PARTICIPANTS in this year’s Checkatrade Mad March Mare mud run are being given the chance to perfect their wall climbing or net scrambling skills ahead of the main event.

Challenge Northumberland, the organiser of the event at Hexham Racecourse, has teamed up with local sports scientists to offer a three-week progressive training camp ahead of the big day on March 4.

The boot camp will focus on skills and techniques rather than building up fitness, and is aimed at participants not confident of being able to tackle some of the 35 obstacles on the day.

The team will run attendees through a number of skills, such as crawling, landing, climbing and carrying weighted items.

The course will start on February 11 and will run the following two Saturdays too, getting more difficult each week.

Spaces on the camp, to be held at Broomley Grange Outdoor Activity Centre, the home of Challenge Northumberland’s popular Clarty Bairns event for children, and is limited to 50 people.

Challenge Northumberland director Neville Duncan said: “We know people go up to Broomley to go on the assault course prior to the event, and a couple of guys from universities contacted us to ask if we would run the camps focusing on skills and technique.

“We’ll be doing a lot of carrying things, such as sandbags, and crawling under nets, and it’s about improving techniques to help people round the course.

“This isn’t a replacement for fitness conditioning and SS Fitness is our fitness consultants again. It’s about giving people confidence when they turn up on the day, and they’re not standing there wondering how to get over that obstacle.”

Now in its third year, the Mad March Mare is fast becoming one of the biggest sporting events in the area and is well on course to reach its capacity of 1,000 entrants – an extension on the 800 which turned up last year.

And it’s the development of the course and obstacles which is winning new fans.

Duncan said: “The course has improved and there’s more obstacles. We will have a mixture of 35 natural and man-made obstacles, and it shows we are always moving forward.

“The plan is for 40 obstacles in 2018 as we’re looking to improve things again.

“It’s great to have so many people signed up and we’ve a lot of new people coming, along with those that are returning or doing it for a third year. It’s really encouraging to get so many newcomers and hopefully the event’s reputation of being a real challenge is getting out there.

“We had a phenomenal response over Christmas and I think a lot of people have signed up as a New Year’s resolution. It’s only eight weeks into the year so not a long period of training, but it’s enough.

“Another reason the event is popular is that it is a great warm-up for the other, larger runs down the country.”

This year, Tynedale Hospice at Home and St Oswald’s Hospice have been chosen as the event’s nominated charities.