Off at Ocknell

696The original plan had been to run at the Wednesday league’s night event at Ocknell but, having failed to work out how I could leave work at four, pick up the car (which Christine wanted for the daytime event), and get to the New Forest for five, I decided to take the morning off and join Christine and Emma at the event. This decision was undoubtedly influenced by the bright blue skies that I could see outside at breakfast time.

Christine decided to take Emma round the Red course in the running buggy leaving me to do the Brown. Things didn’t get off to a good start when I messed up the first control. There, and throughout the whole course, I had great trouble distinguish the vegetation boundaries as shown on the map. In particular, rough open could be used to describe anything from knee high bracken to head high gorse and trees. I also found it very hard to keep to a straight line when running through what was meant to white forest. It was decidedly damp underfoot and, combined with a stiff breeze, this made the going fairly hard work (particularly after the previous night’s run). It’s therefore no great surprise that Dave Rollins is over five minutes ahead of me in the results and Georgie Best around 12 minutes clear. Still, it was a fantastic morning for being out in the forest and that’s all that really counts.

Ocknell Brown GPX

2 Responses to “Off at Ocknell”

  1. Neil says:

    Dave,
    I wouldn’t have said there was any “white forest” in that area (except perhaps be bit by the motorway). Also given how often we run through that area you really have no excuse for getting lost…

    cheers,
    Neil

    • Dave says:

      Most of the inclosure is shown as white on the map. On a Tuesday night being ten metres either side o where you should be generally doesn’t matter…