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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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by Paul Williams at Inkwell Photographic
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One True Grit
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One True Grit
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One True Grit
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One True Grit
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One True Grit
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One True Grit
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The Fit Lab team from St Albans
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Held at Kingswoodbury Farm in Hertfordshire, the event saw 420 people take part in the run that featured 20 army-style obstacles throughout a ten kilometre course.
Among the challenges were ten-foot climbing walls, sewer crawls, barbed wire crawls, hay bale climbs, a 30ft deep lake to swim across - and plenty of mud.
Andy Levett, co-founder of OTG Events, told Event he and his business partner, Paul Hildrow, set the company up after leaving the army.
Having served for seven years with the Colchester-based 13 Air Assault Royal Logistics Corps - part of the parachute battalion - in war zones around the world, they decided to turn their experiences into creating fun, outdoor events for the masses.
Levett said: "Being in the army we did this kind of thing during training, and then last year we did a couple of these courses ourselves and really enjoyed it and thought that there’s not much in the area that does anything similar."
The pair researched areas using Google’s satellite mapping system to look into suitable terrain and approached a farmer about using his land for the event.
"The farmer said, ‘I don’t get why people would want to do that,’" said Levett, who explained that the course was built on a working farm.
He added: "The biggest challenge was setting it all up ourselves – from creating the website in January, to the advertising, to constructing the obstacles. There were a lot of natural obstacles on the farm - the lake was 30ft deep in the middle. Myself and Paul had to go in there to find that out."
In total £2,500 was raised for Prostate Cancer UK and Levett and Hildrow are now beginning to plan the next One True Grit event for March 2014, with high hopes to grow the event in Hertfordshire, and set up another in Yorkshire next year.
"As clichéd as it sounds, seeing everyone smiling at the end of the course and knowing they had achieved something was the biggest highlight. I went to bed buzzing that night," said Levett.
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