After the mud and rain of Day 2 near Oakhampton the JK circus moved to the coast near Barnstable and complex sand dunes. With a busy few weeks of MTBO coming up I had decided to run M35 short and just get out and enjoy some of my favourite terrain type, having grown up orienteering on areas such as Merthyr Mawr and Penhale Sands.
Running short and being a bit of a sand dune specialist I was expecting to win by a
comfortable margin but coming out of the start I had a big reality check on my cockiness. A combination of 1:15,000 map scale, 5 metre contours and lots of unmarked water from the torrential rains of the last few days saw me soon fumbling around trying to get back in contact with the map on the way to the first control. After approx a minute of blundering I decided to get out and get a decent attckpoint. Even after carefully fine navigating my way in from the path I still lost time in the circle so 4 mins lost. Number 2 was fine but I lost yet more time on number 3 and 4, probably another 4 or 5 mins.
Luckily at this point I seemed to tune in and ran the rest of the race without incident thoroughly enjoying the complex sand dunes and getting fastest splits on most legs, however Im not sure about the 1:15,000 map. I know the national guidelines specify the preference of scale for events of this standard but the map was practically unreadable in places and I found myself using the general shapes and the control description in the circle rather than the fine detail at times. A 1:10,000 map would have made it much easier or a map drawn specifically for 1:15 thou rather than a shrunk 1:10.
My foot though a little sore held out and I am now looking forward to running again on the same area tomorrow at the relays. I was second when I left but being honest I just lost too much time on the first 4 controls to be happy with my performance today. Good fun though and as I cycled round to Croyde afterwards as a warm down the views out over the dunes and the bay beyond were spectacular.
Full results available at http://www.siresults.co.uk/2010/JK/