When planning or organising one often has to fly by the seat of your pants. This is usually meant in the metaphorical sense but when putting controls out on Saturday it was quite literal. Conditions in the pick and mix area in the afternoon were quite phenomenal. Several spectaculars spring to mind - Losing my footing above an inclined slab and sliding down it on my front but upright. Taking my foot off a kite for a couple of seconds only to see soar up more than 50 ft and disappear over the horizon. Best was on the hill 107 and being hurled about 15 ft Eastward down the gently sloping rain soaked grass on my front, doing a fair impression of a Jurgen Klinsmann goal celebration. However, with a bit of help from the organiser I got all of the control markers in place before dark.
After much deliberation the courses evolved. I kept the early pick and mix selection of controls as at the 2009 event and then added cross country legs to produce something like a W21E course, i.e. the B course. From there I added a loop and a few variations to make the A. It seemed only right that all competitors experience a similar type of event so I progressively reduced and varied the basic course till I got to the F course. This just managed to incorporate the pick and mix before returning to the Finish. It all seemed to work. Routegadget shows that the long leg on A, B and C offered interesting choices. For the pick and mix I went for a distorted matrix. This was successful because there was no consensus as the best way to go round. I had hoped to lure some competitors to the SW control (108) as their first one but it looks like everyone went to 105. They might have gone to 108 if it had been 150m to the South.
Many thanks to everyone who helped to make the event a success, and to the competitors for turning out on a dreadful weekend. Particular mention to Dave for his relaxed and confident organising and David and Miriam for keeping me on the straight and narrow. They put right a couple mistakes I made in the stressful conditions on the Saturday afternoon. They were controls that we knew needed a close look at again but the weather conditions were not conducive to the careful consideration required.
Better than all that Sprint-O and Park-O? And less dangerous too. I hear that someone broke leg at the Penrith event, though we did have someone with a cut hand that needed stitches.
Here’s to the next Tim Watkins Trophy in 2013!
Brian Jackson