planetFear Open5+
Top Bananas in Coniston
Chris Morgan / 18.05.2010
The trip down to Coniston went quickly, partly because we had to leave at some god-forsaken time in the morning which meant the roads were empty, but mostly because we were wondering what James would have in store for us. We had been expecting a normal Open 5 style score event, with a special stage thrown in; but some of the updates from James had us wondering. He mentioned that one of the special stages was 'a bit full on', and we'd get points if only one of the pair did it. Normally this is reserved for the 'trouser fillers'!
We were also wondering whether we'd brought enough warm clothes - going over Shap summit it was raining and the car was beeping to warn us that it was below 3 degrees. We were expecting it to be sunny and mild!
Fortunately the weather in the Lake District was much better, with sun pretty much all day!
When we had arrived and collected the maps we discovered that the event was going to be anything but a normal Open 5. There was to be a mass start, followed by a trail run. There was then some orienteering, which was labelled as 'tough', and had the added 'zing' that each category had a separate set of 4 controls to get. The controls weren't labelled, only 4 could be dibbed, and for every wrong control dibbed, 30 points were lost.
This meant that there was the possibility of losing 120 points!
There was a short kayaking stage, followed by a MTB stage, which included the special stages (the male pairs did the kayaking & MTB stages in the reverse order).
Looking at the map I thought it looked clearable, and was planning how to do that, but was brought back to reality by Anna who pointed out that her 6 month secondment had taken the edge off her fitness, and that it would probably be best to avoid biting off more than we could chew, … and to make sure that we got back on time
The mass start was my first for a while, and everyone hammered off while Anna and I plodded along toward the back trying not to get over excited. This paid off, and we started over-taking people again toward the end of the trail run. Arriving at the orienteering I handed over the map and compass to Anna - my orienteering tends to involve running quickly in the wrong direction, which is not recommended when there is the potential to score120 points. Anna did a sterling job, and we (she) found the right CPs relatively easily, and headed back off to transition for the kayaking.
For the kayaking we got to use the lovely yellow sit-on-tops. Woo-hoo! It had been a long time since I'd paddled one, and having got a decent boat in the mean-time I'd forgotten how un-rewarding they are to paddle! It seems as if the harder you paddle the slower they go. Still it was a lovely day, and the views from Coniston water more than made up for the slow paddling. The stage was mercifully short, and we went back to transition for the bike stage.See All Event Posts
