Bollington - Where's Wally

It's common knowledge that you should do a reccie of the course before you race it - especially if you live near the course. This means you can pick the best lines and you know where the hills are. It also means you don't get lost.

I didn't reccie this course (despite living pretty close) and I made the mistake of assuming the four runners in front of me knew where they were going. Unfortunately, three of them were making a similar assumption and the one at the front was a bit uncertain. Anyway, it was a lovely detour and made the race slightly more challenging. We got back on to the right course after a while, but found we were joining the group of runners that we had left behind.

In the end I think I finished about 8th. Those who beat me included: the four who were ahead of me when we went wrong, Simon Bailey - who didn't go wrong and was too far ahead of everyone for us to follow him - and a few people that I couldn't catch after our extra loop.

Using similar statistics to those being applied by our politicians to describe their party's performance in the election: if I assume our detour was about 3 miles, I would probably have won had I not gone wrong. I told Simon Bailey this at the end, and got a laugh.