leapt over the first gate (strict rules on over not through), I was in my element and wanted to press forward at this point. Unfortunately, this is where we entered the winding woods where it was impossible to overtake, and I did get stuck at a slower pace than I’d have liked for about another half mile.

I didn’t let it bother me, though, and just threw myself (quite literally sometimes) into the fun as I was faced with the first of the muddy waters. There were 16 water obstacles altogether; most you could wade through, but 4 you had to swim. There were hidden dips and branches under water that would see you plummet unexpectedly forwards or down, which brought many laughs to the competitors.

The steep natural mud slides in the woods were awesome, although one of them did see me go full speed into a tree and smash my shin and knuckle 🙈😂 But you just have to get up, keep going and assess the damage later. I loved that we had to use tree roots to help pull ourselves back up the other side.

I was a bit slower in the water but found my speed on the running sections, which ran through the slippery winding woods (thank God for deep lugs) and across dry rutted fields which tested the ankles.

As you approach the finish, it’s one last swim and then under the barbed wire crawl before a sprint through the carpark and across the finish line.

It really was so much fun! I will definitely do it again and maybe consider taking on the 30k (there was only 1 amazing lady finisher this year 💪 amongst the 13 who completed it in time over that distance). Highly recommended and great value for money, too!

🎤 Flipping brilliant Claire 🍒 what a fab report.  I think this will entice a few of us to give it a go next year! You’ve sold it!!! Well done on another epic performance and thank you for taking the time to pop this together 🖤