The route I took shows that my navigation was reasonable. The detour to the first control was caused by a unmapped wall. The seventh control nearly caught me out – it was at the top of a set of stairs and I did not notice it at first.

I ran fairly well and finished high up in the results, though about seven minutes down on the winner.

Saturday – Individual
Oh dear, this did not go well. For the second control I wasted three minutes looking for the control on the wrong side of the small path that I crossed without noticing. Up on the top of the area I made mistakes on both eight and nine, wasting over ten minutes never really been sure of where I was.

Those are the three big mistakes, but there were also several smaller mistakes. Overall I lost over twenty minutes and finished well down in the results, much to my frustration.

Sunday – 2×2 Relay
This event has the formatting of having two runners, who each run two different courses. The team is supplied with one map, which shows all controls on the area, and four lists, which contain the courses the team has to complete. A handicap is in place, with the older and younger competitors having shorter courses – the guide being that a top competitor in any age class would take about twenty minutes to complete one of his or her courses.

As usual, I was running first and off in the mass start! I started well and lead a group of competitors into the first control. At this point I then stopped and spent nearly a minute searching for the second control on the map. We were near the bottom right and, eventually, I found the next control at the top left. Instinctively this did not seem right and so it proved to be. The planner had made a minor mistake, which added 2km (over 50%) onto the course length. I completed the course ok, but well down on most of the other teams, as only a few teams had competitors on the over long course.

My second run was reasonable, apart from a mistake on the first control, where I wasted a few minutes. Overall I had 85 minutes of orienteering on the sand dunes and it went much better than the previous day.

Race 1
I started the race well – picking up the map and going cleanly through the first few controls. At five I got a little confused and stopped one gap in the hedge too early. Coming back towards the southern bridge I overshot and wasted about 20 seconds having to run back to the bridge. I was slow through the southern of the two forts – making sure to keep track of where I was going.

My route shows roughly where I went – though there is the usual GPS in built up areas problem. I was reasonably happy with the result (7/11 in class and 25/49 on the course – the course being shared by several classes) and felt that I had run fairly well.

Race 2
Having made a good start in the first race I then messed up the start in the afternoon. I misread the map near the first control and wasted fifteen seconds looking on the wrong hedge. I got this mistake out of my mind and ran well until I entered the fort in the north f the area. I was fine on the control in the dark area, as I had sunglasses on and was able to take these off and adjust to the low light level quickly. However, on leaving the control I ran off in the wrong direction and wasted more time in back tracking to where I made the mistake rather than cutting straight across to the next control.

My route shows an approximation of where I went. I was less happy with the result – I again finished in seventh place in the class, but 28/47 on the course.

Overall
My place was 8/11 in open men and 25/47 on the course. With a little more precision I would have been a couple of minutes faster and finished much closer to the top. Though that is the way that many feel after these events!

A couple of weeks ago I raced in an urban event around the centre of Winchester. I kept up a decent pace for the race and generally my route choice was good, though that is difficult to tell due to the inaccuracies of GPS in built up areas.

The worst mistake was at number nine, where I failed to register running over a bridge. Going to eighteen I knew I had to make a right turn near but turned too early and did a lap of the restaurant car park before continuing on my way – much to the amusement of the staff. At 23 I again repeated the trick of turning too early and at 24 I had to wait for the traffic to clear. Before and after nineteen I ran through the Great Hall and this confused several other competitors as it looked just like you were about to enter a church!

Overall I should have been about five minutes quicker. The main annoyance of the day was destroying my shorts on the railings near the fourteenth control.

Day 1
I started fast for this race, probably too fast. The splits show that I was in the top ten after the first seven controls and then that I fell away. Mainly my navigation was good.

The one section I had problems with was on the far loop of the course. On sixteen I ended up messing around and found nineteen first. Just to compound the error, on the return I went through sixteen on the way to nineteen. Three minutes lost through a lack of precision.

Day 2
I started well, making sure I concentrated out of the start for the first few controls. My route to four was a bit too far off the straight line and I lost a little time. Similarly, my route to nine was not ideal, though I ran this stretch quickly.

At ten I made my first real mistake – I did not drop far enough down the hill and relocated off the path beyond. The next section was tough in the long grass and with it being fairly hot. I made a mess of sixteen. I missed that I had crossed two paths and ended up relocating off seventeen, losing six minutes in the process.

The long leg to eighteen was were it really went wrong. For most of the leg I knew where I was and then struggled to locate the control. I ended up wasting fifteen minutes in this area, as I was unable to sort out where I was. Eventually, more by luck than judgement, I stumbled into the control.

I then compounded this by losing a couple of minutes at 21 by misreading the map, but by this point I had lost interest.

My route shows the problems I had. I should have finished in about 85 minutes and not so close to the bottom of the results.

