Owls Count

This past weekend I was in Wales for the 2007 British Orienteering Championships and British Relay Championships. However, the early May Bank Holiday weekend also means the Reading Beer Festival.

Beer, beer, and just a bit of ‘apple juice’
On Thursday evening I went with some of the others from the lab to drink some beer. Between us we managed to sample a good number of different beers. Also, as usual, a good selection of food was available. A really enjoyable evening out, even if it did get a bit cold!

Satrday – British Orienteering Championships
Unusually for me, I had a late start time for the individual – after 1pm. Though this did mean a change to my pre race preparation it did give plenty of time for the full Welsh breakfast to be digested.

While waiting in the assembly area I had been looking at the times of some of the early finishers and noted that several people who often have similar results to me had taken 120+ minutes. As I had been targeting 90 minutes this had me worried about how long I was likely to be out. Also it was getting quite hot, so I knew hydration would be important.

I took the first few legs quite steadily – to make sure I got into the 1:15000 scale map. My route to number three was slow and I lost around three minutes. For most of the rest of the course I kept up a good pace and navigated well – a good flow through the controls. This was until three from the end when I lost concentration and missed 24 and lost three minutes circling the area trying to work out where I was. Overall happy and just a couple of mistakes over my target time.

Since the event there have been some comments concerning the quality. While I had noted a few problems at the event I personally really enjoyed it. A good run in the sun!

Sunday – British Relay Championships
I took a rest from taking photos over the weekend, but Barny wandered around on relay day and took a few. I did manage to get in a few photos, including one that made the top of the British Orienteering post about BRC.

As can be seen from the photo, I was off on first leg in the mass start. Well while I am nearly looking in the map in the photo it took me a minute of running to have any clue of where I was or where I should be going. After a small miss at the first control I settled into a good pace and was running well. However, at one of the gaffled controls I had to run through a wrong control to get to mine, was thrown, went off target, and lost a couple of minutes. From there in I never got back into a decent pace. No mistakes, but just running a little too slowly. Overall I guess I lost another two minutes over the last part of the course, which was a nice loop close to the assembly field. Partly this was because I was then running on my own, having lost the pack.

The stand out performance for my club was the Tamsin, Jo, and Michelle. They finished second, by a few seconds, in Women’s Short . A really good performance!

Monday – Parc Cwm darren
We decided that there was just enough time for some more orienteering before travelling home. However, in realisation that I had done quite a bit of running I decided to run Blue instead of Brown. Arriving in the car park to see the steep descent to the start and ascent back up only went to underline the idea.

The first control was up hill. Made no attempt to run – seemingly few did. The course had us looping in and out – forest to open a few times. I had a fairly good run and picked reasonable routes until near the end I decided to go round a some light green that I probably should have gone through – meaning I lost a few minutes.

In all a good weekend!