No miss stakes with Dracula at the 5k Spooktacular

On a dark and slightly damp Saturday evening in Bristol, 15 brave souls lined up at Ashton Court to take on the 5K Spooktacular obstacle race.

It was the first time that the event had been held and reports of zombie pursuers and inflatable slides that were three buses high had enticed an eerie array of twilight creatures to leave their usual dark abodes (well, Vivo sports club and Haringey) and venture out to take on the new challenge.

The forms these creatures took were many and varied - a variety of zombies and undead, a skeleton, a cowboy, a pair of pumpkins, Dracula, a ghost, a possessed wheelbarrow, a pumpkin-bat abomination, Frankenstein's monster and Darth Vader were among them. In a coming together worthy of a Marvel blockbuster, all these strange forms had joined up to unite against the inflatable course.

There were of course some mishaps - the pumpkin-bat had poor vision and would occasionally follow the wrong set of lights, the ghost would from time to time wrestle with its own spectral form as it got a bit stuck in the inflatable tunnels and the hideous spikes of the possessed wheelbarrow were for a while defeated by the cargo net requiring Frankenstein's monster to help out for a bit.

In the end though, the entire group emerged in the end mostly unscathed (or at least no more mutilated than when they started) and in good spirits(!) It is also to be hoped that the singular sight of the twin pumpkins leaping from the final vertigo inducing ledge must surely have made up for the unfortunate loss of one of the pumpkin bats wings on the very same precipice.

It may be that some of the official zombies were not quite as intimidating as had been anticipated and the absence of the advertised slide may have been slightly disappointing (depending on your level of vertigo) but the other obstacles were certainly enjoyable - and it's always fun running in the dark with head torches!

Thanks to everyone for taking part - it was fantastic to have some of our newer members with us taking part in their very first GG race and brilliant to see everyone getting into the spirit of the event. Hope to see you all sign up for more GG races soon.

Thanks to Emma and Sarah for the photos!