Day 2 - Hambleden

With thanks to Chris Branford and Liz Whittingham for the photographs

         

         

    

         

This was a thoroughly enjoyable event. The weather although cold was dry & in the wood the wind was hardly noticable .I was just right in nylon o top with long sleeved merino base layer. The fact that parking , plenty of toilets, assembly, finish & start were all adjacent was a distinct bonus. The wood was runnable & there were plenty of features to aid navigation besides contours & compass. I did wonder when faced with a long leg that appeared to be a long track run,why the planner had done that & only afterwards when others talked about the course did I see an alternative route to the right going through fields and avoiding climb, looking at the splits, I think few did that route.

Leading by about 5min I only needed a clean run on day 2 to win the trophy BUT we were to be bussed which meant that combined with an early start (although I asked for late middle) I was awake before 5am old time & definitely not at my brightest. Mistakes early in the course were unsettling but I did get into the map & made steady slow progress through the brashings etc when 2/3 of the way round at a path junction next to a garden & 1 of the few houses on the map shown as OOB ,2 girls asked me where we were, I ignored them (I have stopped helping in major competitions after many years ago when I helped a seemingly distressed junior who subsequently won the event & there is no doubt that it is quicker to relocate by asking, but intrinsically unfair as well as upsetting the concentration of the person being asked). Anyway immediately after I missed a control; I must have passed right by while looking for the crossing point into the field. I didn't realize until the finish & it turns out that my time was comparable with the winners. I must admit to having missed redundant controls before, so in theory it is a mistake I should have avoided, but will I do so if the same situation arises again???

Nikki Crawford