Urban Orienteering race 36:00 [4] 6.4 km (5:37 / km) +110m 5:11 / km
BOK Blast Urban Race: Bath. MSV 4.5km 110m. 13th 35|:35 (Philip Eeles 29:54).
A bit of a downer really - more off pace than thought I would be, although pleased to be running at all! Warming up, had been uncertain whether would start, but during last few minutes, muscle spasms and knee pain eased off, so decided to give it a go.
Steady through first three (nice route choice on #3), picked best line for #4, but found alleyway blocked by locked gate. Had to double back, going round and losing around 45 secs. Also lost another 15 secs on #6 as hadn't properly looked at it, turned down wrong road still trying to settle down. OK on multi-level at #8, although map wrong, stopped for 10s on bridge at #9 as failed to spot stairs off. Only other technical issue from then on was at #12, where went across river as thought could drop onto path by railway bridge at end of out of bounds, but had to go beyond and come back. Otherwise, problem became one of endurance, dropping badly off pace from #16 onwards, and losing a minute between there and finish.
Disappointed organisers didn't void leg #3-#4: apparently it wasn't locked, but had obviously jammed shut as I wasn't the only one to find they couldn't get through (I shook it hard!); one or two had got through earlier, others got through later. Looks like Gavin lost race because of this, so definitely affected results significantly! From personal point of view though, I know what I did, and result would have been poor whatever, so write it off as one to learn from rather than fight over spirit of fair play etc.