What a stunning day to be in the capital for this awesome race, organised by South London Orienteers. This was my second time and again I really enjoyed the experience. It was a hot day but as you are mostly running in and out of the shadows, it wasn't over powering. My race started with a under confident stutter to #1, not sure why probably just too many people around. Managed to get into a good flow until before #6 when a check of the control descriptions would have helped me out as the control was up the top of the stairs and I was ...... ! I was prepared for #7 which was in the barbican centre, a multi layered nightmare, but still messed it up by being up when I should have been down, bumped into Ian Hargreaves who was having issues too. My head hurt going to #8 and #9, but got in a little pack coming out of #9 and ran fast to keep up with them, but lost map contact then the pack! Really don't know how I got through the Barbican centre but at last I was free!! #10 was on the top of the bridge so had to double back on myself, running pretty well so at least that side of things was OK. Got into a nice flow, and enjoyed my run around the Stock Exchange and St Paul's although quite busy here. Clean until #24 when I lost map contact but only a slight hesitation, then a poor route choice coming out of #24 to the north instead of south. Knew the ground to #25 but had to keep concentrating as getting tired now. Straight forward run to the finish and it was over. It felt like I had been out an age, and was surprised to see it had only been 75min, even better when I downloaded 73min15sec for 7.9km (straight line) I had actually run 11.5km so I was really happy (64th/128). What a great race. My train wasn't until 1700, so after watching the presentations I took a walk along the river in the afternoon sun, very nice.
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| Mens Elite Winner Peter Hodkinson OUOC |
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