Help the aged

52I hadn’t entered the British Relays as I was originally due to be out in the US for two weeks. The club captain had pencilled me in to fill a space on an M50 team but, when we eventually arrived at the assembly area after the usual car park fiasco, I discovered I’d been promoted to the M40 team.


Tim Graham went out on first leg handing over to Neil Adams. Save to say that, after waiting in the changeover pen through sun and rain, the forest was fairly empty when I eventually went out. It was a good course with a mix of open runnable forest, complex mined areas and less climb than yesterday! I managed to mess up the fourth control which, I’m ashamed to say, was actually one I’d been to the previous day (albeit from the opposite direction).

Must be something about the number four as I then blundered again at number fourteen. Despite knowing that I wanted to be further to the left, I ignored my instincts and ran parallel to the path I could see. Unfortunately, it was at ninety degrees to the path I was expecting to hit. Schoolboy error!

The final results show me three minutes down on the course winner (an M40) and not much less behind Pippa Whitehouse (although she was part of the winning team for the Women’s Premier). Looks like I’ve got ten years to get my act together!

Photos from the weekend can be found here.

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