Posted on 28/02/2016 by Chris Stevenson
My wife, Dianne, and I competed in the Lane Cover river 6 hour event in 1995 and yesterday I fronted up for another go. What has changed?
- My wife, now with 2 children and dodgy knees, is not really up for a 6 hr rogaine, so I had a change of partners and this time I was competing as a Men’s Veteran, with Chris Cunningham, rather than an open mixed team.
- In 1995 my team beat 82% of teams, yesterday my team beat 78% of teams
- In 1995 my team beat every women’s team and were the 7th mixed team. Yesterday our score was bettered by 3 women’s team and 7 mixed teams.
- In 1995 the event was held in April and the max temperature was 21.4 yesterday the max temperature was 26.7.
- I am probably about as fit (not very) and as heavy as I was 21 years ago as well (although the weight may have moved around a bit :<) .
- Yesterday the map was drawn on computer and we had electronic scoring, 21 years ago the map was drawn by hand and we used punch cards.
- Yesterday’s course was smaller than 21 years ago and it was nice feeling yesterday to get to more than 2/3 of all controls available.
- My wife and I covered approx 32 klms 21 years ago in 6 hours, yesterday we covered 30 but had a course that took in more bush and less road
It seemed to me that there were more teams running the event yesterday. It might be my imagination, but I think I see many more women competitors running than I did 21 years ago. Also I must call out Mike Hotchkis who finished 8th overall in 1995 and finished 5th overall yesterday, now competing as a super veteran. I strongly suspect that Mike will near the top of the leaderboard if this event is held again in 2037.
The Lane Cove river valley and much of the course has not changed much over the last 21 years. There has been a lot of development in and around Macquarie Park station, but other than that the course looks pretty similar.
Well done to Ted Woodley and all the volunteers for putting on the event yesterday. It was a great event. I am looking forward to 2037.