It was inevitable that on home ground Bivouac Southerly Storm would make up the 9-point deficit to MacNut Northerners and move into the lead. It did so with a vengeance, moving ahead by 41-points; but necessary to withstand the last two rounds in Waikato and Auckland.
Acheron is near Lake Coleridge in the Canterbury foothills, and is mostly covered by wilding pines. “Wilding” means they seeded themselves as opposed to being planted, and this means the tree density and visibility fade in and out. And there isn’t a roading system. With softly folding contours, this means you can’t be really sure of exact positioning (and the less humble have suggested the mappers couldn’t eitherJ)
Those who have run there before did better, although Chris Forne was always
going to be good. Aaron Prince was annoyed with his run, but fewer mistakes
than the others gave him a good second much to his surprise; and Brent Edwards
likewise handled conditions well for third place and the best of the non-locals.
Familiarity might have helped Rachel Smith in her battle with Tania Robinson who
was pushed down to fifth behind Smith, Sara Wallen, Penny Kane and Rebecca Smith.
Craigmore SW of Timaru is a treeless limestone plateau with randomly scattered sinkholes; but below the rim it has slopes with discontinuous reentrants and random large boulders hidden in patchy but passable scrub. Another quite unusual terrain type. The length turned out not to be middle-distance after all: planner Chris Forne needed 45-50min to give competitors a bit of plateau, a loop along the slopes and back onto the top. But he broke a rule: putting his trust in the computer’s calculation of course length. Someone had entered the scale wrong in OCAD, and the lengths were actually 50% longer!
It was too late to replan the courses, and competitors were advised the day before. So although it wasn’t the race they thought they were getting, it was a fair competition. In W21E the top three women rearranged themselves and Robinson improved to 4th. With Forne off the list Prince had another good day to take M21E, ahead of Neil Kerrison. Michael Smithson had the run of his career to place third.
The absence of Karl Dravitzki who is organising a share-milking contract in Taranaki
meant that Forne would stay at the top in spite of his day off. And although Tania
Robinson is one point ahead of Rachel Smith on gross, the latter has edged ahead on
best 6 out of 9 – the lowest three scores are dropped. Major beneficiaries from the
round were Sara Wallen who moved up from 7th to 3rd, Neil Kerrison 6th to 3rd; and
Aaron Prince who leapt a whopping ten places to sit one point behind Kerrison
(actually in front on best 6/9).
With two more rounds (World Champs Trials and two races from the QB3 Event) there are effectively two competitions. Forne vs Dravitski and Rachel Smith vs Robinson for the lead; and the squabble for third. 7 points covers 6 men led by Prince and Kerrison, though Prince will miss the next round in favour of an adventure race in Sweden. And Sara Wallen (also adventure racing) can be caught by 3 women within a span of 5 points. Hold on for the ride…
Check out the full results and the points table. The next round of the series will be contested near Hamilton and Auckland (the NZ team selection trials) on 7/8 May.