This is the story of my Leinster Championship 2010, held on Carlingford Mountain.
It begins in Dublin on a sunny day, friday the 7th of May, where i meticulously pack my bags for the weekend ahead, only to be texted by a friend to say, "Hey, where are you? This KISS concert you said you'd go ages ago is on tonight, i have your ticket right here!".
Oh sh*t!
After finding out that fortunately Ruairi had an exam on saturday and would be getting a lift with Ruth that afternoon i decide that i can infact go to said concert (which was the source of my mysterious horrible rasping evil voice for the weekend) and hop a lift with them the next day. Phew, disaster averted!
On Saturday we arrived too late for the first of the elite training events, a short course on the side of a mountain (so i wasnt too bad!) we had an evening of georgous sun and georgous confusion with mazes and micro-o's. Top quality planning guys!
Next came the actual Leainster Championships the following day. Another sunny one, and due to my lack of trousers Hugh kindly lent me his shorts (and politely refused to take them back until i washed them, but he's in China now. Say goodbye to your shorts Hugh.)
0-1: The course now begins in earnest, I pick up the map and immediately moan, I can see the first control site is visable from the start, and that fecker Hill will definitely pick up time on me there as he's watching like a hawk. I perhaps foolishly choose to go straight to 1 to throw him a bit, i know if I go straight and he's follows my route he's likely to muck up. Not a lot, but perhaps enough to gain back the few seconds i've lost. (It turns out he went the other way anyway.)I run straight on my compass. Im highly aware that im useless at scale at the beginning of a course before im settled in, particularly 1:15,000, so im trying to go off the countour shapes, of which there are none. Nice plan Shea. I fortunately come only a little too high on it and drop in. Passed a DFO chap here who went off 6 mins ahead of me, he follows me in and we run on. (I dont see him again)
1-2: Handly leg. I try stretch my legs out a bit to tell my body what speed I want it to be running at when im concentrating on something else like the sun or the view. Dont quite see it as soon as i expected but not too worried, it has to be here somewhere.
2-3: Two options here, high or around. I usually try to avoid climb earlier in any course, even if you lose a few seconds going around you save up some mental points (Its mentally hard running uphill i find), lets you read the map better, and dosnt blow your legs as much out for later. (Im quite conscious of my endurance, its not as good as others so i dont like spending it near the beginning.)Long story short, i go around, up slightly, but mostly around. Calculus does after all say the optimal route choice is somewhere in the middle! Hit a lone boulder, see the lower crag, and in. Hoped Hill has stopped watching at this point, as its back in view of the start.
3-4: Once again I go around, that hill looks horrible and going around definitely plays to my strenghts, flat, probably fast, and with huge attack points (the forest/ earthbanks/ spur like hilltop thing) where as going up means some shitty hill climb, running on steep sided terrain (again something i know to be a weakness of mine, which is why im terrified when i read ahead to number 5), followed by attacking the control from above, while its at the base of a crag, thats not something easy to do. Im still playing it safe too, so there was absolutely no question in my mind that i was going around. Everything goes to plan and i hit it beautifully.
4-5: It here. The one i knew was coming. The giant easy uphill-for-about-a-million-light-years control. I pace myself, i dont want to go too hard at this and have nothing left for the rest of the course. I run up and forward, up and forward, always up and forward at the same angle, constantely trying not to climb too much or too little. I barely read the map, ill know im there when i run out of 'up'. Seconds turn into minutes into hours into days as i climb climb climb with nothing else.Im slightly tempted to go over the saddle before the control and attack it from the huge crags, but I was too low down when i go past it to consider it, it would be wasteful in time and energy to go that way now.
I suddenly have the most terrifying thought ever, that perhaps that saddle was the one that the control was in, and ive run too far (i wasnt reading my map, after all), and as we speak im slowly inexonerably running in a perfectly straight line off the map. I tell myself its not true, briefly consider turning up, but run on and before long the other saddle come into view, along with a sigh of relief. Start reading my map again, come around the top beautifully, spike the crag, and nothing.
Oh sh*t!
I look dumbly at the map, and the groud, and conclude something is very wrong. It should be here. I run to a knoll and back. I look at the crag again. I run along it. There, in a perfect kite shaped hole in the crag is the control. I breifly curse the name of 3roc and punch, and continue on.
5-6: I remind myself to concentrate again, a favorite trick of planners is to give you a long easy leg to get you into oxygen debt before switching to technical. I slow down, breathe, and read my way in. I come in slightly too low on it but im happy enough.
6-7: Easy enough leg, no choice. Run up the hill and skirt round a small bit so as not to lose height, easy to see, easy to hit.
7-8: Obviousally, I choose to go round. Muse to myself about how nice it would be to win, notice im being distracted but dont really mind, i wasn't really planning on doing well anyway, so i let my thoughts go a bit. I arrive at the technical section, dont bother reading it, float loftily towards where im guessing it should be, see a lake, see a lake on the map, find control. Am quite chuffed with self, musing at this point that perhaps im some kind of Demigod.8-9: Back to reading the map proper, run straight, tick off things, run over the long low spur beautifully, spike the knoll, and nothing.Oh sh*t!
Dont move, look around, things line up, this must be it!! Fuckballs! Lean over, its under me. CURSE YOU 3ROC!
