Orienteering: Hexham Urban, Nov 23
Hexham, it turns out, is pretty hilly. It also has lots of walls and fences and stuff that mean some things can be the long way round, even when the control's... just there.
Beyond that, I'm really not sure what I want to write about today. My toe felt a bit off from the off. It was bloomin' cold. The pins and needles I got when my fingers and thumbs finally warmed up was something else. I got absolutely left for dead by a guy doing the same course who started a minute behind me. Just under halfway round, I felt a strain in my back, on the right hand side, which feels more like a karting injury than a running one. (Great timing too, as I have karting coming up this Wed evening! 🙄)
Oh, and I ended up 6th out of 9 finishers (though 10 entrants) in my age group, with a time of 52:51, a full 08:51 behind the winner. So, it doesn't feel like I was very fast, but at least today I don't think I made any navigational errors. At least, nothing major. Nothing that took more than a few seconds to correct. I was, however, pretty much ruined by the hills and there was plenty of walking alongside the running today, even when not reading the map. And the route-planning was hard. So many times, I really had to stare at the map to check that I could actually get through that gap. It felt like trying to plot your way through a maze in a puzzle book.
I guess the short story is that I need to get back to full fitness, though. The fitter I am, the better my brain will function. As well as the faster I'll be able to go. Unfortunately, it looks like the next urban event may be some way off. There's one in York in a month or two, and one in Keswick in February, but they really are too far to travel. In the meantime, until nearer events are announced, I'd better just stick to the running. And maybe some indoor cycling.
Update: OK, I was a bit flat about this event when I wrote this post, but now let's dive into the nerdy stuff with a chart showing everyone's positions, control by control. What stories can it tell?
Well, let's focus on me first. 😁 Clearly, I was very mid-table the whole way through. Some might call that consistent, but I'm a bit frustrated by it. Perhaps more damning than the hovering-around-7th is the fact that the best position I had on any given leg was only 6th. Normally, on a course of this length, I can manage at least one leg in the top 3. Not in Hexham though. I wonder whether this was down to me spending a lot more of my time map-reading — checking and re-checking — than at previous urban events. At least, it felt like I was doing that. And when I read, I walk. Or sometimes even stand still. Which obviously isn't good for my times.
Near the end, it looks like I almost threw away my 7th place by taking an age over control 19. Part of that may have been a bit of disorientation and losing my place on the map after the previous control, but part was probably also down to me having had enough of the gradients; and it was a [short] climb to the cricket nets where control 19 was located. I remember one lad (who seemed to be on the same course, but was probably young enough to be on Course 1) shooting past me with a pace I found hard to believe. Luckily, my navigation seemed better on the subsequent 2 controls, as I took a different route and got back ahead of him... at least until he followed me to control 22 then shot past to the finish. 🙄
Other stories that catch my eye in the chart:
- Peter Davies, whom I first met at the Newcastle/Ouseburn urban event in 2022, had a cracking start, but then dropped back massively on control 3. Granted, he was only just over a minute slower than the fastest runner for that leg, but it was enough to drop him from 3rd to 10th. He did recover a bit from there and got back in front of me for a couple of controls, but then had another bad leg for control 11, dropping 3 more places. It's weird that these controls were issues, as they didn't feel especially tricky ones. And finally, of course, we can see he pulled out after control 18. Maybe he's got an injury and that explains it all, as I swear he's better than me.
- Emma Curtis had a blinding start, being 4th after the first control, but then she dropped right to the back after control 2 and pretty much stayed there for the duration (with the odd leap up to second last).
- Likewise, Katherine Rowland was equal 5th after the first control but then lost a lot of places, dropping down to 14th and last by control 5. Interestingly, both Emma and Katherine are in the W21 age/gender group, so I'm guessing fitness wasn't the issue.
- Alastair Mackenzie, on the other hand, had a very relaxed first control, leaving him plumb last, but then rapidly shot up to 6th and stayed there to the end.
- And up at the front, while the winning margin was only 26 seconds, it was actually pretty tight between Trevor Hindle and Lewis Balfour the whole way.
- Finally, the lowest placed finisher to bag first place on any given leg was Katherine Rowland, managing it on both control 18 and the run to the finish, though she finished 11th overall.
Comments
Post a Comment