JK 2010
This year the Jan Kjellström (JK) Festival of Orienteering took place, over the Easter Weekend, in Devon and was hosted by the South West Orienteering Association, of which my orienteering club is a member. I was attached to the junior squad and, so, spent part of each day parking cars.
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.
