Friday, February 12, 2010

7. Studley Park - Fairfield

Another visit with my son to the Wednesday night event. The course was based around Studley Park and Yarra Bend and was pretty flat as far as the shortest course goes. I can see from the map there would be hillier sections of the course, particularly south of the Yarra if running a longer course, but conditions were good for us. There was heavy rain in Melbourne during the afternoon, but this had stopped by the start of the event.


There was a large turnout to the event, almost 200. This was inflated by the presence of a couple of school teams from Scotch and Camberwell Grammar that apparently compete occasionally.



The E-course consisted of 6 controls. We could have headed south over the Yarra and gone to the four controls there before finishing with #3 & #5. That area was steeper though and Scott wanted to cross over the Eastern Freeway (for novelty value) so we headed east to the river for #3 then north towards the freeway, picking up 5 – 13 – 19 on the way. Then under the freeway to #12, back over the freeway to finish with #1 and home. It took about an hour as his pace was quite slow, but it was an educational walk.



He got to work out whether it was worthwhile to follow paths or cut through open land, particularly when we had sports ovals to cross. He got to see a storm water outlet into the river, the underneath of the freeway, and cars travelling along the freeway from high above, things he wouldn’t normally experience. We got to see the city buildings from unique angles in great lighting conditions that wouldn’t be seen without walking around different areas of Melbourne. So from that point of view, it’s becoming of great benefit. I’m not sure whether I should submit and let him bring a camera in future as I’d like him to focus more on the navigation, but perhaps for now, I will let him take in the ‘being outdoors’ experience.

It would have been an enjoyable course to run, I think. For the 12-control C-course, the best course would probably be 5 – 13 – 19 – 12 – 14 – 17 – 4 – 18 – 8 – 10 – 15 – 1. Although I may have been hasty in the beginning and headed to #3, and then leave out #8 or #15 on the run home.

We should make the Blackburn South event next week. I was looking forward to the following week at Camelot Rise as I spent 20 years growing up around those streets and going to primary school there. Looks like we’ve got a school information night that clashes so will have to miss it this time.

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