SOG Local Event – Tilgate Forest
My run today was complicated by taking a group of students and a couple of staff from my school with me. I had to go in to collect the minibus, and them, before coming past my house again to get to the event. As we were leaving school, it started to rain heavily, following rain overnight. I said it was the cold front coming through and would be stopping by the time we arrived – which turned out to be accurate, but the forest was very wet, with big puddles even on the track into the car park. The bus was sliding a little where the track was slick.
It took a little while to have everyone set up and to explain the map. There was virtually no legend on today’s map, which was fine except for the absolute beginners, of which I had several! I saw the group off , then set out myself.
I have a mild cold or virus, I think, so took it fairly easily. The forest is riddled with paths and tracks, so I played safe down to control one by staying on paths, and quite often on later controls too. Staying on the paths was encouraged by a few encounters with the undergrowth. The bracken and brambles are already rampant. I did feel like I was path-running quite a lot of the way, but felt a little fitter than usual (probably from going slower), so did not mind too much.
Apart from being a little “rough” in the approach to a few controls, I made few mistakes. Generally, I was not simplifying enough – still trying to look at every detail, which loses a great deal of time. I went past 11, which was in a shallow re-entrant and ended up in the next, rather better defined, re-entrant. Once I realised, I was pleased with the way I relocated and landed right on the control. With a couple of five minute stops to do a little coaching with the students, and a spectacular but thankfully harmless tumble I was well outside my 60 minute target.
Unusually, when I got back there was only one pair of students and none of the staff who had finished. The ones who did yellow had terrible problems with their control 9. It looked perfectly well placed to me, but many of them had taken the wrong path between 8 and 9, went parallel and went past and were quickly very lost – most realised and backtracked, but there were no obvious catching features until they hit the lane at the end of the wrong path – about 1km away. Still, they were all back safely, just as it began to rain heavily again. They had thoroughly enjoyed themselves, though it does look as if the yellow might have been a bit more of “in at the deep end” than I wanted for them. They were all keen to come again, which is the best indicator.