Sunday, January 19, 2014

Not Too Shabby

If I do say so myself. It was really only training - but then I would say that. Seriously though, I'm keeping my races low key at the moment and putting no expectation on the results. If they're good then that's a bonus. At the moment I'm just happy to be coming back.

With travel arrangement made, the Terrific Three became the Fabulous Four at Monmouth as I joined the party. We, the merry band of outlaws, thence departed to Sherwood. No hang on, that was Robin Hood. We travelled to Little Stretton for the Mercia Hill Trial. An eight plus mile navigational fell style race. As we neared our destination the sun came out to play - usurping my navigational advantage - but to be fair I didn't mind because it was a lovely day to be pootling around the Long Mynd.

Vanessa and Judith set off a minute before me with the Crebernator bringing up the rear - ssh, stop it. Being a navigation event there's always a staggered start. Patrick was also on patrol but he'd headed out earlier.

Out onto the course it was all fairly straight forward. Apart from my inability to run fast I had a good run. I pushed where I could push and plodded where I couldn't. Overall I was pleased with my routing bar one minor aberration from 7 to 8. Using the mightiest of all the super powers, hindsight, I really took a shocker. The when in doubt straight line gambit was an extremely poor choice as the heather infested, steep climb to Cow Ridge was a nightmare and much time was lost. Ho hum.

The rest was fairly standard but most important, very enjoyable. I finished in a time of 2:04:48 and seventh place. I was really happy with that. Slightly unexpected but happy. It can only get better as the come back ensues. The rest of the Phantasmagorical Four faired better, winning prizes. So with the race run we made our exit, stage left and headed home.

The results sheet at the time of departure. The Blue Fingernail and the lady with the mysterious furry arms point out the 4th (3rd solo), 7th (also ran) and 15th (1st female pair) on the Long Course.

No comments:

Post a Comment