After the excitement of the recent snow and ice, we were all relieved that the chance to run on such a lovely clear and sunny morning proved to be a tempting option. Whilst the ground was rather heavy underfoot Max’s courses made good use of this area. A number of runners were overheard commenting that they hadn’t realised how physical the area could be.

Additional markers were put out to direct runners to the start after it became apparent that initially the route was not entirely clear. My apologies to those of you who were affected but I trust this did not detract from your enjoyment of the courses.

Having use of the club house gave the event a very comfortable and pleasant base. The possibility of a post run hot sandwich may well have been an added incentive to your run.

My sincere thanks to Peter for his invaluable guidance and assistance, to Max for his calm and thorough planning, and to Mark for providing the coaching session.

Last, but definitely not least, a very big thank you to all of the LEI members who helped on the day. Without your help this event would not have been possible, I appreciate that whilst the sun shone there was still a wintery chill in the air.

Alison Hardy

Planning this event was quite a challenge as I have not planned an event like this for 20 years but it was good with the support from Peter. The main challenges in planning this event was the weather conditions as most of the preparation for this event was done in the snow and it is amazing how different an area can look in those conditions. I had problems with the Yellow course as I was very limited in the area I chose to use it really turned out to be a longer White although it did improve with help from Peter at the other end of the scale the brown course was a challenge to get in the length on a single map without repeating to many route choices.

Having spent a good time running around the area it was good to see that we will soon be able to add some detailed areas not yet mapped that will provide some interesting alternative control locations.

I hope most people enjoyed themselves and thanks to Peter, Mark, Alison all seemed to run smoothly.

Max Cole

January events can be difficult with limited time for control placement and checking, little time for lost competitors at the event end, and unpredictable weather.

The weather of course, was a delight, it shone most of the day. But it meant that most of the pre event field work was in thick snow, or ice. The use of the social club not only gives us a dry and warm base but also gives a lovely social aspect to the event, complete with great refreshments. Thanks to the Bagworth Club for keeping us social and providing an endless supply of bacon butties.

Alison and her helpers gave us a very smooth organisation, many thanks to you all. Everyone seemed to get their run and enjoy it.

We had to have a good look at the map in the weeks leading up to the event as many areas had grown up. This restricted some of the sites that were available, or fair, to use on the day. However Max's courses needed very little attention as he provided excellent drafts. The only foreseen problem was that having the start close to the village, meant that the yellow course would be either too short or too long, obviously we went for too short, but what we got on the day was too wet! My apologies for those who wanted to get their feet dry.

The 'stepping stones' or rock scramble was inspected many times during the snow and ice prior to the event, and at those times was crossable with care. On my safety check on Saturday afternoon, I found the first part to be 10 inches underwater! The snow melt had played havoc with the senior courses. By doing a bit of gardening, a safe but difficult route was made. By 9am on Sunday the waters, despite overnight rain, were well down but still above normal. So I decided that we could cross but we would warn competitors. The warning notices were enough to make runners cross with care or to run round. I will be adding some short video clips of the best and worst of the action! Call back for the link please.

I would wholeheartedly recommend Alison and Max for future events (sorry guys).

Thanks to you all for making the day pass without incident and for foregoing the competing nearby events. I had a wonderful day and I hope you all did.

Peter Hornsby

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Some photographs courtesy of the controller, Peter Hornsby