A good turnout - 32 people	Atomic powered Lauris - reactor on standby	Rick tries to get a hint from our course setter	Bryan - still happy at this stage

Wasn't it terrific weather for a run last night - and 32 people turned out to take part in our 2nd training event during the winter season. Ian Greenwood was the course-setter and he had given the event format some considerable thought. The idea was that participants should collect the first letter from street signs at each control point and then use the letters collected to build the longest/highest scoring word possible. We waited the mandatory extra minute or so for Peter Maloney but alas, still no sign of him. Late-comers tonight included Bruce and Bernie - fortunately Schon was still around to provide maps/pencils.

There was much discussion about long words but nobody managed to get Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia or Sesquipedalophobia - meaning fear of long words. In fact nobody got Logophobia (fear of words) either - mainly because there were no letter O's on the course and only one blank. There was a V and a B on the course and for a while verbophobia (fear of verbs - apparently those afflicted with this malady seek refuge in large bureaucracies, the public service or Telstra) seemed a possibility but the O's just weren't there to be had.

As I searched out all of these words this evening, I began to realise why many of us run - power-walking is obviously a VERY scary pastime!  There are at least four different phobias covering walking - ambulophobia or basophobia - fear of walking and stasibasiphobia or stasiphobia- fear of standing (e.g. at a control) or walking. Interestingly, there are NO phobias about running - I suppose because if there were we would just run away from them...

What happened to Bryan? As I left 9 to head around to 10, Bryan passed me and was running well at that stage. Those of you who went from 3 to 9 or vice versa will have seen the ramps on the pavement - they transform a potentially boring flat ramp into more interesting undulating terrain (I saw no point in going higher than I needed to and took my chances on the roadway). Apparently, Bryan had run a couple of these already and didn't spot the steps at the entry to the 3rd ramp. He tripped on the first step and hit his knee on the riser of the next - splitting the skin to the patella. He made his way back to the start and some of the early finishers looked after him and took him to nearby Maroondah Hospital. As at 11pm Bryan was checked in for an overnight stay in hospital, was comfortable and waiting for inspection by a surgeon before they patch him up (just in case there was an injury to the knee). Thanks to Tanya and Gary Paynter, David Beard and Marta for looking after him so well.

Well the evening was about making words up - and there was lots of interest as Ian typed the scores into his laptop (see below). Some of the words that I managed to record were:

The total set of letters is shown below - we'll present prizes for the longest and highest scoring words from this evening's event next week (we will of course help you eat them after the event). I'll make an additional prize for the post-event submission of the best word - from the letters below - for Bryan. I note that from the letters I collected (left out 13, 14 and 20), one could make 'screaming' although when I discussed this with Bryan he thought that cursing (not possible) or swearing (OK)....although I now note that blaspheming is actually possible for someone with the legs to get out to number 20. Submit your entries by return mail - I'll provide a high-score table and update it daily.

Results