A Grim Challenge

Last weekend, along with my sons and daughter I took part in the annual, and final, Grim Challenge. The moral of this story is that the family that runs the Grim together...gets wet and muddy.

The Grim Challenge is a course run over the army tank and off road vehicle testing and training facility in Aldershot. It is traditionally held on the first weekend in December and because of the vagaries of the British weather this can mean conditions range from pleasant and sunny to gale force winds, driving rain and ice breaking. Grim aficionados consider the foul weather runs to be the in the true spirit of the event. Whatever the weather the terrain guarantees that conditions will be wet and muddy. The mud generated at this location is reminiscent of the contents of new born babies' nappies.

The Grim has become something of a family tradition with various combinations of me, sons and daughter over the years - can't claim we made it every year, but we have a good collection of medals and T shirts.

The organiser announced that the 2018 running would be the final one, making entry all the more fitting for the 60at60 series. My sons also decided it would be appropriate to mark the occasion with the double Grim i,e, going around twice, meaning 16 miles in all, and they opted to raise money for  charity - see the support a charity page   . Adventure daughter and myself stuck with the original Grim of 8 miles.

The 1st December arrived in a very wet format - torrential rain and bin bags at the start. It was cold, wet, muddy and immensely satisfying. We original Grimmers ran and waded our way to the end. The 16 milers Brothers Grim adopted a leisurely approach on the second lap (bit of a feature of the 60st60 challenges) but finished in good style, and if that event does prove to be the last one they can rightly claim to be the last Grims running.

Congratulations to everyone who has completed a Grim over the years, for the thousands of pounds this has raised for good causes and to the organisers for making it happen -we'll forgive the lack of the promised T shirts this year!

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