This is the second summer league event that has been held using the sprint map of Loughborough University. Hopefully, competitors enjoyed the format of using the time in the Prologue to create a chasing start. Although ultimately the results were produced by combining times, it meant that the first home on the Medium and Long courses were the course winners.

Thanks to a great deal of work by the mapper, Peter Hornsby, the Prologue was held on an area that has not been used before, so it was new to everyone. This was largely on the student village halls of residence. It is an area with many small building blocks and paths, and so is quite intricate and therefore essential to keep good contact with the map. The area is also on a good slope, so although short, the course contained quite a bit of climbing and descent.

The Medium and Long (chasing) courses were largely on the area that was used last year, amongst the East Park academic buildings and the Student Union. The size of this area allows for a good run around without any repetition around parts of the map. I work at the University and so was able to spend spare moments looking at the courses and checking things out. However, this summer there is a great deal of construction work going on including a pipeline being driven right through the area of the map. This meant a certain amount of planning around it, but also constant checking of the location of temporary fences. As it was, the map was only finalised 5 days before the event, but still at least one further fence appeared unexpectedly.

I very much enjoyed planning and organising this event, though it was quite hectic on the night as it was well attended, and due to the need to organise the chasing start. Fortunately, we had enough maps and there seemed to be a good “buzz” in the car park as competitors came back. Finally, thanks to Mark Foxwell for producing the results.

Bob Haskins.