The Inaugural Deadly Dozen

It wasn't long after I moved to Macclesfield last year that I started hearing whisperings of the Deadly Dozen; a fitness race concept devised by Jason 'Jay' Curtis, who owns and manages a local gym. 

Fitness racing is having a huge surge in popularity at the moment and Jay has captured a corner of the market, especially for those of us who love being outside. The format is 12 x 400m laps of a running track ('journeys'), with a fitness station after each lap ('labours'). I don't know if we can really call several laps of a running track a 'journey' unless we consider the mental endeavour of this event, but we can - without any doubt - call some of those exercises a 'labour'.

I won't spend time drawing comparisons between the Deadly Dozen (DD) and Hyrox as they're entirely different entities, but I will say that on turning up to DD, it had a wonderful chilled and welcoming vibe that was a million times nicer than the noisy, intense and quite frankly, overcrowded atmosphere at a Hyrox event. It had a great buzz and a well branded, professional set-up whilst still having that feeling of a low-ley, friendly, community event.

I paid close attention to what was going on as the first wave started bang on 9am (yes, I missed parkrun for this), and promised myself I wouldn't be silly and try to sprint the first lap.. or any lap for that matter. At this point, it started to rain, a lot. Several of us huddled under a tent selling fitness-race-specific socks and the sock folk were quite delighted to have a captive audience for their sales pitch.

Anyway, no new socks on race day. It was time to not excitedly run too fast off the start line. Starting in small waves (only four in mine) of mixed competitors every six minutes added to the chilled vibe as the whole thing felt a little less like a competition and more like just a fun Saturday morning workout.

The downpour had made me nervous for the first labour: Farmers Carry, particularly as chalk was banned in this event. However, the kettlebell handles were far grippier than the smooth metal ones I'd used in the gym, so this was easier than I'd expected given the wet conditions, and the Kettlebell Deadlifts on the second station felt like a warm up exercise. All good so far.

Given how much of my life I spend lunging, or talking about lunging, or encouraging other people to lunge, it's always an enormous surprise to me how hard I find lunging when it is part of a fitness race. The lumpy, uneven, wet grass did add a touch of peril to the Dumbbell Lunge.. and I started to ponder whether a light trail shoe would have been a more sensible option. I'm embarrassed to say this but, I was glad when the lunging was over.

Am I too mature for snatch jokes? Nope. I do really love a bit of snatch. Is there such a thing as too much snatch? If there is, we didn't reach that limit with the Dumbbell Snatch. If anything, my forearms were relieved at this point to be lifting a weight overhead rather than just carrying it. The runs were still feeling good, 400m on a track was actually a perfect distance and felt like a chance to have a little shake out and recover from the labours.

Yes, this is a burpee. See? Fun!

It was Burpee Broad Jump next and I was excited for it. Over-enthusiastic, apparently, as I absolutelywent for it on my first broad jump and very nearly lost my feet from under me on the wet grass. I decided to be boring and try not to fall over. Maybe I am too mature, after all. I particuarly enjoyed the run after the burpees just because it felt quite novel to be running around a track covered in grass.

Now, anyone who has trained with me in the gym or come to any of my classes will know that I love to make squats as slow and intolerable as possible. This isn't because I'm a sadist, it's because it is a very good strategy for building strong legs. My strategy for the next labour of Goblet Squats though, was to bosh them out as fast as I possibly could and just hope my legs still felt okay to run after. Turned out that this was the right strategy because - for me - holding a kettlebell in that position for that long is harder that the actual squatting. 

When I was mentally preparing for the Deadly Dozen, I thought that once the first six were done, and the lunges/squats were out of the way, the second half would be easier. I was severly mistaken.

The Weight Plate Front Carry was the worst; I'd totally underestimated how hard it would be and
240m felt like a really long way. My training for this consisted of picking up a plate in the gym, walking around for ten seconds and thinking "that'll be alright". Error. The plates were bigger and chunkier than I expected and despite trying several different carrying positions with my tiny T-Rex arms, I couldn't find a single one that was comfortable. My biceps burned after that one!

Then it appears I lost my mind, missed a station entirely (Push Press) and went onto the bear crawl. I wasn't the only one. After speaking with other participants afterwards, it turns out a few people had made the same mistake. Whether it was because the station had a narrow opening and it was easy to miss or because we were all just so psyched up for bear crawls.. who knows. Anyway, at this point I hadn't even realised I'd missed it.

I thought the Bear Crawl would be hard, and I was correct. But it was also strangely entertaining; a bunch of sweaty, slighty knackered adults crawling across the grass really amused me. What amused me even more was the colourful range of swearing that could heard across this station. I judged on a few stations after my race was finished and I'm pretty sure this was the sweariest of the day, closely followed by burpees.

Closely supervised by Mel on the
WP Clean and Press.

The sun had come out and it seems most of the volunteers who I knew were doing stuff down this end of the field, so the cheers started to get even more hearty. Another lap led me into the Weight Plate Clean & Press where I was greeted by my pal Mel, who was my counter. At 20 reps I suddenly realised that I thought I should have done more pressing by this point, and in that mometary lapse of concentration I did one bad rep and felt a tweak in my glute/back. I had to slow the pace right down, but it felt okay once I started running again.

Onto the Weight Plate Overhead Carry, which started reasonably well but rapidly declined. On my first walk (of three) back towards the start line, I was scanning across the field trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, and I spotted the push press. Bugger. My preparation for this had been exactly the same as the front carry and trying to keep my arms locked out for this one became really challenging. Attempting to carry it overhead with bent arms is even harder though and the last 60m felt super tough. 

I did my next lap and then went back to the Push Press which I'd missed, much to the amusement of some of the judges/volunteers who inititally thought I'd just gone back for more fitness fun. I was annoyed at myself but also aware that my shoulders were now tired so I went with the squat strategy and just smashed these out as fast as I possibly could. 

I picked it up a bit for my last lap, but not too much because the Devil Press is a naughty little finisher.
I was so looking forward to it but the glute/back suddenly felt very tight so I took a slightly more cautious approach than planned, and then promptly jumped up and eagerly ran the wrong way before someone redirected me across the actual finish line.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is a tough workout. That said, it's entirely doable with a bit of training and Jay has done a brilliant job of creating something that's inclusive enough for anyone to participate in, but tough enough that you can be competitive about it if that's your bag. 

That showed, as even with a reasonably small field of around 300 (I think!) people racing, there was a very diverse range of folk and from what I've read on social media, everybody has given so much positive feedback about their overall race experience.

I'd recommend anyone to give this a go, but you might have to wait for a bit as I think 2024 events have sold out now. Having a go at volunteering will give you great insight though and I'm pretty surely there will be some good incentives or discounted entries across 2025 for people who volunteer too. If you do bag a place, my advice is: practise carrying plates for more than ten seconds. Ooh and, make good shoe choices for the conditions. I reckon some locations could get mucky...

All photo credit above is Deadly Dozen/Flownamix Media.

Finished!

Everybody gets a breakdown of race splits