Destination: Nowhere.

Destination: Nowhere., a photo by ultraBobban on Flickr.

Well, it may not be as it seems. I had planned to run the Essex Trail Challenge Event this weekend....but was thwarted by an over zealous obstreperous official.....

To give you some background on this, it was an "entries in advance" event. I got my cheque and entry form in the post on Tuesday first thing, 5 days before the event. I followed this up by an email on Friday, stating if I could pick up my entry details on the day as it may be possible I would not receive my SAE back in time. This, dear reader......was the response.......

"Dear Rob,

The event closing date was the 7th April. Because of the holiday I kept the
list open until Tuesday when I had to close. We do not take entries on the day. I can say that your entry was not in by Tuesday. I am sorry but the event has been "live" since Christmas and all advertising mentions the closing date and also to look for confirmation of receipt of entry on the website."

(There was no closing date on the website!!! In fact, this un-named man gave me a non-LDWA event website that had a different entry cost to the LDWA (official) website and virtually no details of the event other than to "check the LDWA" for details.)

and then......"On the website you will find an article on challenge events and what to expect because I feel you are probably new to the game. All events have their own rules which you need to read carefully."

So as you might expect.....I blew my top! I do love running the LDWA events as they are such a different challenge with the crazy-arse directions to keep you on your toes, amazing checkpoints full of food and friendly people. I can only hope that in this society, there are people like this few and far between as this sort of behaviour can only be detrimental to self-navigate marathons.

However, after some conflab with my dear running buddy, Jezza...it transpires that there may be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. We may go and run the Black Dog in Bungay. I will decide by tonight.