Ironman day meant no time for running. It has been a bit frantic getting ready for this event. Last minute work committments ate up a substantial part of what I thought would be free evening time.
I had been concentrating on finishing the map and this meant the actual event logistics received less attention than it merited. As a result:
1 Stuffed up the handicaps something shocking.
2 Had two runners head out with the wrong maps. Sorry Bryan and Don.
Could only pull it off because of help from Creaky and Matthew Brownes dad. Thanks. Also thanks to Jymbo, Clara, Dave and Jools who collected the 48 control stands. Large numbers of controls are a feature of this format. They got them in much quicker than the 2.5 hours it took me to get them out.
The other minor disappointment was the small numbers. It clashed with WOC, so we were missing a couple of last years runners. The location in Maldon meant many Bendigo members stayed in town. Sad as we had four people from Ballarat, one from Werribee and three from Melbourne. With twenty minutes ot start time it wasn't looking all that good, with myself, Jools, Creaky, John and Schwepps. And two of them were injured.
But the high points outweighed the numbers. In no particular order my highlights were:
1 Matthew Browne completing the hard course solo (and I mean HARD).
2 General happiness with the orientshow format
3 Map being generally up to useable standard
4 Complements to the terrain, in particular from Oxoman who correctly perceived that the potential of the area was bound to appeal to my worst instincts (or something along that line). See his log. Liked the description of clay sand dune terrain.
5 Penalising Liggo's handicap a couple of times for poor acting. In retrospect, this was probably the no. 1 highlight.
There is a collection of photos on the club website. Link from there to Picasaweb. The routes are up on the club route gadget site at the request of Bruce.
Thoughts for next year.
1. On a Sunday.
2. Same map, with some upgrading.
3. Orientshow style courses again.
4. Sportident.
5. That means some form of pre-entry unfortunately (course variations)
6. Vastly simplified handicaps. Sending runners of in blocks of 6-12
Crucial is getting a sensible date. This event attracts a niche market, and you know hwo you are. So what would be a suitable date. I have indicated August-September again.
Afterthought. Todays terrain looks more fun than the WOC sprint terrain. And given Troy's result, he might have had more fun being at the ironman this year.