Owls Count

This past weekend I travelled to Basingstoke to run the parkrun 5k and then onto the New Forest for the British Relay Orienteering Championships.

Basingstoke parkrun

I had a reasonable run and finished in 20:52. This adds to the bulk of my 5k results, where I have now five times between 20:47 and 20:55. This time I started too quickly – going off at around my mile pace. I calmed down after the first km, but could not push the pace in the last part.

British Relays

I had ‘volunteered’ to run 1st leg in the Men’s Short class. There was the usual mass charge out of the field, aided by the M18 relay running similar courses and starting at the same time. I started towards the back (I am just visible toward the back of this photo), to give myself time to get the map open and for me to look at it. I then proceeded to work my way up the field. My route was fairly good.

At the third control I lost 30s in the thickets, though it is clear from the results that others lost a lot more time on this short leg. At nine I lost 45s being distracted by other people and other controls. Towards the end of the course I started to struggle to keep my early pace and lost 30s.

Overall I came back in 15th – much further up than normal. A very pleasing result.