There was more camping to be had this weekend as we made the short drive over to Longmoor Camp near Liss for the Harvester night orienteering relay. SOC had managed to put together two teams this year with Christine and I both running in the A class. This started shortly after midnight by which time the children and I were safely ensconced in bed. Christine was on second leg and didn’t have too long to wait as Tim Morgan came back in second place!
We settled down in to the middle of the running order after that but when I got up shortly after 6am we were still in shooting distance of third place in the handicap class. I was therefore slightly dismayed that, after having eaten a reasonable breakfast, they declared that there would be a mini-mass start for all remaining runners in half an hour. Still, it meant I had plenty of company on the start line which I made full use of as I bounced around in the circle for the first few controls.
My luck wasn’t to hold out though and on the way to 13 my tired brain decided to head back towards number 9. I was then on my own for the rest of what was a long course (10 miles with my additions). My only consolation is that the other handicapped teams had also put out strong runners on the previous leg so I would have had to take 10 minutes off my time to make any difference to the final results.
We stopped off at the National Trust’s Hinton Ampner on the way home as it seemed a little unfair that the children had been dragged out just to spend the night in a tent. It was the perfect day for wandering around lazily in the sunshine enjoying the floral displays.