Kents Hill Rumble Order Of Knight Fitness Competition 29th Nov 2015
By Ali Wilson
So today I competed in the fitness competition ‘The Kents Hill Rumble – The Order Of Knights’ in Milton Keynes! First of all I just want to say what a fucking wicked time I had!
I competed in the last one and loved it, so it’s an easy decision as to whether to put yourself through this sort of torture again! I went in with my PTS homegirls Kerry Gowen and Leanne Clifford, they won the last one and so had a title to defend!
I don’t have much luck with male partners (yeah, yeah, funny joke!) in these sorts of competition, finding out on Thursday that I was partnerless, but luckily they managed to get me Dave Beaumont as a last minute stand-in! Cheers! I was absolutely willing (and stupid enough) to attempt this competition solo, with the goal of not coming last… But luckily I didn’t have to find out just how fucking stupid I am! They even named our team ‘PTS and the body saviour’! Hahahahahahaaaaaa!
With these competitions the guys organising it just pull off some amazing ideas with a shoestring budget and very limited equipment. With this being about knights it was a journey in the competition from the young lad learning to squire to all the way up to being a knight in battle. Sounds fucking weird I completely agree, but my god I’m grateful they’re weird enough to try this stuff! It’s so fresh and different, you can just tell how much thought goes into everything.
The events themselves were pretty interesting, even without the added theme. But having the theme made it cohesive, and the randomness made total sense! These rounds were 20 minutes long each, it’s intense, relentless, hot, sweaty fun!
First event was simulated horse riding with a lance (think jousting) and wielding a big fucking sword. One partner had to hold an empty bar, with a little plastic ring on the very end, and then do squat straddle jumps on and off a step. You had to hold the ‘lance’ very steady or the ring came off. This is fucking ingenious! Once you’d done ten jumps, your partner had to sprint off and then whack a tyre with another empty bar. This was actually quite challenging, I was quite enthusiastic and was bouncing the bar off my back, going to have some lovely bruises there I think! I really, really enjoyed this event, just weird and a bit crazy but still a lot of presence of mind needed even when feeling fucked, made it very interesting! I think we came third in this one.
Second event was a sandbag load over a frame and rope pulling a weighted frame. This was simulating tacking up a horse and moving knight’s equipment I think, and I knew going in this would be a good event for me. It was really fun! Only thing with this event… The thin rope started to wreck my hands, I managed to tear a big chunk of skin off my little finger on my left hand, and then even after emergency taping it up, it was causing the rope to slip with blood! Very annoying, made me finish this round feeling disappointed, but it turns out me and Dave absolutely smashed this event with a very dominant event win!
Third event….. Fucking cunt. This was simulating the knight’s equipment, with ‘plate’ armour (very good pun guys!), and a bar and a kettlebell to pretend a sword and shield. Then you had to run a lap of different exercises, lunges, step ups, get ups with an added press… Sounds simple? Well, the fucking bastard plate vest broke on me before I had done a single rep! It was then a ‘game’ of trying to keep the fucking thing on my neck and around my shoulders (a problem if you have beautiful traps like mine) while jiggling around the fucking place. The thing was, everybody had this problem, so it was actually pretty fair! It turned into a proper team event with us not really resting but instead trying to keep the equipment in place for each other, a nice bonding experience! I think we came third in this event too.
Fourth event…. This was the first time I really felt some effort. This was basically a prowler push for 20 fucking minutes! Every 5 minutes extra weight was added too! Wankers hahaha! You could split the pushing however you wished, we opted for 1 length each, so stop lactate build up. This was to simulate pushing a siege engine around the battlefield! This event started really badly for me… As soon as I started pushing I felt the arthritis in my left knee go absolutely mental…. I haven’t had any problems in my knee for months (for the first time ever in 25 years!), so this was a horrible reminder I’m still human! I think it was the kneeling in the get-ups in the last round that upset my knee, and as I type this it still hurts like a fucking bastard right now. But back to pushing shit around, I couldn’t move fast, so just tried to keep steady. Think we ended up 4th in this one, gutted. Should be good at long distance prowler pushing! Kerry just cruised this event, made everyone else feel even more sick haha! The funny (or rather unfunny, depending on the person) thing about this event in particular was it really punished the slower person. If one of you was slower than the other then the faster person got more rest, which let them go even faster… Meaning the slower person got less rest and ended up going even slower… Harsh!
Fifth and final team event was an interesting one. One partner had to stand and hold a bar overhead while standing for 5 minutes, then after 5 minutes you had to continue but now kneeling. The other had to run constant shuttle sprints, but only if the bar was overhead. If the partner drops the bar then the other wasn’t allowed to run, AND you were out of that 5 minute sequence, only allowed back in if you then went to the kneeling section. So there was some tactics… We decided to make sure we could finish as much of the second section as possible we would deliberately give ourselves 30 to 45 seconds rest by quitting the first section early. This worked an absolute treat! I ran first, and the little break allowed me to run much faster for the second section, and for the overhead hold I called upon the mighty, immense powers of Freddie Mercury and Queen by singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ for the entire ten minutes! Turns out as humorous as it looked (and sounded), I’m a bit of trend setter, with nearly everyone in the next heat singing to their survival! But the original is best, and me and Dave won this event in spectacular, moustache singing fashion! I believe Kerry and Leanne won their category as well, with the second half having Kerry matching her nearest rival Sarah Greene stride for stride the entire time!
Event six was the individual competition, but with points still going towards the team total as well, so it paid to bust your gut! This was in the form of a time trial, with a tyre whack, more straddle squat jumps, a mat push and a rope pull with a sprint in-between to determine fastest wins! The top four would go through to a semi-final, then the top 2 would have a final face off. I came fifth in the first run through so just missed out on getting a semi (I’m still just too fucking slow!), and Dave managed to get 2nd overall, with the most incredible split second slide-of-death finish that I had to catch him to stop him getting a strike in the crowd! Kerry and Leanne placed 2nd and 3rd in the individual competition, with Kerry leading in the final but just fumbling the rope pull to lose at the last seconds!
So the team results came in… Kerry and Leanne defending their title in strong fashion with a female team win of 229 points, which was also the highest scoring team overall too! All hail PTS girls! Me and Dave got 211 points…. The winners got 213! 2 motherfucking points! AAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
So second place again! But I had a fucking wicked time, I just love what Dave Peters and crew pull off with this stuff! Genuine innovation is a rare thing these days, these guys have it in buckets!
Here’s the video, you can watch me sing while holding my arms overhead, it’s a bit ‘Platoon – The Musical’!