Race 3 in the series, and, through some fairly good luck (people that beat me either did the first or the second - not both) I was in first place (in the senior category). So I had it all to lose. No pressure then... 3 of us from Erewash Valley headed up to the race, Brett Belshaw and Nick Lander barely recovered from the hot-tub party the night before. Made our way up to the Totley Cricket club, got registered, sorted, changed and ready to embark.
The premise of these events if fairly simple. The Dark and White crew head out the day before, and drop, in this case, 24 electronic dib points out in various places. You have 3 hours from when you start (between 8:15 and 10:00am somewhere) to get as many of these bad boys as you can. You get a map with them marked on as soon as you start, and have to follow the marked paths and bridleways, so in theory, the navigation is quite easy...in theory.
So, I set off, just before Brett and Nick (who were doing it as a team), up a big hill first, so spent a bit of time walking planning out some vague route, then started running. Checkpoint 2 done first, easy find, then 11, then off to 12. Well, that was the plan, except I took the wrong path, ended up off the map, and cost myself about 5 minutes of faffing. So, to checkpoint 12. Next, was 13. Unlucky for some. Including me. Took wrong path, ended up off the map. Again. Never managed to do this before (been doing these since 2009, I discovered whilst organising my maps) and now twice. This was looking good. Reoriented, headed towards 13. Ran past 13. Realised I had run past 13. Ran back to 13. About 8 minutes lost on this. All of this had taken me 40 minutes to get 4. I should have been on at least 6 by now, as it was all easy running. Fuming.
From there on, I didn't miss any checkpoints, however my route choices were still suspect, always when there was an option, I'd end up taking the longer one. Frustrating. Except for the last checkpoint I got - was getting low on time, so decided not to go for an extra control, got in with 8 minutes spare. I really could have nabbed that extra one.
Jogged it in nice and easy (usually desperately sprinting in so I don't lose points from being over time), having missed a total of 3 checkpoints, kicking myself as I should have cleared the course. I was running well, just let down by some dodgy nav.
Ended the day 12th overall, which is my worst result in a very long time, but was still 2nd senior (all the fast lads must have done Long Tour of Bradwell the day before), and the guy who was first hadn't done any of the others in the series, so by my (crude, and unverified) reckoning, I may have just come first senior. Possibly. Fingers crossed.
Here's the Strava link: http://www.strava.com/activities/74129380
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