Robin Hood Trophy - Sherwood Pines Regional


Today I competed in the Robin Hood Trophy at Sherwood Pines - as usual with badge events I did M21S (though I'm tempted towards M21L) - even though a short course it was over 8.5km.

It was clear near the start that the recent storms have taken its toll on the forest - I've never seen such devastation - literally hundreds of tress blown over. Anywhere bordering an open area was worst hit, but the main parts of the forest were largely unaffected.

I had a fairly scrappy run, but attacked the course as much as possible and ran as fast as possible which helped. Only issues were number 2 which I overshot on the route I took so lost 30 secs, 9-10 where I cut a corner but misjudged and ended up on the wrong path and lost 30 secs, 16 where I ended up missing the knoll and lost 20 secs. The only big mistake of the day was 20 where I lost 3 minutes trying to find a depression (couldn't find it at first so relocated to the veg boundary and still missed the control the second time by a good 70 metres. I think the veg boundary on the map wasn't a bit wrong as I took a bearing and was still a fair bit out - but then it should have been obvious when I was too far from the forest track). Even so I managed to do 7.2m/km which is fairly pleasing. (apologies for not attaching all of the map, but it was bigger than A3! - anyone who wants a full copy let me know).

Overall, I came first out of 12 and had a lead of over 8 mins from the next competitor - a fellow Chaser, David Brown who also seemed to have a good run. I'm fairly pleased with my run, but was fairly scrappy in places so there is plenty of room for improvement.

Next weeks event to be held by DEE is cancelled so I have entered a five mile road race in Alsager - am hoping to break the 30 min barrier so will see how I do.

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