Almost 6 years since the last one; Coronavirus sort of got in the way but those times did lead to discovering and exploring Dumbles to the NE Nottingham.
I always intended to run this area a bit later in the year, through Spring or into Autumn, when the ground would firm but not water logged, as a number of you discovered, nor turned to hoofy concrete in the height of summer.
However, due to the initially planned return to Clee Hill being postponed, it left a bit of a hole in the Midlands MBO diary, so it seemed to make sense to run this supposedly “pre-packaged” event.
I had hoped that this area wouldn’t need too much recce time, but I knew I’d need to check for waterlogged ground and I’m very glad I did!
So, late January, I messaged around my previous team whether they would be available over the weekend 07/08 March to help out; that settled, it was next onto finding the venue, with a delightful wintery January afternoon in the van touring around the Village Halls and venues.
Fortunately, Epperstone Village Hall came up trumps, so by 1st February, we were on…..5 weeks to go!
So, I dug out the previously marked up maps and got checking routes and possible checkpoint positions as soon as possible, discovering just how waterlogged the ground was; and that was in areas I wasn’t expecting; oh, crikey! I’m going to have to check out the areas I knew would be wet, just to see how bad they were.
Sadly, this put a number of the routes that make this area a delight, sort of out of use; I couldn’t set checkpoints on these routes, forcing you through the quagmire but equally I didn’t want to expressly preclude their use. I’m glad a couple of you did explore beyond the liquid mud and found the great sections in between.
I also had a number of checkpoints down by the River Trent but on route checking in mid-February, I ended up cycling through at least 2 feet of water. The continued rain through late February ended up with those routes dangerously flooded by the beginning of March, so sadly out of bounds.
I went for the size and scope of the map, so that you got a broad choice of routes and terrains and I wanted to make sure it couldn’t be cleared, although I appreciate the double sided solution did throw a couple of you, I was sure the broad overlap would ease the need for turning the map over too regularly.
Thanks, as ever to Brian Reynolds, Graeme & Benjamin (a new competitor in the making) Barker, and Richard Chaney for assistance over the weekend putting out & collecting checkpoints and staffing the venue through the day and to Katherine Sanders for the fabulous homemade cookies and staffing the tea point.
Congratulations to Ian Cartright on leading with 385 from 19 CPs to Kevin Horsley’s 381 from 20 CPs.
Notable mention to Rob Crowfoot for getting back with just 9 seconds to spare
I do plan to run this area again, in somewhat drier conditions, so you can ll get the opportunity to enjoy the field edge trails.
Take care, see you in the field again soon.

Ria & Team