NWJS weekend 29/30th September (2)

Saturday:
The training is detailed in Alex's contribution but I would like to add that for me aswell the time trial was very wierd on that map, also I developed a syndrome of getting to right on top of the flag and then not being able to see it for a minute or so and as this happened on 3 controls I wasted approximately 2 and a half minutes (out of 11:19), the fact that we were using training flags placed on the floor and not full size flags was most of the problem.
The rest of the training was good though and the two techniques of simplification and attack points were reinforced by well planned routes to get the most out of the terrain.

Sunday:
On Sunday the whole club attended the BL Regional Event located at HIgh Pike in the Lakes. The location was great and the open fell land gave way to fast times and there was also a good network of paths but fine details close to the controls needed particular attention meaning that the Saturdays training was put into good practice. The weather was good and although not the brightest or hottest day, there was no rain and gave some extremely good conditions to run in.
I ran the JM5L course and found that it was extremely fast running, mistakes cost a large amount of time as you could run straight past a control hidden in a dip, or not run far enough and hit a wrong parrallel (sp?) feature. I only made a single mistake over the whole 8.1km of the course and this was on control 15 were I found an unmarked marsh in a re-entrant almost the same as my control just 100m ahead.
The enjoyable part of this race was the fact that for once I got to stretch out my legs for large sections and as such completed the course in just over an hour only just behind the leader (54mins approx). I believe that I could have run faster I think if it hadn't have been for the trouble of getting to sleep the night before with some of the younger members of the club thinking it funny to annoy everyone else instead of going to sleep, resulting in me being very tired for the event.
Overall this should be a gold standard leaving me just one more to get before the end of the year.

Liam