Being the first Tuesday of the month, it had to be a trip to Sainsburys, but we were missing Peter and Neil for Tuesday’s run (who would normally provide direction). Andy and myself were at the front as we crossed the Avenue and, for some reason, I let Andy turn us left and was then happy to take the next right. This meant we got to do an extra circuit (and hill) before rejoining the normal route at the sports centre. No harm done though. Towards the end, Stuart made the fatal statement “it’s actually not a bad night for running” at which point it started raining.
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Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category
Circular start to Sainsburys
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009Two’s Company
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009There was chaos on the M27 Eastbound yesterday evening and as a result routes in to Southampton were also snarled up. Unfortunately, the only other person who knew that I was intending to run was held up in the same traffic. Arriving 10 minutes late the group had already departed but thankfully I spotted Sam as I was driving in and we went for a run together. We mostly did the Itchen Bridge route although, making the most of there being just two of us, we came back via the stadium rather than the usual route up the avenue so that Sam could cut-off home.
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Back to the Roads
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009Yesterday evening I headed down to Southampton University, not for the IBM Hursley Lecture (more shame me), but for the first of the winter road runs from the University. Thankfully the “mini tornado” that passed through work earlier in the day was long gone but it left a clear sky and a nip in the air. This accounts for the fact that my GPS trace doesn’t start at the beginning of the run – I was too busy sheltering in the warmth of the Murray Building to get a satellite fix before we started!
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Classic New Forest
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Yesterday was SOC’s annual November Classic orienteering event. This year the venue was Eyeworth and Bentley (around Fritham). I probably made a mistake in asking for my start time to be moved forward to something closer to my brother’s (rather than vice-versa) as we got soaked running to the start. The rain had pretty much ceased by the time my course made it out in to the open though and when I finished the sun was actually shining.
Wet Windy Wales
Monday, October 26th, 2009This weekend was my third OMM partnering with Neil Broderick on the B course, with the Elan Valley as the setting for this attempt. We weren’t due to start until nearly midday on Saturday and, with Christine’s parents our base just over an hour away from the event, it was set to be a very civilised start on the Saturday morning. Unfortunately, Neil was suffering from a stomach bug and on Friday night we weren’t even sure we were going to start at all.
First orienteering for Duncan
Saturday, October 17th, 2009At two weeks old we thought it was about time Duncan experienced some orienteering so we all headed along to SOC’s local event at Avon Tyrrell today. “Local” is a relative term as, being on the far side of the New Forest, it’s nearly 30 miles each way for us to get there. Christine took Duncan and Emma round the white course whilst I did the score event. Simon Whipple had planned an imaginative course to make the most of a small area. There were two sets of master maps, one at each end of the area with half the controls on each. My brain wasn’t entirely switched on having spent an hour or so up with Duncan in the middle of the night and hence trying to track which of 34 controls I had been to proved taxing. Also, despite having been told that one control had the wrong code on it I still ran around like a headless chicken for a couple of minutes when I came to it. It would also have been helpful if there had actually been a feature on the map in the middle of each control circle!
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Farley Centenary
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009I’ve said it before, but will say it again: there’s nothing like a Hants Cross-Country race to highlight the relative slowness of my running! Things were no different at the first race of this year’s league at Farley Mount on Saturday. I started the race too far back and had to jog up the first hill trying not to trip over the masses. I then spent the first of three laps overtaking people but for the remaining two I could just about maintain my position. This was despite having brought 7 supporters to cheer me on! I finished in 100th place, well down on previous years, which gives me plenty to work on for the rest of the season. Hopefully I’ll be getting more sleep by the next race and I’ll try not to have the celebratory roast lunch beforehand!
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Slow Ponds
Thursday, October 1st, 2009As per last week’s post, we moved to Fritham for Tuesday’s run. I was pretty tired having cycled in to work as well as racing in the afternoon. I was therefore particularly despondent to see Neil doing multiple laps of each of the six ponds! I still can’t decide whether to run the Clarendon Way Marathon at the weekend – whether it will just tire me out further or will prove good training. It would help if I believed that I might actually manage to run round at less than top speed, but then I start to think, why not just go for a training run rather than enter a race?
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