Tough Guy

Ghurka Grand National

31st January 2010

It was 10pm on Saturday Jan 30th 2010 when Gavin Howell, Bradley Noble and Keith Powell were sitting in a hotel bar in Wolverhampton, gazing out of the window at the falling snow, contemplating our stupidity…
5 months earlier the pact had been made on a balmy summer evening between the three of us to take on the Tough Guy Challenge and raise money for SCAT.  We’re coaches at the local rugby club and are regulars at the Millstream Public House owned by Peter and Nicky Clark. We’ve supported the Ellis Harriet Clark Trust in the past but wanted to try and do a little more to help – The Millstream Maniacs were formed.

Billed as “The World’s safest, most dangerous taste of mental and physical pain, fear and endurance.” the Tough Guy Challenge is a grueling 8 mile cross country scramble followed by an assault course ominously known as “The Killing Fields”.

Training involved lots of working out at the gym and a great deal of cross-country running, in all weather – in fact we became quite adept at running in the snow as we trained in the coldest and snowiest winter for 30 years.  We also had a mid-Winter dip in a local lake on a snowy Sunday morning to understand what cold water immersion was like.

Sunday 31st January
Pre-race nerves meant that none of us were feeling especially hungry so we ate a light breakfast and left the hotel, the outside temperature was -7 and we received a further light dusting of snow as we approached the farm in Perton, Staffordshire where the event was to take place.
Registration was fun, we entered a small claustrophobic room filled with organisers shouting and screaming words of encouragement like “you’re going to die” or “dead man walking”! It was at this point that we signed our “Death Warrant” excluding the organisers from liability for death or injury because “it was our own stupid fault” and an organizer wrote our race number on our forehead with permanent marker for identification purposes “just in case”.

Just as we thought that things couldn’t get worse, we took our first look at the famed “Killing Fields” and to our horror we realised that the water was covered in 1 ½ inch thick ice that the race marshals were smashing up.   
No time to back out now as we headed to the start, our starting position was just behind the elite runners so we had a last chance to laugh and joke with a few of the 5,000 runners around us before the cannon fired, the yellow smoke bombs exploded and we were off…..

Avoided breaking our ankles as we ran down an open field covered in lethal frozen ruts. In and out of a succession of icy, muddy trenches
Over and under a series of log hurdles, a steady run for a mile or so towards “the slalom” a 100m high muddy slope that we had to scramble up and down 10 times

Another run for a mile towards the river crossing, back and forth across the river 10 times each way, avoiding the glass-like shards of ice and smashing our shins at every attempt to exit the river.
Running under cargo nets, trying not to get your head caught
Another run and finally the killing fields were ahead of us……..
Climbing the 40m Behemoth - a wooden structure with cargo nets and ropes and not much of a safety net

Mud, lots of it, trying to suck your shoes off in the “Dead Leg Swamp”
Water, freezing, icy water that burned and numbed at the same time, especially when fully immersed
Smoky fires lit at the points where you just wanted to stop for a breather
The pitch darkness Vietcong Tunnels ripping at your elbows and knees as you crawl towards the light.
Avoiding the stinging electrical shocks of “The Tiger”
Walking the plank and plunging into the freezing “Death Pools”
Over the” tyre torture” obstacle

3 hrs later and finally the end was in sight, a rope climb up a hill and a kindly face handed us a cup of hot chocolate and a foil blanket there was an eerie quiet at the finish as all that could be heard was the collective rustling of hundreds of foil blankets as their owners shivered uncontrollably collectively. The Tough Guy challenge was definitely tougher than we had expected, but well worth the effort for SCAT. Gavin, Keith and Bradley will return in 2011 to improve our times!
www.justgiving.com/millstreammaniacs

NEW YORK

The Millstream Maniacs are also offering the chance for two lucky people to win a trip to New York! Tickets are £20 each, the prize includes flights and two nights accomodation, hurry though as only 200 are available. To enter please email Gavin on gavin.howell@thomsonreuters.com with your name, address, phone number and date of birth and pay your £20 per ticket on their JustGiving webpage. More information (inc T&Cs) can be found by downloading the following pdf. All money raised goes directly to SCAT, good luck!

Fortunately providing they receive the proper diagnosis and

the right treatment, most kids with Osteosarcoma do recover.