Race 38: MTBO long, Gisburn Forest, 19/11/2011

This was the last MTBO for the season, it was a long race at Gisburn forest. The race went well, in fact it was probably the first time that my navigation skills outperformed my fitness levels!

I overshot two junctions (one by accident and the 2nd because it had a footpath sign on) and that was pretty much the only problem with my navigation! I think I picked the fastest routes to all the controls, apart from 8 - 9 I went down some single track which seemed pretty slow and so for the 2nd part of that leg I thought if I floored it I could get around the road faster, In hindsight I think that the singletrack would have been the faster option, as the road climbed towards the end and the singletrack stayed high... Oh and I stopped when I came across Stodge taking photos and so I was chatting away whilst getting down a rocky descent and he shouted "Concentrate" as I went around the corner. So I assumed I had done something stupid and stopped to find out which junction I had missed. But for once I hadn't done anything wrong!

I was worn out by the time I got to the finish as it was a steady climb there, I pedalled like crazy but it was all a bit slow motion - must be all that foot-o I've been doing wrecking my cycling legs! I was relatively dry and clean up until the last control, which was in a load of bog, had to get off too so got a foot full of black stuff - Lovely!

Chattering away... Photo by Mark Stodgell

Race 37: MTBO middle, Tankersley, 05/11/2011

I was optimistic about this race as I'd been doing some foot orienteering to practice navigation. It was raining and the ground was as muddy as anything so I tried to swap my tyres before starting, but couldn’t get the new Nobby Nics on – it turned out they were UST ones so gave that idea up and just had to slip and slide around on my Crossmarks instead! I stylishly wore a cap under my helmet to try and keep the rain off my glasses. It worked too so I’ll be doing that again! Shame it looks so rubbish although I did pick out a red cap to fit with my outfit...

I started just before some of the GB’s, which was a psychological disaster, I much prefer to be the chaser rather than the chasee! I was doing OK up until number 6, when I took a wrong path and wasted 5 mins whilst I worked that out and then relocated. If I had looked at the compass more I would have noticed sooner because I went north east instead of north west. I met Lucy coming into number 6 and we both slid down a very muddy almost vertical descent. Lucy brought her bike too and nearly took me out! She’d started 5 mins behind me so my mistake to this control was costly!

The rest was OK, apart from turning too early to number 8 and losing another minute. It was really muddy and I found myself running bits that were very slippery because it was faster than wheel spinning along trying to ride!

I was quite proud of 13 -1 4 because I did the thing I learnt from Alan H (who won the A race) and foot-o where you can race towards a catching feature and which particular path you are on is irrelevant, just go in the right general direction. It worked and I see my track in the map below is green for that part, which means fast :o)