Various reasons include injury (Chris' knee) illenss (my wife while pregnant) and proximity issues (my wifes due date).
Chris ran the marathon and I was due to untill I hurt my hip and had to give it a miss. Because we where already signed up for the marathon when the dates for the Daimond Quest came out, we decided it was too close and gave that a miss.
I did however manage to make it to the fantastic Mud Maddness in portadown again last Sunday. Thanks to Jonny and Caoimhin who accompanied me and made it even more fun. Caoimhin deserves a special mention for two reasons - he made it round with velcro shoes without loosing them and he arrived not really knowing what sort of a race it was. Jonny had simply asked him if he was up for a cross country race on Sunday!
Again the race was very well run and great value. The route was changed a bit from last time but was the same idea. I wont give a full rundown as it would be pretty much the same as the last one for Mud Maddness. One big difference this year was that the weather was glorious and had been for a couple of days making the field sections a lot less muddy and easier to run through. It didnt make any of the obstacles less muddy though. There was less rinning back and forward accross a field which cut out the more boring part from last time and a few more small easy (over tyres etc) obstacles to break things up.
I have not been doing any exercise recently with my wife not being well so as expected my time was about 15 minutes slower than last year and I was close to the end of the field at 1:14:27.
A great afternoon was had and hopefully the Two Fat Ladies will make a propper return for the Rat Race in august.
Mark
