A good turnout of Reivers enjoyed the lovely Forest of Dean over Easter Weekend. The sun shone and both Assembly areas were nice. Day 1 was definitely a route-choice sort of day with a deep-sided valley and lots of path options. The majority of the forest was very pleasant but there were bits of bramble and brashings to slow down the short-legged runners. Day 2 was even nicer with large sections of flat beech forest but a tricky section on most courses early on caught a few people out.

There were mixed fortunes for the club but Douglas T and John managed to rise above the dross to finish 2^nd on M20E and 3^rd on M50L respectively. Douglas H had a good run on Day 1 but his sore foot gave him some trouble on Day 2. James had a reasonable run on Day 1 but twisted his ankle on Day 2. Jim admits to having jogged round “most” of Day 2 as it was so nice underfoot. Andrew got disqualified for not punching the last control properly on Day 1. Ian Maxwell managed to do something similar on Day 2. Who hates Emit ? There were huge queues at download on Day 1 as the generator kept breaking down. At least it was warm and sunny in the queue. Andrew also managed to pick up 2 gigantic blisters on his feet on Day 2 despite having had his innov8’s for over a year.

Jim and I went for a walk on the Monday so we missed the Relays but our two teams of Sarah, Karen, Kirstin and Eileen, Ian, Rob did well. The girls were 6^th in the women’s –48 class and the seniors finished 18^th from 100 teams on Ad Hoc.

Results here

The weather forecast was for high winds and snow, and a warning of possible cancellation was posted.  On the day however only Carol and Douglas H found any real snow as they crossed the border from Englandshire.  At Pitmedden the sun shone for most of the time but there was a bitterly strong wind so there was little incentive to stand and blether.

There was a catalogue of minor cock-ups by some RR’s, some even before they had started.  Andrew A mislaid his dibber, hired a fresh one then found his own in his jacket sleeve.  John didn’t bring the right socks then picked up the wrong map at the Start losing several minutes.  Carol mispunched and was gutted but luckily it didn’t cost us a place in the final.

The results are here.  The team score was 1192 points, only 61 points behind FVO and 20 points behind ESOC.  If Carol hadn’t mispunched she would have scored 74 points and we would have Won !   Well actually 2 FVO’s also mispunched so there are a few “if onlys”.  Anyway, FVO, ESOC and ourselves are in the final which is being held near Mansfield, Nottingham on 14 October.  John will be in touch nearer the time.  Well done everyone.

Lindsey and Jim spent last weekend competing in the Trofeo Costa Calida in Spain, the 3rd time they’ve run in the competition. This year’s event was held about 15 miles from where Lindsey’s parents currently live so the digs were quite handy.

Having won for the previous 2 years Lindsey was quite keen to win again but the competition looked a bit tougher with some of the good W40’s from 2006 moving up, then Lindsey acquired another coughing bug on the day they flew out!

The warm up jog to the start on Day 1 confirmed that tactics would need to be accuracy rather than speed for Lindsey, Jim would just be doing his own brand of jogging and fast walking (he escaped feeling poorly until after the event). The area proved to be quite rocky and scrubby but a clean round for Lindsey meant a surprise winning lead of 16 minutes ! Jim finished in 12th on M55, with no A and B categories.

Day 2 is a chasing start on a short course and with a 16 minute lead Lindsey knew a safe round would bag it. 34 minutes for 2.6k was good enough to win the day by 2 minutes for an overall win by 18 minutes. Jim pulled up a place to 11th and was quite pleased with his run.

The weather was into the 20’s both days, the scenery spectacular, the organisation friendly and efficient. Jim likes the unlimited free coke, fanta and cereal bars. The splits reveal what we’ve seen in the past – the Spanish W45’s are prone to blowing their runs with one or two huge errors otherwise the times would have been much closer.