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I was still studying the map to work out which control to go
to first when I heard the hooter signalling the start! Thus a
quick decision was forced on me, and I decided to head off SE
to 168 (partly because that was the direction I was facing at
the time!). Doing a clockwise loop worked out quite well in the
end, because it meant that last third of the course was relatively
flat, which was much appreciated on tired legs. However, this
was more by accident than my highly sophisticated plan!
I was running head-to-head with Gerard to the first control.
Then I went to 169 (10pt) for my second, and Gerard went directly
to 173 and I never seen him again! I had noticed that there were
quite a lot of low 10 point controls close by, but decided to
head straight to the high pointers up the hill. Controls 177 (50pt),
175 (30pt) and 178 (50pt) were quite uneventful except for the
fact that no-one else was around, and it was a tough climb to
get up there.
It was at this stage I noticed that only 20 minutes had elapsed
and thought that I better not skip too many more controls (just
in case). I was contemplating whether to go to 188 (20pt) or 186
(40pt) next when I noticed what Bill had done in the planning.
There were two sneaky high pointers right in the middle of the
map, and right at the bottom of all that climb! I had no choice
but to go down and get 190 (30pt) and 189 (50pt). At least I did
meet a few other competitors at this stage.
Then it was another long slog uphill again collecting 188 and
186 on the way to 184 (40pt). I wasn't able to say anything in
reponse to Kieran's greeting at the top due to being totally out
of breath. I must have been roughly half way around at this stage,
since I met a large contingent of senior LVO members coming in
the opposite direction from 182 (although some of them did seem
to be too high!?). This in addition to four mountain bikers hurling
down the bike track that I was trying to run up!
I had decided during the slow slog uphill to ignore 185 (30pt)
since there seemed to be no obvious way to include it along with
the four high point controls in the west of the map (182, 181,
179, 180). However I made a very poor route choice from 181 (40pt)
to 179 (50pt). It took me nearly 5 minutes to do this short leg
(not a good thing with only just over 10 minutes remaining and
being so far away from the finish!). Firstly I got stuck in a
lot of rough vegetation down to the first track, and then I couldn't
see any obvious way to get down to the river. I didn't notice
the path that ran between the dark green and light green vegetation
to the west of my route! Instead I battled down the side of the
cliff through the only brambles I encountered in the whole course.
In hindsight, I should have went due west from 181, ran along
the white strip beside the wall, joined the path which led all
the way NE to 179.
I now realised that I was going to be pushed for time. It was
going to be a straight run for the finish, only picking up any
controls in the direct line. I was encouraged a little when I
met Stephen at 180 (40pt). I thought that he would at least not
be late and so I must be ok (how misguided I was).
When running to the finish control I knew that I had not visited
160 (10pt) yet. It was only about 100m past the finish, and I
reckoned that it would take me at least 30 seconds to get to the
control and back to the finish. I looked at the watch, and it
read 61.29. I didn't want to take the chance and be another minute
late, and so skipped it. Yet again in hindsight, I realise that
the penalty would only be 10 points, and so I would not have been
any worse off even if I had strayed over 62 minutes. But that
is the great thing about hindsight - we would do a lot of things
differently.
In summary I calculate that I covered 9.8km with 330m climb.
I think I probably got as good a route choice for the allocated
time that was possible for me. I really enjoyed the course, and
must thank all three officials for a good day. It was nice to
have a score event where it was impossible to collect all the
controls, and thus it was necessary to be continually thinking
while running, and adjusting your course depending on how the
stopwatch was ticking down.
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