The last event of the Walton Chasers Orienteering Club Domination Series 2010 was the sprint race and was held earlier this week. This year, as last, it was run at the National Forest Maize Maze as a trial event ready for a full scale sprint event in early October open to everyone.
The Domination Series conists of Score, Classic, Short/Middle and Sprint orienteering events plus a pursuit trail race. The idea is to find the best male and female in the club and the prize is highly sought after, points being awarded in a league system.
36 Chasers gathered in the failing light to do battle over less that a kilometre of straightline orientering but due to the nature of mazes the expected winning time was 13-15 minutes and the distances run more like 3 km.
As I was processing the results, I got an early start after wondering which shoes to wear (trainers or orienteering shoes) but in the end found the dob spiked Supra shoes perfect getting huge grip on the greasey surface with tight corners. I perhaps went off a bit too quick, making a few scrappy errors losing nearly a minute over the first half of the course.
I settled into it and soon succeeded in dropping the two teenagers hot on my heels getting into good control flow, planning ahead and making no more mistakes.
I hoovered up a few early starters towards the end and finished up on one of the bridges feeling fairly pleased with my run.
Some ominous clouds were then rolling in as we awaited everyone to download. With no power for splits printouts everyone was crowding round the live results screen to see how they had faired. I was winning by a clear margin but knew Mike Barnby was still out. As he came into download there was nervous tension until the result came up on screen. I’d beaten him by 4 secs – sweet !
Just as the last few finished and the collectors went out to get the controls in, the sky seemed to open and a deluge of rain came bucketing down, soaking Holly and I as we ran the few metres to the car.
This years open Maize Maze sprint challenge is to be held on Sat 9th Oct. It consists of two qualifiers in the afternoon and a final held after dark using head torches. Last years event was very successful but a little bird tells me the 2009 mens winner will not be able to defend his title so all is up for grabs.
Full details at http://www.walton-chasers.co.uk/events/2010/maize%20flier%202010.jpg
this years maze has a beach theme!