Today I competed in the final of the 4 races in the Bivouac Outdoor Rogaine Series held in Woodhill Forest. After a rough week managing injuries I was a bit uncertain about starting but was stoked to finish with a big lead over my rivals.
Check out my GPS route here. I ran just under 13kms to get all the controls for a maximum score of 1200 points. You can check out my heart rate and pace data here. My average heart rate was 176 beats per minute (91% of my max) which means I was pushing hard to keep my pace high, but the areas which were hard to run through allowed my heart rate to drop more than usual. In a race where the running is fast all the time I would expect an average heart rate over 181bpm (93% of my max).
I was pretty sure I would get all of the controls today based on the size of the area used, so I planned for the shortest route and didn’t allow for any cut off near the end. There was a pretty obvious order to do most of the controls and so there was a massive line of runners though the first few controls. Cam Tier started off strong as expected and was totally out of sight in the low-visibility forest between number 34, 49 and 52 (see on my DOMA page). I was a bit worried, but kept focused on my own navigation. Leaving 52 I could also see that I had quite a big gap to the other main contenders. I pushed hard along the road to number 40 and was relieved to see Cam come into view. I passed him on the way to 51 and then extended my lead steadily around my route. He also made a mistake at 54 which gave my lead a good boost.
I was mostly happy with my route but would make the one change below. You can see my GPS track compared to the blue line which I think was actually the best way to do it. Also, everyone I talked to after the race had done these controls in the order shown by the blue line.
What do you think of my route? Comment below if you did something different.
Overall I’m pretty happy with how these 4 rogaines have gone but I think I would have been a bit slower if I was training more. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do many of the hard session set in my training program as I have had a number of injuries in the past few weeks. Bonus is that I always feel quite fresh so have been able to race most of these rogaines at full race pace. I currently have the ice pack (frozen peas) out and on my right knee to promote my speedy recovery and with any luck I will be able to get in a full week of training next week!