Mendip North - Bristol Orienteering Club - 24th November 2013

A 1.6km walk/jog to the start meant that I was raring to go once I got there.  The remoteness meant that we carried our own rolled and taped map to the start.  I had difficulty folding the map to start with and ended up setting off up the wrong path.  I soon recovered, but my legs felt heavy as I started up the hill, was I paying the price for the previous nights blast around Davidstow? The leg to #1 was a long one, not the norm in orienteering races but I quite like the challenge of getting into the map on a long leg.  I made a pretty good job of it but as I thought the splits suggest I wasn't moving very quickly.  Clean to #3 and making good progress to #4, I impressed myself by checking out the attack point one the way to #1.  I lost confidence from the attack point and avoided the wooded area looking for the depression.  Then I realised the depression was in a wooded area and I was straight onto it.  Blast down the path to #5 and quickly I was through #7 and off down the track.  Overshot #8 didn't notice the parallel track.  Fell short to #9 entering the wood to early.  Went direct to #10 but track option quicker.  Took the track option to #13, then back onto the track along the valley, pace counted 300m then climbed diagonally to #14, took a deep breath for the nasty climb up to #15, 54mins gone.  8 controls left, decided to push the running speed and was happy not to make many mistakes just a slight miss at #20, through the final control and pushed hard on the 350m run in to be greeted by Jamie Hayward with his camera!! Really enjoyable race 7.8km 310m in 71:21 and 10th/26.