We parked the car in a paddock on a hilltop and strolled down to the arena, sun shining, clear sky, all was right with the world.  Relays awaited, and the area looked inviting.  I headed to the team lists to find our number, only to discover my team was not on the board.  At Info, they told me to join the “Issues” queue, which was full of disgruntled people.  Once reaching the front of the queue, we were told that they had run out of maps for the Mixed course, so they had put us onto M65, we would be unofficial, and was that OK.  It certainly wasn’t OK.  Two of us did not want to run a Hard course, and we entered way back in August last year, so why should we be bumped off our course and be made unofficial?  Not to mention additional distance and difficulty. Not Happy.

The whole Relays entry process has been a debacle from start to finish.  We were expected to complete paper forms to nominate our teams, which meant the organisers would be manually data entering everything from scratch, trying to interpret handwriting and making errors. I had already expressed my doubts about this, saying we would be lucky to have the right maps.  I was spot on.  There were at least half a dozen Mixed teams in the same situation as us.  The organisers agreed to leave us as Mixed and find maps for us – I’m guessing others complained even louder than me.  I was first leg, and when I got to the start line, I was presented with two maps, both bagged (so printed separately). I had to ask an official to check them both and tell me which one I should use – turns out they were the same, and both labelled with my team number.

So off I went, out of the start across the arena, then up and over a sand dune, where I saw everyone else standing still and studying their maps in confusion.  I joined them for a bit, until I realised I needed to get onto a small track that I could see lower down.  I had no problems with the first few controls, although I was quite messy in the pine forest where I found the flags hard to spot.  I was also having problems reading the magenta lines and circles on the map, because the overprint was poorer quality than it should have been.  I trotted around ok until no 8.  It was just off a track, but in an overgrown area with very vague contour features, and I just couldn’t see it the first time.  I got it on the second go.

I pressed on up and down lots of small hills and along sandy tracks, finding it hard to run.  Just before my 11^th control I found the 10 year old daughter of a friend, who I know well – in tears because she was lost and was “letting my team mates down”. Of course I stopped to help her, and took her to her next control, which lost me a few minutes – but I would never leave a kid in distress. She gave me a big smile and a thank you, and headed off happily, while I continued on.  Grab a breather before the long spectator run in, then go for it with the crowd cheering and clapping.  Keep running!  Don’t stop until you can duck behind that thicket and get out of sight!  The last loop was mercifully short although I managed to make two errors, and finally finished in a time about 10-15 minutes slower than I would have liked.

It rained hard on and off all day.  We stayed around to watch Asha and Lani finish, which was very exciting. Asha was third leg for the no 1 Aussie Junior Women’s team, and she went out 2 minutes down on the rival NZ team. She flew round the course and thundered strongly into the finish well ahead, to grab first place!  Lani, in her first Senior Elite team, also had a great run, and the team finished third – her first podium at senior level. So a very good day.

Meanwhile, other friends had been given the wrong maps or entered onto the wrong course, so the organisers had really messed up.  I’ve organised a lot of Relays, and it just isn’t that difficult to do it right – no-one at any of my relays has ever been given an incorrect map or been on the wrong course.

Afterwards Pete and I went into the city to collect our World Masters Games accreditation and backpacks. We are now officially Athletes, and we have the accreditation passes to prove it!

Tomorrow – Middle Distance, then off to Rotorua. We will be sorry to leave the house here but looking forward to the next segment.