British Sprint & Middle 20 – 21 April

It all seemed like a good idea a few months ago – a week end in Shardlow with my daughter Helen – help Helen’s club DVO with organisation on Sunday – and three races.

Helen was away until early on Saturday, so I planned to travel up early on the day and get a later start.

The start times are published and I get 10.49 – well it could have been 10.45!!  Whatever it is up at 4.45, bike to station, no ticket machines working!! and on to the 6.00 train to Waterloo, where the ticket machines still don’t work!! Whoopee the machines are working at St Pancras and East Midlands get me to Loughborough for 9.44.

It all looks good as I get to the start in time for a five minute warm up.  My heart sinks as I realise my fingers are bare – dibber?  No spare dibbers at the start, so a quick sprint to and from Assembly – extra warm up – and I start 2.5 minutes late.

The start lanes face NW and you turn left immediately.  Faced with two similar buildings and a circular road I fail to orientate the map correctly and head SW rather than SE!!  Spot the tennis courts and all is well.  Well as well as can be expected – 2.5 minutes late and a minute lost before the first control.

I decide just to run hard and enjoy it.  The prologue is straightforward with the hardest decisions being whether to go left or right round buildings.  The fastest way is to choose a route quickly – preferably the one with the fewest decision points and get on with it.

My disastrous start meant I was inevitably headed for the B Final.

With one of the slowest times in the prologue I am off early in the final.  The final area is more of a challenge with irregularly shaped smaller buildings.  This means more intricate route choices and the chance to loose orientation with the frequent changes of direction.

Fairly good until 5 to 6. I fail to spot the black line indicating the fence that bars a direct final approach to 6 – quickly corrected and I shoot round the building to approach 6 from the ‘rear’.

8 to 9 presents similar problems with lots of direct lines barred by ‘black’ fences, but I am smart enough to spot these this time.

I approach 9 from the SE, but this completely throws me as I leave 9 to the N and nothing seems to fit!!

A rare event in a sprint race – I set the compass and decide to run until something fits!!  Hit the road, high fence and OOB area ad I am back on track.  Redeem some of my pride by finishing 11th in the B final.  Helen adds another Buff to her collection with 3rd in W35.

WIM do well with Vikki Crawford winning W70, Sue Hands 3rd in W65, Chris Branford 10th in M65 and Lynn Branford winning the W60 B Final.

Sunday sees us heading N to Matlock and on to Stanton Moor for the Middle Distance Champs.  Wonderful setting high up in the Peaks – armed with ‘big fingers’ we do a sterling job on the car parking!!  In return for our help we are promised a punching start, but unfortunately not until after 12.35 – and the clouds are rolling in!!

The map is 1:7500, so I recalibrate my legs and double check that my fingers aren’t bare!!

The course is only 3.3km so accuracy is paramount.  We are immediately into a complex area encumbered with brambles.  I rapidly discover that paths and open areas cannot to relied on, and I waste 3 minutes finding 1. 

     

We are soon out on the trees and on to the moorland.  Despite the thick heather this is pretty fast if you latch on to the animal tracks.  Big features take me to 7 at the foot of the crag.

Then for some unknown reason I decide it is S up the re-entrant to find 8 on the boulder on the RH hillside at the end of the re-entrant.  In retrospect I now know I ended up in the wide reentrant to the E of  8.

Eventually I realise that the narrow reentrant is a narrow ridge!!  Still fail to spot the 8 is at the foot of the very steep slope off the ridge.

A wasted six minutes later all is well, and I am on the way to 9.

A total of 9 minutes lost and I finish in 45 rather than 36, with the winner clocking 30.  Mistakes are costly in these short races.

WIM have Sue Hands 2nd in W65 and Vikki Crawford 6th in W70.

The rain has held off and we round off the day consuming Girl Guide cakes and tea in the Assembly field.

Philip Cooper

 

British Sprint Championships Results