Today I did my first open5 adventure race from Hope Valley College. I decided to run first (about 1:45-2hrs) and bike after (about 3 hrs). After a slight glitch on the way to my first control involving rain removing my cross through a control that wasn't there (oops) it seemed I'd chosen a good route and felt really strong running. I went for a bit of a swim heading past the quarry where the path was flooded - thought it wouldn't be too deep but then I found myself up to my waist in it - chilly!
I got excited with how good I felt running so added a couple of extra controls to the route taking my time to 2hrs7 (7mins looking for the non existant control at the start didn't help).
Having collected 210 points this set me up well for the ride.
Onto the mountain biking: Now I feel I should explain myself before anyone sees my route choice on open5 website....
My original plan involved going to get 18 then 17 then 13 however on closer inspection I didn't think I could get from 18-17 on a bridleway without going a long way round and regaining height and I also discovered going to 17 alone wasn't really worth the 15 points for climbing up to hollins cross.
So I decided I would get 13 first...and I was so intent on going to 13 I didn't notice I rode straight past 15 on my way there (the highest point value MTB control).
After 13 I went to 9 - then noticed I wanted to go to 15 so instead of taking a normal route which involved thinking I went to 15 - missed it because I thought I was on the wrong bridleway and climbed back up to it anyway adding an extra 1.5km.
After this I looked at the map and thought how can I rescue this, the answer was that I couldn't so I got what I could - 19, 16 and 11, taking me to a pitiful score of 155 for my 2hrs42 of effort.
I am actually stupid and should have replanned my entire route instead of going 13,9,15,19,16,11 -you will see how stupid when the maps go up here : http://www.openadventure.com/results.php (under race analysis MTB). Feel free to have a good laugh - my housemates already have :-)
It hurt and I still lost 4 points for my efforts (2mins late) but it made it worth going to 11 instead of 12 by 1 point :-)
So, I had a look at the map when I got back and decided what I would have done if I'd paused and taken a minute to look at other options, heres a comparison:
What I did: 19.8miles - 332m climb
If I'd actually looked I would have gone 15,13,9,4,8,2,5,12,16,19
This route takes up 19.82miles with 382m climb - so thats 0.2 miles further with an extra 50m climb total = 230 points - grand total 440
I can assume that I wouldn't have been more than 10minutes late due to those extra bits so - assuming the maximum lateness that would have left me with a total of 210 for the bike as well...grand total = 420
Isn't hindsight excellent!!
Hmmm I feel there has been some lessons learnt today to carry forward to the next one:
1) Eat a little bit more (was lacking energy for my sprint back)
2)At least look at the MTB map before going running (i.e. with an untired head on)
3)Don't plan routes on the go!!!
Still - an awesome days fun racing, can't wait for February!
1 comments:
I agree with the hindsight bit! I think My dad and I put in a good effort, but our mistake was we didn't plan an escape route home, and the final few checkpoints were quite committing (from 3 to 9 and 15). Ended up 26 minutes late, and lost 130 points (out of 215 running +200 biking)! Wont make that mistake again. Still, a great day. So glad the sun decided to poke its head through the clouds every now and again.
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