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104 Point Novelty Event by Mark Besley

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Impassioned plea - - - Missing several score-cards - and I don't have emails for these folks. Can people with contact details ask them to forward an email with their controls please?

Another impassioned plea - please consider entering the Maxi 3 Hour event - Sunday 16th September - Mass start at 11 am (sleep in and head out for a nice run - then lunch in Daylesford...what a great way to spend a Sunday). See the Maxi Web Page for more information - if interested in entering, submit an entry form or send me an email at the admin link below (or call us on 9888 8121). Course Setter - Ian Stirling, Organiser - Geoff,  Catering - Schon. Entries close today - but we can hold things for a few more days to allow people to avoid late fees....but get in touch soon if you plan to attend...

Oh Mark....I'm sorry, but the experience in Keith's event has turned us all into conniving cheats. While your idea was probably that we would set out from controls 1-5 and run the few hundred metres to the "hidden" controls, our Monday night regulars were too canny for that. By the time I turned up at the map collection area, the pavement surrounding the box looked like a Moslem prayer session was in progress (no offence intended).....although this was unlikely as these people were all huddled in different directions in case somebody peeked over their shoulder. First to leave was Bruce Paterson - and we were later to find out that his was the ultimate in canny-ness (is that a word?).....even without a map, Bruce had worked out the bearing and distance to the collection point and went straight there (I have chastised myself for not taking my own advice to Suzanne - when before the event I advised her to "just follow Bruce...and he'll take you to the collection point").

The OFood newsgroup that many regulars subscribe to was all a-buzz with strategy and tactics - and I noted that my advice was echoed there by one contributor...."Just follow Bruce and claim the 10 points for finding it "unassisted" although Suzanne noted that she should get "....back to reality (because Bruce would be out of sight before I had even looked up from the instructions)... I will just have to make sure I listen properly to Ryordan this time when we find ourselves temporarily geographically embarrassed (ok, completely lost!) - that's if he will
be able to bring himself to go out with me again after last week...". As an incentive to lure people along, Mark put in a last minute bid to get people to come along to the event - offering red wine, chocolate and a bone for Fitz (although I understand that Fitz is just a little annoyed that the latter item was not provided). This did the trick and it was noted that this strategy would favour the female participants as "Apparently females navigated much better in a trial if food is the destination/purpose ....".

As you'll note from the scores, several folks simply ran the 20 control score course that was visible on the map - this saved them 10-12 minutes that it took to get to the map area and work out control locations. Ian Davies tried to get to one of the controls and blew it...so dropped back to a normal score course. Keith Anker was concentrating so much on the map (I could hear him pace-counting from 50 metres back...), that he walked into the back of a parked car and set the burglar alarm off! As I passed a pedestrian who witnessed it - he couldn't believe that somebody had just walked straight into a stationary vehicle (reminds me of the Irish joke about why Irish dogs have flat faces...)...strangely, nobody came out to investigate the noise - one really must wonder about the value of such devices.

Thanks to Ilze for bringing the cake this evening - today was Peter Yeate's birthday (and as he's reluctant to tell us how old he is, we've decided to cut him in half and count rings on Wednesday evening). The banana cake was scrumptious and combined with the red wine (but no bone/chocolates)...it went down very nicely after the event. I'm told that the anti-oxidants in red wine assist recovery after a run - I wonder if we could invent a new sports drink out of this stuff?

Other Highlights

• Jun got back on time - that's two weeks in a row ;-) (Thanks Jun).
• Welcome to John and Jenny attending their first event in our series (although I think we may have treated them as regulars and forgot to brief them on how to record the controls they visited - sorry).
• Ray Howe forgot to pass his control card in and then suddenly remembered about 20 past 8. Shame really..(although this could be a dangerous move on my part as Ray will certainly get his own back when the Summer Series starts in 6-8 weeks).

Comments from Participants

I had warned Ian to "do his homework" - to read the instructions carefully and think about strategy for the event. As I arrived home, there was already an email waiting for me with the Greenwood comments on the event - all it contained was the line "I must do my homework" - repeated 100 times.

Results