After a hour or so relaxing, messing around on bikes, and generally being extremely childish, all 150 of us formed a huge pelaton that wove its way out of the town where we had had lunch overlooking the sea and sand dunes. Drivers coming the otherway on the narrow roads were forced to pull over and wait as we streamed past handlebar to handle bar, nobbly tyres roaring on the smooth tarmac. After about 20 minutes riding, we all formed up and were given 3 maps each ready for a mass start. Firstly we had a 1:15,000 traditional foot orienteering map with 18 controls spread all over it. Then there was a 1:25,000 OS style map with 3 controls, and finally an A-Z type map of the town with a further 5 controls.
I got a good position at the start and streaked off towards one of the obvious first controls in this 90 minute score race. It was all elbows as the track narrowed, but strangely an orderly queue formed at the control as we all waited patiently in line to punch it (very British). I then made the mistake of trying a shorter route on the more minor tracks to the next but soon had to bin it as the ridability was terrible and went back around to the major track options. I then got stuck in, ducking and diving with a group of very fast riders, my control order choice and navigation keeping me in touch as we split and rejoined around the forest. After enjoying a sweet single track I punched the last control on the first map and swapped to the 1:25. It turned into 30 minutes of howling tyres blasting time trial style around the narrow lanes picking up a couple of controls before navigating off road on a woefully inadequate map. It was then a last desperate race around the town on the A-Z map. My last control was on the top of a dune overlooking the town, and I realised at that point I was going to be on a mission to get in on time. I gave it everything (silly thing to do with an ultra-long race the next day) and picked up a few other riders on the way in who promptly jumped on for a tow.
I finished to my reckoning a couple of minutes late which would lose me 20 points, but the results show I was a couple of minutes early! I know many riders took it easy but I know some were gunning it as much as me, so I am particularly pleased with 9th, which I suppose could be considered my first ever top 10 international result 🙂