10. Westgarth - Fairfield

A flat course and accomodating weather was a nice change from recent weeks.  The course offered more busy roads than normal - usually there's no more than one major road, most have none. The Westgarth map is set in a fairly built up area and the start/finish area was located right at the train station. There would need to be some decisions about how to cross the railway line also. There were 6 crossings in total, but really only 4 in play, one of which was a pedestrian overpass at the station.

At first, the route seemed quite simple. I decided to cross the track immediately and head to the north-east part of the course. There were 4 controls there and I could get them all in a nice loop heading down towards the track again. After I did, I worked out the rest of the route to take in 7 more controls. They very much jumped out at me. It was quite obvious which controls to get, so it was just a matter of concentrating on running. In order to avoid crossing across the track and back another time, I would need to get 7 -- 19, but they didn't lead well into the finish, so the pair of 20 -- 2 was the best option.

The flat course help me run pretty much the whole way, with a couple of stops to regain bearings and plan the next section, but I can see improvement in my stamina. Looking at the map now, I can see I could've possibly done #2 at the beginning and finished with 20, but I'm not sure it would've made much difference. I finished 3rd for the C-course, but at least 3 minutes behind the first two runners.

Looking at the map, route selection didn't seem to be an issue for any of the courses, with clear options for everyone. I do appreciate the effort the course-setters go to in planning each event and it's clearly not an easy job all the time. Maybe combined with the flat terrain, this made the event not one of the most challenging one, but still, everyone still has the chance to make it as competitive as they like.

Yallambie next week. There's bound to be more off-road running with the proximity to Plenty River. And only a month of events to finish up the summer series.

9. Eley Park - Blackburn South

A score event tonight and I wanted us to walk for longer than the 40 minutes limit set for the E-course. So I suggest we try the Power Walkers sections. That would give us an hour of walking where we could get probably 6 controls rather than just 3-4 that the shorter format would offer. That was received well. There was about 200 competitors tonight, so by the time all the runners left, we'd been waiting around a while.

Of course, with a Score event, we're looking for the higher numbered controls to get. We started with a plan to take in the area directly north & east of the start/finish. That would take in 1 -- 20 -- 14 -- 19 -- 13 -- 6. By the time we'd crossed into #20 in the school, I thought we may not make it back in time if we headed out to #14 at this point. So I suggested heading west towards 15 -- 18 -- 12. That way, there was more chance to see whether we could get one more on the way home based on the time. Ideally, we could take the detour to #17, but #8 was a final option also.

By the time we got down to the road heading home, we debated whether it was worth getting #17 based on how many points we'd gain vs potentially losing points for being late. We decided to get #8 instead, which was a shorter detour. I left the decision to Scott as to whether we make the detour or not. We probably would've returned within the time limit had we headed straight home, but he decided to do the extra walk anyway. He figured we'd only be a couple of minutes late and we were enjoying the walk, so he was happy with losing the point. It turned out to be 5 minutes late, but he wasn't concerned.

In hindsight, we probably should've taken our initial route heading east, and be back in time. I'll try to give Scott more autonomy in the decision making process and try to act as a chaperone more.

During the course, we were asked no less than 3 times by locals what everyone was doing running around with maps. So three times, I was able to explain a little about Street Orienteering and that it runs 4 nights per week. I was eager to continue walking, but I probably could've kept 'selling' it if we weren't on a time limit. Maybe a blog in the future will include some thoughts about marketing to passsers-by at the actual event.