Club Champs 2007


Today was the Club Champs, the first one I have been to in five years since becoming a member of Walton Chasers. It was fairly wet underfoot and began to rain quite early on in the course, but not enough for it to become a hindrance. The Brown course was 8.5km with 335m climb.
I decided to attack the start and got completely dis-orientated in the small trees/grot on the way to number 1. In the end I lost at least a couple of minutes. I also ballsed up 2-3 having exited number 2 in the wrong direction. 3-4 was ok but I think my route choice was dodgy so probably lost 30-40 secs. By this point I must have lost best part of 4.30 mins.
I continued to attack the course as opposed to my usual tactic of defensive orienteering (i.e. paths) and had a pretty good run without any errors of note until 15. The recent training must already be paying off as I felt physically good throughout and was in the strange position where I was running well within myself, and it was only my navigation that meant I couldn't go any faster.
15-16 I played too safe as I decided to go round and run defensively (and avoid the heather) even though it was a fairly easy control. I lost about 40 secs here. 16-17 wasn't a great control as I came across a fair bit of grot but there was no real way of knowing from the map.
I finished in 61.46 (7.3m/km) which considering the start I was really pleased. In some ways the time was irrelevant as I felt physically fine and I attacked the course rather than let the course dominate me. In the end I finished 4th, about 8 mins behind Rob Little, 1.40 behind Iain Stamp and 1.20 behind Mike Barnby. What was nice to see was that by control 4 I was 4.30 behind Iain/Mike and managed to catch up best part of 3 mins on them over the rest of the course. Normally I'm about 6-12 mins behind them, so I must have had an above average run.
Just to add that I thought the course was very well planned and was probably one of the best that I have been too over the last year. Really enjoyed it!

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