Southern Nights and Devon League - 1st -2nd Dec

We made the journey up to London for the Southern Night O Champs, which were hosted by SLOW on Esher Commons.  I was running the Short Brown which was 7.6km 110m with 24 controls.  These sort of areas tend to have an extensive path network, which can lead to confusion at night.  17.57 came and Phil, Adele and myself stood on the start line poised to do battle with the darkness and the map.  I started cautiously not wanting mess up the first control, wary of small tracks not marked.  Hesitant to the first but no big problems, at #2 I paused and checked the control description, I was surprised to see track crossing, which was where I was standing.  I turned around to see the control. I was starting to get into it now and #3-6 passed cleanly.  Slight miss at #7 but nothing serious.  Decisions were mostly based on when to stay on the tracks and when to go straight.  #17 hit the wall bang on but felt I gone to far so doubled back, returned along the wall to find the control, silly mistake.  #18 was in a grotty area but found cleanly enough.  Ran hard to #19 but didn't have a plan or attackpoint near the circle!  Headless chicken moment before pulling myself together 9 minute split! #21 started on the wrong track and couldn't relocate to the correct one, got in the circle but couldn't locate the control.  All in all pretty happy with 77:54 anything near 10min/kms at night is good for me.  5th in the M40 class of the Southern Nights, Phil 6th M50 and Adele 4th W50 so definitely worth the trip.  

So after a long journey back and it was an early start to try and avoid the forecast rain that was due in around 1200.  I was surprised to see that the Brown course was 8.7km 370m with only 14 controls.  So this was to be a flat out tour of the Five Tors map, I hope my legs are up to it.  #1 was in a large feature so straight up it was time to get the legs moving.  #1 and #2 were both on the same contour so it was a case of balancing how much to climb to cut down the distance, think I did I got the balance about right but legs were feeling last nights efforts.  The climb out of #2 hurt but I tried to push the pace knowing that it was the biggest of the day.  Slight miss at #8 to low and  stayed to high on the way to #14.  I was amazed that I had gone around in 64.04 and came 4th/17.  Happy days!