Owls Count

On the way to this event we drove through heavy rain and several stretches of flooded road. On arrival in the car park we learnt that those coming from the west had had hail and thunderstorms on the way. So it was with some relief to that when I went out to compete it was sunny.

The course was split into two sections - the first half across Pitch Hill and the top of Winterfold was a series of longer legs; the second half was a series of short legs across the bottom, more technical part, of the area. So just when you were shattered from lots of running you had to get the brain working. In the first half there was also a very good 2km leg (there has been discussion of route choice for the long leg on Nopesport and my route choice is here). All over I felt that the planner had made good use of the area.

My run was fairly consistent. A small stop to catch breath on the way to number two delayed me by 30 seconds or so. Executed the long leg well - I took the route just north of the straight line. Then lost a minute on number 11 when I overshot the pit and repeated this mistake on number 15 when looking for a gully. This time on the area I ran round the big re-entrant in the south of the area - having gone straight down and up last time.

Overall I was fairly pleased. Recovering from flu I was struggling with the running in a few places, but managed to keep my concentration.