Owls Count

Oh dear. My concentration was not good at this event. I kept switching off and running off in the wrong direction.

The first control was a mess. I went all over the place before eventually finding a control from later on my course and navigating in off it. At least three minutes lost, but it seems that quite a few people lost a chunk of time with this control.

After that it was a case of losing a few seconds here and a few there. With the course having thirty controls a few seconds on each soon adds up to a few more minutes. There were also a couple of other bad controls - where I lost a minute on each.

Did have the objective of getting some World Ranking points for this event, but missed out by about five minutes. So, if I had had a clean run I would have got some.

I had a couple of objectives for this event. The first was to finish in front of my father and the second was the qualify for the C final. I achieved the former (though by only one second in the heat), but failed on the latter.

In between the heats and finals I took some photos of the starters for the A finals. These photos are available here.

Qualifier - Heat A
A very mixed run this. I simply should have been one to two minutes quicker. Several of the controls I made poor route choices for:
at 2 I ended up stuck in a thicket and lost over 20 seconds;
at 10 I started by running back up and then realised I should have been dropping down to go under the road.

For the later part of the course my speed dropped off and while the navigation was better I was not covering the ground well enough. In the end I missing the C final by twenty five seconds, but did finish a whole second in front of my father.

Final - D
In the final I had a much cleaner run. The first control, straight up the hill, was good, but I should have been concentrating on planning routes for the rest of the course. By not doing this I dropped a few seconds at 2 and 3 struggling to read the map.

I decided that I was not going over the hill and instead went round the bottom - probably losing a few seconds by doing this, but leaving myself fresher for the final part of the course. Caught up my three minute man in the first half of the course - particularly pleasing as it was my father and meant my aim of beating him just fell to staying close to or in front of him.

All in all it was a very enjoyable event. The spectator area for the finals gave great views of people running around below you. Weather was not great, but you cannot have everything!

Three events in Wiltshire. Nice and close to my parents place, so only a little travelling for me over the weekend

BEOC Middle - Fonthill
(29th April)

Running a classic length elite course is simply far too far for me. This means that when a middle, or sprint, event comes around I take the option of ‘running up’ and testing myself against the elite competitors. My aim was to be within double the winners time, which I managed by a few seconds. I would also have liked to finish within an hour, but was never moving quickly enough to manage this.

Generally my navigation was ok. Heading to number two I hesitated for a few seconds trying to decide if the field, which was clearly going to be the fastest route, was out of bounds - I am sure it has been at previous events, but was not this time and so I ended up going through it. On the long leg, I should have been more decisive and not have been distracted by other runners.

Photos from this event are here.

National - Stourhead
(30th April)
The courses for this event had to be replanned at the last minute, when it was discovered that they had been planned on the wrong scale event. Something any of us planning an event will do well to remember and check.

The forest is fairly tough going - giving fairly short courses. As I had chosen to run short at this event it meant that I was only going a little further than on the previous day!

The early part of the course I ran well and picked fairly good routes. Especially on number four, where I avoided a lot of unnecessary climb by taking a longer path run round a couple of hills. Sadly I did not continue this thinking to the later long leg, where I went straight up and over - taking at least five minutes longer than I should have done. I also stood for a while trying to find the control in the ditch half way up a hill - like a lot of other people around me!

I was a couple of minutes over my target time of 90 minutes. Mostly of the time was lost in the long leg and the last couple of legs, where I was fairly tired and moving slowly.

Harris Relays - Gaer Hill
(1st May)
Ran in the Mens Supervet class, in a non-competitive (obviously!) team with my parents. Harris relay events combine a core set of controls (spine), which all team members must visit, and an extra set of controls, which must be visited by at least one member of the team. Thus, they are characterised by the lack of charging off the start line, as the teams open the maps and plan how to split up the extra controls - with the planning being vital to get a good split and have all the team finish at about the same time.

In our team we made a plan, started to move and then changed a few around. The split we made was fairly good and we would have finished fairly closely if I had not made a five minute error on one control - I just ran straight past!

Overall my run was reasonable, except for the five minute mistake. Generally the area was fairly reasonable to run on and I enjoyed the event - just a shame that more teams had not entered.

Photos from this event are here.