Day 3
After the poor second day I decided that I would run the last day at a slower pace, to be achieved by keeping my heart rate at 80-80% of maximum. My navigation was much better and there was no big mistake.

I lost some time at the second control, but the GPS route suggests that the control was in the wrong place – something that some others have since commented on – and this was not the only control to have been in the wrong place. This, though, is the only control in the wrong place that seems to have cost me any time.

On the way to four I drifted off to one side and relocated back off six. This lost me three minutes. At nine I overshot a little, but realised quickly.

I stopped for a drink on the way to nineteen and lost some time by continuing to run on without first checking where I was going. I made a mess of the route to 22 and ended up too far across.

Overall a much better run, though it could have been around 80 minutes – i.e. eight minutes better.

I had a reasonable run around the course, but the GPS route is not that accurate. Particularly, I did not run straight through, or over, the buildings as it suggests! I guess it goes to show how much more accurate GPS would have to be before we could use it as a definitive record of an where an orienteer went.

I did not run flat out and made a stupid mistake in the forest area to the east of the campus. Possibly I should have been concentrating a little more on where I was going.

I made a reasonable job of getting round. I lost a couple of minutes on the fourth control, when I forgot to think about where I was running, and a minute on number eight, when I failed to spot the depression. Beyond that I had a fairly good run, though the tiredness meant that I did not push the pace that much.

I finished fourth and the average (mean) age of the three people in front of me is fairly similar to my age. Yes, this is using statistics to mislead!

Bicton

The first day sprint race. I had chosen my clothing for reasonable weather, but one of the rain showers came down as I was making my way up to the start. Consequently I was quite cold waiting in the pre-start, not that I think this had any effect on my orienteering.

As can be seen from my route I started fine, but then lost a major chunk of time in the forested area to the west. It seems, from the GPS, that I came off the fields in the wrong direction and never sorted the mess out.

However, my bigger problem was that I was never running particularly quickly. My split times show that I was consistently running too slowly – a result of the lack of training during February and March. I never felt that I could be going faster and the results reflect this, with me being right at the bottom.

Cookworthy

I had decided, in advance of the event, that I would only enter three of the four days and picked this one as the day to miss. In the end the weather was rubbish, with the rain hanging over the area for much of the day. This turned the assembly field and courses into a mud fest, so I was glad that I did not have to battle round a course.

Braunton

The last of the individual days was on the sand dunes of Braunton. I had nearly the last start, so knew that I would likely be spending much of the course by myself.

I started poorly. The first control was behind the ‘marsh’ near the start. However, due to the wet winter, there was water everywhere and I ran around getting frustrated – I was not the only one to lose time here. The next four controls went fine.

Six and seven were a mess. For six I went quickly to the drinks point and then halfway up to the control, before turning off course and wasting far too long on the wrong ridge. For seven I drifted too far down the hill and had a long climb back up to the control.

I then decided that I had been out a while and that I would do best retiring. I intended to run through two and back up to the finish. I came nowhere close to this and ended up right near eight. I had a little think and decided to continue, after giving myself a good talking to and deciding to concentrate on what I was doing.

From here on in I ran and navigated much better. There were a couple of minor wobbles, but I was moving a lot better and concentrating on getting the navigation spot on. The results have me just below halfway down and without the early problems I would have been in the top quarter.

Braunton – Relays

Monday saw a return to Braunton, this time for the relays. I was running in the Mens Short category, as first leg runner. This means I was off in the mass start, with the head-to-head running.

I started fast – probably too fast. The split times show that I was right up at the front for the first few controls. This caused a problem at five, where most of the pack went off for an alternative control and I missed the one I was looking for. On six I just ran straight past the control – it was tucked up on the side of the hill and I did not see it.

After this I was running reasonably well for the rest of the course. It felt much like a 5k race – that feeling of hanging on and trying to keep the pace high while the body is wanting it to finish.

I did not make a good job of the orienteering. My Garmin track shows some of the doubling back I did, but manages to hide the couple of long routes I took – particularly the massive curve I did to the first control. The Garmin information also hides the time I was standing still, which was around four minutes. Definitely something for me to improve on!

My club had a good day and we qualified for the final. It was a close battle with the second place club – we finished 1 point ahead. It definitely helped that the area was so local for a number of our members, as we had around sixty people running.

After the orienteering I went for a run along the road to the north of the area. Six miles and then back to Sandy Balls, where I had a warm shower.

My Garmin route shows my run – including the rather fast start. The route also has the thirty or so minutes of me standing around after the finish. I decided not to do a full hour long run and instead I intended to pick up all the controls to the east of the central ditch. I did this in about forty-five minutes, except for not noticing that I had missed one of the controls near the start and finish.

I found two of the three bonus controls – Father Christmas was near the first control I visited – and I was lucky to notice the Christmas Tree off to one side as I ran between two other control sites – many people seemed to miss it by cutting higher through the forest. Sadly the fairy eluded me!