The first round of the CompassSport Cup was scheduled early this year. The event for our area was at Yateley Heath and Minley Woods. For a change I was off before Christine which meant I was probably a little more focussed when I reached the start. Matthias Mahr was starting a minute before me which I hoped would lead to a good race.
I stumbled a bit at the third control, looking round the back of the wrong thicket. With 27 controls on the course I realised I couldn’t afford to waste even a small amount of time at each and attempted to focus more on spiking the control. It wasn’t until the road crossing that I caught sight of Matthias where the taped route doubled back on itself. A further five controls passed before I finally passed him on the way to 14 and I didn’t look back.
I managed to keep it together until 22 where I caught fellow SOC member Peter Smith. Racing along the following long leg we deviated significantly from the straight line. Then, when we hit the earthworks near the finish I miserably failed to interpret the contours correctly. (Undoubtedly what the planner was hoping for!) Peter got to the control before me and then overtook me again on the way to 26 when I failed to see the edge of the large depression under the line/circle and ended up too far east.
Overall I was fairly pleased with my time of 64:09 (including the road crossing) for just under 10km. No major blunders and I really felt I was running hard for much of the time. (I was certainly glad not to have run the Hants X-Country the day before.) The Emit website is down at the moment (again) so I can’t check the results but I understand Tuomas Tala did around 55 minutes and there was talk of some mystery runner having taken 51 (which I find hard to believe). We’ll have to wait and see how SOC fares in the Cup but with both TVOC and SLOW present we’ll be lucky to get through to the final.
Dave,
given that this was a competition between clubs surely SOC would have been better off if you and Peter had cooperated and look for the controls together rather than seperately? That way SOC would have had a better chance of getting through to the next round.
cheers,
Neil
@Neil – That would be cheating! And whose to say that, even with the mistakes, Peter’s presence didn’t increase my overall speed?
The results are now in and sadly SOC came third behind SLOW and TVOC. On the up side, the 51 minute finisher on the brown didn’t exist. Tuomas was first in 54:56 with David Abrams being the only other finisher under an hour. I was seventh in 63:13.
Hi David
The mystery runneer was in fact the Organiser from BAOC, who actually ran the blue course, and won. Must admit we’ve never heard of him. congratulations on yours and Christines good runs. I was awful, but have had bronchitis all week and am now off work!!
Thanks Mary. Get well soon (or not if you’re enjoying the time off work!).
I’ve just looked at Splitsbrowser and you do miss out by running late. I didn’t overlap with anyone out there whereas most other runners seem quite bunched together. It must help with motivation having people around you (especially Matthias!). I felt I was trying hard but probably wasn’t as focused as I should have been.