Location: Hyde Estate, Horsham Road, Handcross, RH17 6DS
Date & Time: Saturday 6th August 2016 at 9.30am
Cost: £39 each includes booking fee (£3.50), Discount available for team of 2 or more 
Parking available: donations of £3-5 are welcome
Distance: 10km
Gauntlet Games

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Our Thoughts

Last year September we took part in the infamous Tough Mudder and ever since we’ve had the obstacle race bug! Now… we haven’t yet signed up to anything on the same grueling levels of Tough Mudder but we’ve found a  few fun/challenging 2016 obstacle races to participate in. Gauntlet Games was the first on our list!!

Being our enthusiastic and energetic selves, for our first 2016 obstacle race  we signed up for a whopping 10km. This decision was surely made on impulse because up until the night before, we were both convinced that we were running a 5km race…. obviously that made more sense right?!? As we hadn’t done any specific training, easing ourselves in would be sensible… Yeeeeah…. that was not the case at all, for our first race we went all in!

The weather on the day was spot on for this challenge, the sun was shining and the temperature was perfect, the cool light breeze was definitely the cherry on top.   Upon arrival we got the formalities out of the way and headed straight to the face paint area to prepare our war faces!

The warm up was noooo joke, it was so tiring, which we partially put down to our lack of training. After about the first 5mins, we honestly found ourselves questioning ‘what we had signed up for?!’ However, despite the warm up being a little challenging we definitely have to give props to the Gauntlet Games staff for keeping the levels of enthusiasm up and making it fun!

One of the things we both really enjoyed about the race was the amount of different obstacles that were included. There was too much variety which really helped to break up the 10km. We walked through swamps ( or tip toed with water at neck level in Nifesi’s case), swung across monkey bars, bounced on space hoppers and the list goes on. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to capture it all on camera (a GoPro is currently on the wish list) but we tried our best to get a few snippets, which you can view below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkZlXUphBec&w=560&h=315]

Things to note:

• This race has a 5km and 10km option
• Aside from going through the swamps, there is no obligation to do any of the obstacles.
• Bring a change of clothes & shoes as you will get wet and very muddy
• There is parking onsite – all donations go to charity
• Free of charge storage provisions are available – this is an open area supervised by staff rather than individual lockers

All in all it took us approx. 3 hours to complete the race, one of the things we noticed was that there were no indicators displaying how far we had run. It’s arguable as to whether that’s a good or bad thing but we both would’ve liked at least one marker to let us know that we had reached half way. On the plus side, one of the great things about this race is the team spirit! Everyone is super friendly and willing to give a helping hand. The race is a challenge but we have faith that YOU can do it!

So if this is something you would be interested in doing next year but you’re struggling to find people to do it with let us know – we would happily do it again!

Overall activity rating:  

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We have told, now it’s time  for YOU to tell… Please let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below.

Until our next post continue to Taste, Experience, Laugh and Live life to the absolute fullest.

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