South Easy Relay Championships in Bagshot - 5.2km, 150m climb
Ran the start leg for the 1st team in Men's open. Slightly weird course as there were only two opions of phi loops, rather than gaffles. Managed to get away well, leading out under the motorway after shortcutting down diagonally between a couple of roads. Control #1 - #5 went fine, with only a small 15m error on #1.
Coming back to #6 provided some trouble, as the steep climb of the path led my paths to cramp up. At this point Dimitri and myself were almost running together (he seems to have chosen a different route for the first couple of controls). #7 was a bit more interesting as there was a lot of featureless flat ground to cross. I was probably 30yards to far right on a compass line, but Dimitri was another 100 yards across. Didn't see him again until the finish.
A touch too low on #8 (the ticket was longer than expected) and a massive error on #9... very unclear semi-open area, and got caught on the wrong path, overshot, and had to come round the back to find it.
The second half was somewhat tiresome with some significant climbs coming up from #13 to #14 and #17 to #18 (I hate climb and it locks my calves). Spotted a couple of runners from the A loop here (I was on B)... currently unaware of my position. Finished 7 mins down on the leader (but she does run for Team GB) and 1 min/40sec respectively on two other teams, who seem to have run a lot of the course together.
Leading for South East though, as both the other relay teams were South Central. Next SE team was Chig, who were 3 1/2 minutes down. Chris and Paul both ran excellent races, and finished with a comfortable 14mins lead to take the Championship!
Article with photo:
http://sloweb.org.uk/clubnews/serelays2012win/