In contrast to the bright sunny conditions experienced during the Muddy Woody in 2010, the 2011 edition was unfortunately held in wet, cold and generally miserable conditions, which may even have been welcomed by some of the entrants as it did little to deter the massive 300+ entry from starting.
The route was little changed but did include a couple of previously unused tracks that did not alter the race distance greatly being measured in total at 6.4 miles.
The overall winner was John Pullen of Wye Valley Runners in 42:27, 2nd was Dave Wilby of Ilkley Harriers (Yorkshire) in 43:22 and 3rd Elliot Taylor (Hereford Couriers) in a time of 43:34, whilst the Ladies were led home by Kim Mazzucca of Forest of Dean AC who finished 36th o/a and was FV45 winner! 2nd female was Jessica Barling (unattached) who finished 40th o/a in 52:42 and 3rd Nikki Hughes (unattached) 44th o/a in 53:15.
Stacey led home the Croft contigent in an impressive 4th place in 44:50, Neil P. delivered an equally impressive performance to finish 8th o/a in 47:17, Gary finished a noteworthy 63rd in 55:48 and claiming 1st MV65 and was closely followed home by Nicky in 65th o/a and 1st FV50 in 55:50 and incidentally she was 7th female o/a (how impressive is that?) whilst last (but not least) Croft runner was Frank who finished 82nd o/a in 58:00 out of a total of 297 finishers the last of whom finally reached the finish in 2:02:30 which could be a measure of just how difficult some of the competitors found the wet conditions!
The ‘Muddy Woody certainly lived up to its name this year!