9-10: Decide at this point i've done a bit of climb, so i dont mind climbing at this point and i go straight up and over. However im way too high and stupidly end up in the pass, takes a moment to figure out exactly where i am. Its only when i arrive back later i worked out what happened, i was too high coming over! About turn and down the hill, pass Hugh coming up it and briefly ponder how long ahead of me he went out, but i cant remember. Controls easy, but valuable time has been lost.10-11: Not much to say, over and around.
11-12: I meant on this one to do a big curvey 'S' shaped line to avoid height gain, but come out way too low on the bottom bit and decide at this point its just as fast going over. Compared later to other splits I didnt lose much, if any time by doing that, but it made me look at the map a bit harder from then on.
12-13: On of my biggest time loses. I run under the crags, through the pass, down past the marsh with spur hilltop thing, beautifully down the crag face (it was slopey), hit the boulderfield thing, nothing!Oh sh*t!
Frantically i read my descriptions, east side (Its only after i realise i read it wrong and was west side). I leg it over, still nothing. Back up the hill to those few crags, and look around. Thats definitely it. Run back down and poke around. Nothing. Look on west side. Its buried.
*profanity deleted* 3333RRROOOOCCCCCC *profanity deleted*
13-14: I choose to run back trrough the same saddle, the hill is steep and it looks like the best way. I meet Hugh again coming down it and warn him its buried. He pretty much ignores me and later informs me he had no trouble with it. At the saddle i run left a bit, im watching those huge crags and trying to picture where the control is relative to them in a big 3D map in my head. Hit the line of hilltops, realise they are in fact marked on the map as a line of hilltops, and run it.
14-15: Once again to avoid running horizontally across steep ground i choose to go up and down the huge gully. Im pushing now at this point, i dont mind using energy, but try not to use so much as to get into le O2 debt. Dont really bother reading my map running up, but when i do im accutely aware of the possibility of a parallel error, running onto a wrong spur at the end of the downhill. Make sure of everything and run into the control slowly and carefully.
15-16: Look for the steep ground and cheese it to the base of that. Run along under the crag with the distinct obvious end on it, run on top of the next ones as it looks as though from the contours the control is up slightly and with the distint shape its located in it will be easier to make out from above.
16-17: Again aware of a short technical leg after a long easier one, and take it slow and read everything. No bother.
17-18: Could have been f*cked over by this one. I decide to not bother read everything (aka anything) and decide to leg it until I see the bend/end of the forest and the big hilltop spur thing that the controls on. This turned out to be stupid, as a brief inspection of the map clearly shows you that you won't be able to see the forest as you get closer to to spur, what with the spur being itself in the way and a technical scientific principle I like to call the 'seeing in only straight lines effect'. (Please note at this point I wasn't even bothering to draw my GPS in accurately, let along run accurately.)After i lose track of the forest I reason im pretty much as the north-west side of the spur hilltop thing, when i unexpectedly see a control thats on a feature that looks suspiciousally like mine. Fortunately im running right past it, I check the code and its not. But this throws my confidence in my plan, revealing a possibly fatal flaw. That you probably wont hit the control if you dont have a dog's bollox of an idea where you are.
I run on to the area I think its in, and low and behold its not on the crag end like I thought, but up the nastiest little bastard of a steep pricked gully fuck right beside it. Tits. Nothing for it, so I slowly walk up and get it, as children and old women pass me out.
18-19: I classify my controls into differnt sections depening on whether they're tricky, fast, slow, long, steep, O2 debt related and so on. Upon seeing number 19 I immediately knew which class it fell into, the fabled 'fuck you' class (Also known as bingo's). This type of control can make of break your run. There was no very safe looking way into it, nothing but gorse to try work out where the bejesus you were if you missed it, and can swallow time better than a black hole.Like number 4, I not good at hitting the correct crag from above. This is like that, but with zero choice as to route choice. I run down into the area, read things carefully, arrive on top of a crag, and nothing!
Oh sh*t!
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, where are you you litte *Bleep* *Bleep* son of a *Bleep* c'mon *BLEEP* *BLEEP* *BLEEP* horse.
Im looking behind me at this point at what looks like a crag, this meaning that I would indeed be on the lower one. On the off chance that that higher looking one was a pile of rubble or something, I run down a bit as if I were on the higher one, and low and behold there it is, shining waiting for me. *BLEEP*
19-20: On the way to 18 I'd read this as a proper leg and not some kind of long run in, and decided the way to go was not to lose height, but contour around. Alas, when I hit the track unmarked gorse bushes forced me down to the junction, where I then had to climb up another track to get to it. I see a lot of people running to a different control, which I know is not mine but I check anyway, before continuing uphill, where I just beat Ivan into the control.20-F: Fast and furious. As fast as I can go, do my ankle a bit about halfway down, utter a profanity and continue. Finished at last, and with not too shabby a run either! though with those time loses I well expect to be beaten. Still, its a sunny day, and there people to be socalised with!
Post-mortem: I won! Seems everyone made bigger mistakes than me. The giant plaque trophy pointless thing is mine! BOW BEFORE ME!
For the much more accurate and fun routegadget where i stole these screenshots from, check out
http://orienteering.ie/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=158&kieli=
Alas my track from mt GPS seems to have been overwriten by a huge GPS track leading from Carlingford to Dublin. On the plus side I now have a really accurate map of the Luas system....
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