Southern Championships at West Woods
On Sunday it was the Southern Orienteering Championships, at West Wood near Marlborough. I had not originally intended to go, which meant I ended up entering on the day. I was running in a new pair of O-shoes and went out on the 5.8km M21V course.
The first two controls, of ten, contributed about half the length of the course. I ran these quickly and fairly directly – the forest being reasonably good to run through. For the next few controls it seemed to be a case of running up and down the slopes on either side of the central valley. These went fine, except a small miss at three where I was taken off line by a misread of the vegetation. It was going to nine that I made a big mistake. I lost concentration, hit the wrong path, and overshot the control. I had nearly got to the final control before I realised the mistake and then had at least 500m run back to nine. I lost about seven minutes on this control.
