Not a sporting winter without a mud run

MUDRATS: Smiling for the camera after last year’s Mud Run is this group of young participants, who clearly got into the spirit of the day. The 2016 edition is on Sunday. Picture by Liam Clayton

IT'S back. The mudness is about to be unleashed all over again at Maclaurins’ farm at the wet end of Maclaurins Road.

Already in its third year, it’s a confirmed good day out for cross-country runners, walkers, plodders, mudlarks and extroverts in clothing that no longer matters to them.

The 2016 Norwood Farm Machinery Centre Mud Run gets the gun at 10am on Sunday.

A little more pluvial fallout this week and some of the sponsor’s product will be needed to extract heavier competitors from the soft spots.

Gisborne Harrier Club organises the event with the help of the property owners and they make the point that it would not be a sporting mid-winter without a mud run.

Entries are restricted to 350 and going by the past two years, and the 100 or so who have entered online early this time, the numbers will be up again.

After all, why wouldn’t you do it? Get as dirty as you like, challenge yourself on some stiff ups and downs, throw some mud, yell, dance, fall over, all the things you haven’t done since your 21st birthday party.

The format is the same as year two. Registration is from 9am and the kids’ under-8 race will be off along the creek bed at 10am.

As they finish, the long race starts for adults — four laps getting a 10.15 gun. The two-lappers start five minutes later. But who’s counting? Do as much as you want — all prizes are on the spot draw.

If you are worried about fitness, don’t be. Whichever way you run around this course, forwards, backwards, sideways, up or down, the course is perfectly flat.

If you believe that, then you are bound to win the top spot prize.

There will be coffee, a sausage sizzle, loud music, a coldwater wash for later, and sunshine to dry you off, all the things you don’t get on your pre-dawn training runs.