On Saturday we went to the club’s local event at Matley on the outskirts of Lyndhurst. I went out first on the blue and got off to a bad start, wasting nearly four minutes on the first control. I’d failed to appreciate that, although a nice example of runnable New Forest terrain, unlike most events, it did also require a degree of navigation. I wasted a bit more time at 7 and 9 before I settled in to a reasonable rhythm for the rest of the course. Perhaps not surprising though that I was nearly six minutes down on the winning time and only just added of Christine in the results. I then took over from Christine who was making slow going on the yellow course with the children (taking bikes round did not make for faster progress!) All in all a very enjoyable event and we even picked up a Christmas tree in Ashurst on our way home (we bought it – we didn’t just dig one up in the forest!).
Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category
Blue at Matley
Monday, December 10th, 2012On your bike
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012
On Saturday, after a bit of indecision, we finally decided that we’d go to the orienteering at Dibden Inclosure and not the Hants Cross-Country at Farley Mount (or, indeed, both). It was a lovely day but the orienteering was decidedly average. Dibden is not the most exciting of areas with only the occasional squiggle of contours to break up the otherwise featureless forest and marshy, heather strewn, open. After the first few controls, I even found myself checking that I had actually picked up the blue course map rather than the orange!
Emma and Duncan seemed to thoroughly enjoy the yellow course though. Plenty of mud to squelch through and Duncan walked the whole way round without any bribery or complaining. At Christine’s suggestion, we’d put the children’s bikes in. Nine months on, Duncan’s balance bike actually fits him. He particularly enjoyed the off-road riding although struggled a little with balancing whilst traversing slopes! Emma has never spent more than a few minutes at a time on the stabiliser free bike that she got for her birthday (other than when hooked up to the back of my bike) but that was all set to change. She started just scooting without her feet on the pedals. Then she would cycle with me holding on to the saddle and it was soon apparent that I was doing a lot less holding than on previous occasions. Once we hit the open, Emma just needed to help getting started and then she was off… Hopefully it is just the start of many fun filled years of cycling.
First at last
Sunday, October 7th, 2012It was not the best preparation for this year’s Clarendon Way Half Marathon- Emma was up twice in the night and threw up in the car just as Christine dropped me off at the start. My throat was also a bit rough (probably having burnt it on the previous night’s dinner though rather than illness!). Then I bought a gel, only to leave it in my bag that was going on the bus to the finish. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to settle in to second place in the first half of the race. I thought the pace was a bit fast but eventually calculated that it wasn’t going to see me back in much under my guesstimated target time of 90 minutes. As we approached the half way stage at Farley Mount, I started to wonder whether I might actually come first as the young lad I was running with needed a bit of a push up the hill. As on previous descents , he pegged it off down the other side but I reeled him yet again and we wound through the woods and finally broke him in the next muddy ascent. I felt surprisingly good at this point, not least for being out in front, and pushed it a bit harder, particularly on the climbs which seemed all too numerous in the closing stages. At 1:27:36 or thereabouts it wasn’t my fastest Clarendon Half but the other times all date back to when it was run over the Salisbury end which is definitely flatter. I’m not too worried about the time though – it was just nice to finally win a race. Mind, I shan’t be too disappointed if I have to stay at home tomorrow and look after Emma as my legs aren’t looking forward to the cycle in to work!
Fun (?) run
Monday, September 24th, 2012
Unfortunately Saturday’s good weather did not extend to the entire weekend. Christine cycled down to Hursley for the start of her 10K. The rest of us followed later, arriving just in time to see Christine finish. Unfortunately we then had to wait about an hour for the children’s fun run to start during which time the rain strengthened. Emma went round in wellies and waterproofs and even then, wasn’t too happy with the rain driving in to her face. She was smiling at the end though and her medal went in to school today. No-one had much enthusiasm for attending the Hiltingbury Extravaganza in the afternoon though.
First London City Race
Saturday, September 22nd, 2012
It may have been the fifth City of London Race today but it was a first for us. Christine was running first and the rest of us headed in to the race venue (Kings College Students Union) to pick up my number and drop off a bag. We managed to lose Emma there as she raced off up the stairs but turned off at the toilet floor whilst Duncan and I carried on up to assembly. We were eventually re-united though and headed out in to the sunshine to await Christine’s return.
I enjoyed my run. I didn’t make any major mistakes (no dead-ends for example) but I made a few bad route choices. In particular, in the Barbican my eyes just glazed over looking at leg 9-10 and I decided to head out and around the roads. Even then, I failed to take the shortest route to get out to the road. That said, I lost at most a minute and a half and that’s making the big assumption that I would have executed the straighter route correctly. I don’t know whether my eye sight is failing but, in general, I couldn’t make any of the fine route choice decisions whilst on the run. I also wasn’t too impressed by the dust, bricks and mortar that raining down on me in one stairwell as some adjacent scaffolding was being removed. Even more so when I discovered I had to go back that way again!
