Today we returned to the scene of last year’s British Night Champs (Hawley and Hornley) for the BKO Concorde Chase. I had a bit of a head cold so wasn’t running at 100% speed which is a shame as the area is generally very runnable. I suspect it was affecting my concentration as well: at number six I started heading north-west as if going from seven to eight. The paths fitted (sort of) and I wasted some time running around the unmapped thickets until I realised what I’d done.
The final details had warned that the rhodies had grown significantly so I think it was a little unfair to use them for five of my 31 controls. My other significant mistakes were at 23 (where the wet ditch five metres before the one on the map threw me) and 28 (where, having decided to take the path route, I took a stupid one to the right and then, when entering the woods at the end of the leg, I ended up to the right of the control). On top of this there were numerous other minor misses so it’s perhaps not surprising that I’m fifteen minutes down on Clive Hallett in the results and in sixteenth place. Still one place ahead of Matthias though! 😉