Race Report – Mens Health Survival 10k Battersea, London

Yesterday was the day of the Battersea race in the Mens Health Survival Series. The race was set in the shadow of Battersea Power station in London and involved 10k’s worth of running as well as 10 assault course style obstacle zones dotted around the course (as well as a few ‘stocking fillers’)

Mens Health Survival 10k Series

Land Rover UK (who sponsored the event) contacted me asking if I would like two free tickets, and having heard some good things about the three other races in the series (Nottingham, Edinburgh and Cardiff) I jumped at the chance to enter along with a mate called Craig who is running the Edinburgh Marathon with me next year.

Yesterday morning, Craig, a few friends and myself made our way to the Battersea Power station site along with 4500 other entrants and their supporters. The event was sold out weeks in advance and the athletes village was swarming.

Inside the Land Rover and Mens Health VIP Tent

After registering we made our way to the Land Rover and Mens Health VIP tent to get changed and to make the most of the free breakfast on offer. Because of the obstacle nature of the course, runners were being set off in waves of about 250 to avoid congestion and as our allocated wave was at 12.00pm we had nothing to do but sit back and wait to be called for the warmup.

Whilst I was waiting to start I bumped into the first of a number of surprise chance encounters with people from college, uni and work that I had no idea were running the race. A mate (also called Ross) won Men’s health race in Cardiff a few weeks ago and was running at Battersea to defend his title. He had just finished first in his wave with a time of 39.18 and was waiting for the other waves to go through to see what his eventual seeding would be. He won in the end so congratulations Ross!

I also bumped into someone from my college back home in Birmingham. She now works for Mens Health and was organising the event. I have no idea how the Mens Health team managed to co-ordinate the day so effectively as the scale and size of the event was massive and the venue of Battersea Power station had never been used before to host a sports event.

After chatting to various people for a bit too long Craig and I missed our allocated wave and so had to tag onto the back of the next wave instead and missed the warm up in the frantic running around!

Starting the race at 12.00pm in wave 9 with 250 other racers

We started with about 250 others and sprinted ahead of the crowd to try and get to the first set of obstacles before the crush.

Mens Health Survival First Obstacle

We sailed over some hay bails and some platforms as well as some monkey bars and then settled into the first run section of the course.

At this time I was 3rd in my wave and so tried to close down the two guys in-front of me, relying on the fact that I would be able to keep running at my usual 40minute 10k pace for the whole race. This was not to be as after the second set of obstacles I lost ground to the taller blokes (a reoccurring theme) who managed to sail over anything in their way.

I tried to push past them in the run section by the Thames but again lost all the ground I made up during the next set of high obstacles. By the time we reached the 4km mark we had climbed over planks, run through water, climbed over a-frmaes, crawled under cargo nets, pushed through some inflatable assault courses and clambered through mazes of rope.

The Chelsea Bridge section of the run

It was this section of the course (just before Chelsea Bridge) that was the least marshalled and unfortunately I saw a few runners avoid some of the more knackering obstacles (including the guy who was in 5th place at this point in my wave) - oh well.

The course really started to get fun when we neared the last third, as a water trap on a 400m athletics track turned out to be deceptively deep and most people fell head first into a metre of icy water (me included)

Soaked to the skin I ran back along the Thames to Battersea Power Station where some of the more elaborate and fun obstacles had been set up.

We had to clamber through a gutted car and then scale a set of platforms covered in military netting closely followed by another A frame. This A frame was the second of three over the entire course and I don’t know why but it took me a very long time to scale this one. By the time i set my feet back on the ground I must have lost 20 seconds and the people that I had been following were long gone.

Exiting Battersea Power Station in our hard hats!

Now it was time for something completely unique. As the course rounded the corner we were given a hard hat each (yes thats right, a builders hard hat) and we entered the decommissioned Battersea Power Station building. After picking up a Sandbag each we had to jog around a maze of fences in the gloom before climbing a hill to dump the sand bag. The bags must only have weighed 20k but they were jsut heavy enough to be awkward and sap your strength. Despite the tiredness I still managed to chat to a bloke who I had managed to catch up to in my wave before he sprang off like he hadn’t just ran 9km!

We then crawled through some tunnels before exiting the power station and entering the final stage of the race.

This was the best part of the run by far as this was where things got messy! We climbed over some platforms and scaffolding before crawling though some pits filled with crushed ice (because we weren’t all cold enough already) and then through a pit of mud.

Soaked!

We were then hosed down with a fire hose and stumbled our way (half blinded!) to some skips filled with freezing cold water. This water seemed to suck the strength from your limbs and made the last obstacle all the harder, but i reckon my front crawl technique was still spot on lol!

Mens Health Wall of Fame - Craig climbs over the last obstacle

The last barrier between the racers and the finish line was the Mens Health Wall of Fame. This wall is 9ft tall and so it was nice to have a push from some other helpful racers to reach the top. The bloke who came after me was on the large side so it took two people pushing from below and me pulling him from the top to get him over; but that is what this wall is all about.

The happy finishers!

I walked across the finish line, chatting away with some other runners, in a time of 48 something or other. Craig closely followed (scaling the wall like a pro) and we sauntered off to claim our goody bag and finishers medal. We watched a few more waves finish before heading back to the Land Rover VIP tent to find out that Ross (the winner) had run the course again for fun.

After some celebratory and complimentary baked potatoes we headed for home but the Mens Health after party continued in a specially built bar inside the power station until later that day.

This morning when I checked Facebook, the amount of old friends that entered the race was astonishing and everyone seemed to have an awesome time, with some people running in fancy dress and for charity.

Thank you to everyone at Land Rover and Mens Health for the chance to run in Saturdays race and for organising something so fun in such a unique setting!