Christine had taken the children off to see St Paul’s whilst I was running and then we had a trip along to Trafalgar Square (not sure what the children will have made of the SlutWalk demonstration!) and in to the National Gallery (it’s Art Week at school next week). Duncan had largely shunned the buggy that we’d brought with us but we were thankful for having brought it when he had a short nap in the gallery!
It was a good day out, helped by some sunshine, and I’m sure we’ll be back for more in the future
Navigating the Test
Saturday, September 8th, 2012
Iain McNally ponders his route to the finish.
I was on the third leg, from Stokehill to Middleton. This isn’t one I’d done before and I failed to recce the route which probably cost me a minute or so due to hesitations and two points where I set off down the wrong track. In both cases I realised my error within about 20 metres so no great harm done. From there the Morans (Ian and Tamsin) took the team down to Stockbridge. The Currie clan stopped off for their traditional dip in the Test at Chilbolton Common. The sun had brought the hordes out but it didn’t make the water any warmer!
By this point we were just 10 minutes behind my (unscientific) schedule. Kevin Bracher took us to Mottisfont and Philip Cooper from there to Romsey. Iain McNally was on the last leg down to Totton which is where things went a bit awry when he decided to check out the trout fishing possibilities. I’m not sure that it cost us any places but put us well over the five and half hours for the 44 mile route. The tide being in, Iain got even more intimate with the water on the way in to the finish. He didn’t, unlike one runner, try and build a bridge across!
Back to Dorset
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
At the weekend we were back in Dorset, this time for the annual Coast Path Relay. Originally down to run the first leg in Lyme Regis again, we made our excuses as this year we would have to travel down on the morning of the event. We consequently joined in the action at Abbotsbury Castle where I helped with the hill up from the coast, Christine ran to the end of the castle, and I took over to the next road bend. We then went up to Hardy’s Monument for the kids to have a run around. Having met our team captain there, Christine picked up an extra leg to Kimmeridge Bay. I took over from there for my usual leg to Chapman’s Pool unfortunately this year without a hill team to help me up to Clavell Tower. By the final climb I was reduced to a walk and wasn’t travelling much faster than yet another KERNO hill team making their way back to the car!
Next stop was Studland Bay where the children had a good play on the beach and we enjoyed watching the displays by two Tornadoes and a Vulcan courtesy of the Bournemouth Air Festival. Sadly SOC had slipped some way off the pace of the other teams, not helped by a stray rock draining the oil from the sump of one of the team’s cars. There were still five of us to enjoy the final run along the beach to the finish line. We were greeted by a fly-by from a Spitfire and a Hurricane which perhaps reflects the more sedate pace of our team! The results speak for themselves.
London 2012 Olympics
Tuesday, August 14th, 2012Unfortunately, it was rather a damp wait for the torch. We had some over-priced food to eat, had our photo taken with an unlit torch (Duncan looked particularly wet and grumpy!) and picked up some fairly naff freebies from the relay sponsors (Samsung/Lloyds/Coke). We watched the Isle of Wight ferry arrive carrying the (lit) torch and Emma may have had reasonable sight of it from my shoulders as it passed by on the road in front of us. We decided not to wait for it to return from its long tour of the city and the lighting of the cauldron.
Unlike many friends, we had been successful in the first ballot for tickets having bagged two tickets for the Women’s Modern Pentathlon. Unfortunately we didn’t get anything for the children so, whilst up in Monmouth, Christine took them to see some Women’s Football at the Millennium Stadium. The Japan vs South Africa match wasn’t the most exciting with no goals. Apparently the tip up seats were the most exciting part of the trip! The classic quote from Emma was apparently “Why don’t they just have a ball each?”!
Fast-forward to the last day of the games and, with Christine’s parents minding the children, we had relocated to London and were on a six o’clock bus to catch the train to Stratford. We were in to the Olympic Park shortly after the gates opened at seven which gave us time to explore a little and still get a good seat in the Copper Box for the fencing. I can’t claim to have any previous experience/knowledge of fencing but with every competitor having to compete against every other then there was plenty of time to learn the ropes. With two Brits in the mix there was also plenty for the home crowd to cheer for.
There was a reasonable break between the fencing and the swimming which gave us a chance to explore the rest of the beautifully landscaped park before hitting the aquatics centre. In contrast to the fencing, the 200m swim was over in no time at all. We then had to hot foot it across London to the final venue of the day, Greenwich Park, for the horse riding and combined event (running shooting). The horse riding was a lottery in every sense (there is a draw to allocate two competitors to each horse). The argument is that its a test of the riders skill to be able to tame any horse but some were definitely more obliging than others. There was one in particular that kept refusing jumps. Another competitor cleared a jump while hanging from the under side of her horse!
It was only as the last few riders completed their rounds that it became clear that Samantha Murray would enter the final stage in the mix for a medal. As the chasing start got under way for the combined event, the volume of the crowd steadily rose as she worked her way up and entered the stadium for the final time in second place. A silver for Britain in the final event of the Olympics! A fantastic end to a fun day out at the Olympics.
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