Route Report

Ailbhe Creedon has kindly written her route description for her journey around the Long course in Warrenscourt and it is as follows:

Warning: 19 controls in all!

Dropped onto the road early, then along it and down into 1, then along the road to the road/stream junction to 2 (I had no intention of stumbling across the felled area!), out again and along the road and into 3 with an around-the-whole-bush approach before I got to the control, then back out to the path till the junction and turned left till I was thinking it should be visible by now so backtracked a little till I saw the control in a bog and contemplated how to reach it (thanks to the organiser for putting some logs down!), took the path all the way to 5, following the footprints in the tall wet grass into the control.

Retraced my steps back along the path again, and left before the bridge along the teenie weenie path to 6. Back over the bridge and then christened my feet going across the stream (no logs this time!) into 7, back across the stream to the path, then through the forest to 8, 9, 10 and 11 (enjoyed these short legs), back across the stream for my fourth and final time to the path, passing control 3 en route, went along the road, snuck into the right to check if the open area was crossable to shortcut across to road to 12 but didn’t get far before deciding that my legs needed a break from being shredded by undergrowth this week, so back to the road and cut across by control 1 instead, then into 12, out to the road, nearly pulled in a bit too early when saw another runner coming down from control 17 but corrected myself. Saw the little path into 13, then back along the road again and into 14 after the wall and undergrowth ended, along the broken path to 15 and 16, dropped down to 17 which seemed more over to the right than I had expected, then downhill to the road homeward-bound towards 18, jumping in a little too early opposite 1 and doing a bit of scrambling to 18 which appeared to have been thrown into a bush and barely visible! Back along the path to 19, then to the finish and sad to be finished the “cross country” course already!

Wasn’t out of breath enough at the end so will run harder next time to make the top 10! There’s always next year! Enjoyable run –liked the up and down being spread out and the short control legs, with hard-to-see-till-the-last-moment controls! Thanks to all involved in the planning and organising.