Orienteering: SO Park-O at Buxted Park
Today was the only one of the early summer series of “Park-O” events I have managed to make this year. With it being weeks since I have run, and at least a fortnight since doing any real exercise, I was not expecting great things, but saw it as a training opportunity.
Buxted park was a stately home, now a hotel, surrounded by landscaped parkland. This is a little more understated than some of these parks, but very pleasant, with a river curving through the main park, feeding two main lakes, several streams tucked into woodlands along the edge of the park, several large ponds and a great deal of variety, from Churchyard to manicured garden to open woodland. The open grassland in the centre of the park has a remarkable number of ancient anthills. These are impressive from an ecological point of view, but very hard on the ankles if you try to run across it.
It was a stunning morning. There were just a few streaks of cirrus in the sky, with clean sunshine and warmth building quickly, slightly tempered by a light breeze. The turn out was a little more manageable than some events and after a little friendly chat and copying the course onto my map I was off and running. To my surprise, I felt very good. I found the first control easily and just seemed to know where the next control would be. Even the impenetrable fields of bracken did not phase me, I just went round. (The bracken was higher than me and genuinely impossible to get through – marked on the map as “rough open”) Things went on like this until control 7, almost half-way, when the heat worked its way through and boiled my brain. Quite suddenly, I was dry, hot, not thinking well and energy had gone. Speed dropped away but I kept going.
I made one route choice error. I set off along a good fence to find a pathway through open, but convinced myself that I had made a bad choice when the “open” was choked with thistles, bracken and brambles. I headed across the “open” (which took ages) and had a good route down a stream in open forest, but this second choice route brought me out some way away from the control. Others told me if I had stayed with my planned route a little longer I would have hit the very good path and been at the control quickly – more than one runner caught me up on that leg. Others had gone straight down the stream in the first place, and avoided the slow traverse of the undergrowth.
Allowing for slowing down even more towards the end (well, it was over 25C and there was very little shade) I was quite pleased with my run. Under 15 mins per km and only twice the time of the leader. If I had thought to take water with me (which some runners did) I could have been significantly faster. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in what might be the last run of the “season”.