BOK Stock Hill Brown coure, 7.5km/165m Level C
Good event, good course; good map. Worthy of a proper write up.
Started one min behind Laurence T. & about 3 mins after Mark S. Slow on no 1, but 2 & esp. 3 were good & I caught Laurence.
Stupidly went west on track S. of no 3, to path to "semi open by road" which was awful - gorse, then vile tussocks. 90 secs lost. By the time I'd fought my way to no 4, (OK attackpoint!), Megan was on me & past, she banana'd slightly to no 5 which helped me, I dropped into it & "followed" her onto the planting direction slow run.
Idiotically turned right (south) at path, realised quick (10secs?), then good line down to no 6, knew from watching Owain & Olly mess it up earlier which was the best car (yes, car) to attack from, spiked ;-) (This is "why" I "beat" Clive).
no 7, finally re-caught Laurence. Then messed up no 8 - re-entrant? Hmmm. Laurence back with me, but I just pressed on and deliberately didn't look round. All good then til the mire of the rough open crossing to 16, and Mark S appeared before me (handily finding the flag for me) (like Ben Mitchell, I felt unnerved by extra depressions here....) - I suspect he thought, "Where have you been, Mr Murray?" Got into a good happy "flow" thru 17-21, all great. Yay!
22 - got lucky, as not sure that was right? then 23 , 24 , fine, hoping for sub-60, then could not find last control !!!! - as had no plan, & no visualisation of the place. 90 secs binned & outside an hour finishing time. Initially pissed off.
Expected Clive 52, Ben M 45, Chas 54, Pete W, 51, or something - Ben delivered (as did the other Ben M), but I was actually slightly faster than Clive & only 2 mins behind Chas - had i not messed up no 25, he'd still have narrowly had me......... BUT NOT necessarily, if I'd had SIAC....
Good day out . knackered & freezing and not the best of runs, but time on Stock Hill is never time wasted. Despite experiencing the enormous endless wide chasm that is now the gap between me & the likes of Ben & Megan (& Adam & BenM.....!)...... :-) Kudos to Ben Maliphant, great to see him back.
10th out of 55; 2nd M55, Clive 3rd M55 ;-)
RG
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