A high quality tricky and challenging sand dune area.
Brown
16 Peter Shirvington @Pete 1:58:50
dnf Jeff Pakes @Jeff.Pakes
…so all the more reason to give it due respect!
Which I didn’t and Pete did. Started off way too late, not helped by only the late starting block being available online. Should have asked organiser if i could gave started earlier. Arrived at car park in very good time, ate lunch while waiting for rain to give way to beautiful weather. By now too relaxed and forgot to check my watch! Actually set off 5 mins after Start officially closed.
Anyway, set off and everything was going brilliantly, after an early hiccup. 70 mins in, I had a third of Brown course or 3km left to run. Sun warming my back as I zig zagged fluently through dunes, with hardly any other folks or distractions. Does it get any better?
Then a classic ‘go direct’ or ‘go round leg’, #13. Go direct through messy woods risky- likely to be thrown off course and would need to relocate afterwards. Lost time likely as would retirement with just 45 mins left. Gambled and failed. Then just 20mins left to do five legs over 2k, the last of which Pete said gave him the most trouble.
Contrast my run at Cookworthy the previous Sunday when low risk approach ensured i finished just as course was closing. Another late start which almost caught me out.
Hurried attempt to find next control #14 ended in exasperation and very soon retirement, as i struggled to interpret a marshy area that seemed to have been recently mowed.
And so a proud record of fairly clean runs at this relatively new O area- I was there for its unveiling in 2016- came to an end!
Pete meanwhile continued his fine form with a good first ever run here.
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