I had the pleasure of dragging a first-time rogainer, Hamish Lockett, around the Lindisfun metrogaine by foot. We had figured that given the large map area and possibility of a lot of street running, the winning team would probably be covering somewhere between 30-40 kms, depending on where the big points were spread across the map, and we felt up to the challenge.
Upon collecting the map, it was clear that there were two overarching route options, focusing on either the hills of the Meehan Range or south in the streets of Rosny and Howrah. Hamish and I quickly agreed that we needed to see a few more high scoring controls in the hills for it to be worth our while, especially since he considered his strength to be flat running, not the hills. We ended up with a route which took in most of the big controls in the streets of the south, plus a few of the lone hills of the eastern shore. I was glad to find that some of our competition had decided to head into the hills. It would be interesting to see which option proved best!
The weather was hot and sunny, a pleasant respite from the rain of the past few months. Unfortunately, my Garmin watch insightfully informed me that I was only 2% adapted to the heat, and as we averaged 6min/km in the first hour of the rogaine, it quickly became apparent that managing our bodies throughout the 4 hours was going to be key to a successful run.
We headed south trailing Niko and Jett before traversing around Rosny Hill, past Blundstone Arena and quickly arriving at our southernmost point near Wentworth Park. The journey back north involved some occasionally confusing but mostly straight forward navigation through the numerous tracks of Waverley Park and Flagstaff Gully. Climbing the last obstacle for the day, Natone Hill, we both dealt with some leg cramps (a recurring problem for me while rogaining) before arriving back at the hall with 3 minutes to spare. 32kms with 1000m elevation got us to 38 controls totalling 1880 points, enough to secure 1st for the foot category. Thanks once again to everyone who contributed to the event. It was a fun day out with friends.
by Oskar Bucirde
