The Forum of Benfleet Running Club

mArKw · Joined: 15 May 2006 Posts: 255 Location: Benfleet

This has gone to the top of my list as the hardest race of the year so far. It's been quite a while since I have done an event where I was SO exhausted getting back into the finish. Out of the short, long and scoreless classes, I did the 4 and a half hour long score class and just missed the finishing time by 16 secs, hence dropping one point!!!

The event was held on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester, so the terrain was quite hard; bog, marsh, peat hags, quite a number of streams to cross. Not many features to navigate by, so most of the navigation was done by compass bearings and reading the contour lines.

However, looking at the map this morning I've realised that I could have gained more points and had an easier time navigating by taking a longer but quicker, more runnable route. But I am very happy that I managed to bag quite a number of controls, most of which were out in the middle of a boggy, marshy nowhere.

Highly recommend this event. Good KIMM/OMM type experience and excellent organisation to boot.

Mark

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The hills are alive........

Mike Mason · Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 953 Location: Hockley

well done Mark, the Benfleet Fell Runners Association affiliation is looking good..
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'sometimes I am running so fast it appears that rocks and trees are standing still......' 'I may be slow, but you are ugly and I can train harder.' '90% is mental, the other half is physical'it's going to get a lot worse, before it gets worse'.

mArKw · Joined: 15 May 2006 Posts: 255 Location: Benfleet

Just done a map with my route and the other checkpoints.

Can be seen here http://www.zen7243.zen.co.uk//fell/New_Chew_Long_Score_2008.pdf

Have included the waywardness aswell when I ran past one checkpoint and the one I gave up on when time and lack of energy caught up with me. Did 22.4 Km in all according to the track on Memory Map.
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The hills are alive........