Wilmot's Pool

A view from the hills

On arrival I was met by very cheerful parking attendants. "Hows' this for a view!" said an enthusiastic Tony Milroy, and with the hills in their Autumn colours and South Wales in clear sight, who would disagree? But despite the sunshine there was a chilly wind and I opted to put an extra layer under my mesh QO top. And so off on my blue course.

I'd actually used this path [on my bike] less than 24 hours earlier

Quickly up the first path, and high-stepping over heather through controls 1 and 2 and then on the paths down towards control 3, where a handful of others were also converging. Trying to get away from the pack, I left control 3 in the wrong direction but quickly realised and set off downhill. An awkward scramble across the stream at the bottom and up to follow the indirect path. I'd actually used this path less than 24 hours earlier on yesterday's mountain bike event and found it as nice to run down as it was to ride down.

I saw control 4 from some distance away - so far it had been easy. But control 5 was less straightforward requiring a bit of contouring around the spur. I got this wrong, ending up a bit too low but fortunately I counted the paces so didn't overshoot.

Then the long leg from control 5 to control 6 - 1km distance, 100m climb and 150m descent in this leg alone! I went via the paths south of the straight line - at the time I saw no other decent option, but talking to others afterwards there was a less obvious but more direct route north. So the planner caught me out there. But the split results show I was fast on this leg, so perhaps my route was better anyway.

I tried to impress everyone by keeping a slow run going uphill. I don't think anyone was fooled

My first mistake was at control 7, which I missed on the first pass, and lost a couple of minutes relocating and going back down to find it. I thought I saw someone ahead which inspired me to pick up the pace through control 8 and onto 9 but again on control 9 I missed. I'd carefully pace counted but I'd opted to contour across and I must have drifted downhill. I only got there on my 3rd pass, having lost more minutes.

Now homeward bound, I managed to keep running most of the 100m climb up and over the hill fort before dropping onto the next control. But the last two legs included another 100m climb. I started to see others as the courses converged, so I tried to impress everyone by keeping a slow run going uphill, but I don't think anyone was fooled.

It was then a slow walk up through the final control. Roger Craddock said to me afterwards I was an impressive figure running in to the finish flag, but the reality was I walked most of the last leg. I'll look forward to seeing this on Routegadget to see if there are any other route options I missed at the time.

A good orienteer's course - very physical, but the navigation wasn't straightforward. A great day to be out on the hill.

- Richard Sansbury

Message to the event team

Many thanks for your excellent help today in making the event a real success. We had 106 competitors in total, a much higher number than I expected given that many people were away at Remembrance events. Everyone seemed to be smiling and said that they had enjoyed their day.

Thank you.

- Ray Toomer (Organiser)

Graham meets his match

Green course champion Graham Hartley was the 12th starter on his course at Wilmot's Pool (the runners started roughly two minutes apart) and by the end of the race had overtook seven of them! You can see this from the graph produced from Splitsbrowser - Graham's is the light green line; time progresses downwards in this graph...!

One runner that proved elusive was the one who started just two minutes ahead of Graham, Ian Whitehead. The Derwent Valley OC man never felt Graham breathing down his neck as he enjoyed no less than a 90 seconds cushion at each control. But Graham did run the course 5 seconds quicker than Ian.

Steve Robertson went even better- the 20th runner to set off, by the end he had overtaken a dozen runners, nearly half the field!

In contrast, the course winner Devon OC's Tom Perry ran alone for much of the race- but then he was the only the second person to start. Tom won the race by 15 seconds over Steve, with the 'lead' changing hands three times.

Who have I been racing?

Like what you've seen above and want to put a name to the runners you've encounter out in the forest? Here's how you use Splitsbrowser...

• open up the event in Routegadget
• click the Splitsbrowser icon (a red and white icon on the top right hand menu bar)
• find your course then select your name
• choose 'Race Graph' under 'View'
• then click on 'Crossing Runners'

You can now see those who were running the same leg on the same course as you at any one time.