Silver in British Sprint Champs

Photo Rob Lines

Today the British Sprint Champs were held near Brighton on the south coast. After a pretty terrible winter and early spring, I have finally managed to start to get some running training together, but as this week was really busy in university and I also moved house, it has been a bit stressful! Anyway, I was looking forward to the champs, as I seem to be running ok, and you never know what will happen in the championships situation. I felt really good to start with in the qualification, when the orienteering was more important than the running, I was flying! The latter sections required a bit more leg speed and there was some climb - that is when my body started to struggle, but I managed to win my heat. Perhaps pushing a little harder than I needed to in retrospect.

Results here

Routegadget here

For the final I was quite aggressive, going out hard. The first half was again very tricky and the orienteering speed was more important than the running. After 8 minutes and 17 controls I had had a perfect race and was in the lead by 24 seconds. Then the course changed character, with longer legs and more route choice (and a big climb back to the finish). I started to struggle a bit, and made one bad route choice decision (15 seconds). With 4 (simple) controls to go I was in joint 1st with Murray, but he destroyed me over the last 300m to win by 9 seconds and take his first title. Ralph Street took a creditable 3rd place, with Oli Johnson only 1 second behind. Really good area, map and course, and fantastic weather! I have some vest shaped sunburn now...

Happy with the performance and the result, considering my lack of running this year.

Results

Routegadget