On Saturday, the McLuckie family and Eddie Harwood headed to Golden Valley & Cognor Wood in Hampshire for the British Long Championships. It was stunning weather with temperatures reaching 18℃, which added to the challenge on the long, hilly courses. I think all of us were fairly happy with our results on the physically challenging terrain. Eddie had an amazing result on the M70L winning by an impressive margin of nearly 4 minutes! Finlay was beaten into 2nd place on the M14A course by his ScotJos buddy, Finn Selmer-Duguid of Tayside. Kate and Morag finished 6th and 7th in their classes, with Peter also running well on a 9.4km course with 460m of climb! Amazingly we were trying to avoid sun-burn in the beautiful arena while waiting for the prize-giving.
The relays were back in the same Arena on Sunday but visited some different areas, giving faster running (apparently!) Kate and Finlay teamed up with Ellie Darlow from Roxburgh Reivers to win the Junior Adhoc Relay. It was an exciting last leg, with Finlay going off in 2nd position but clocking a 30 minute run for his 3.7km Green course to bring them into first place.
In the Open Short Relay event, Morag & Peter struggled with the "excitement" of the relay and failed to match Eddie's amazing run, with him pulling the team up into 6th place overall.
Overall, a fun weekend of orienteering, with a great atmosphere.
Morag
