Wednesday night entertainment

Last night's run was from the posh bit of Cheshire, Mobberley. A navigating event organized by the Manchester orienteering club. As with the previous two events I'd done, you got a choice of being out for 60mins or 90mins. I thought 60mins of running would suffice. The organizer promised that it wouldn't be as 'hilly' as normal but there was a good network of paths and tracks and plenty of choice of controls to visit. Just what the Doctor ordered then for post-Wasdale recovery.

A long briefing session before the off, which boiled down to 'don't upset the locals, as we won't be invited back!' I'd already recce'd the start/finish area and decided that the field behind the pub was a 'no-go' area due to presence of cows with calves. The map is a version of the 1:25 OS map, scaled up to approx 1:16. We got given a minute to look at the map to plan our route and then off we went. A definite lack of contour lines evident, the controls seemed quite spread out and there was lots of fields with the potential for livestock.

Was doing ok up to 30mins, then I made a bit of a duff choice to go to one control, which I abandoned as I couldn't find a way through a load of brambles and hedgerow for the ROW/footpath. This meant a change of route which ultimately lead to (yes, you've guessed it) a field of cows. Big and little black and white ones, about 30 of them all standing on the footpath halfway down the field. The footpath ran along the edge of the field so I tried to make a wide sweep to avoid them, but they started to charge towards me. So I turned round and sprinted back to the gate (painful). When safely behind the metal, I turned round to find they'd disappeared! Unbeknown to me they'd cut through the hedge, into the neighbouring field having been 'spooked' by a runner coming the opposite way across the field. He said they were friendly, and a bit playful. Didn't look exactly playful when they were charging at me!

Well the 'playful' bit cost me a point, as all this toing-froing meant I arrived back late to the finish. Will await the results to see how every one else coped, I certainly didn't manage to visit as many controls as the previous two events, at least I've got Wasdale as an excuse + the 'friendly' cows.

TF