CLYDE Juniors Win Bronze at the JK Relays 2009

(as told by two-thirds of the team)

At the JK relays my team consisting of my sister Emma Wilson, Robert Patterson and me came third in the M/W40– class.

It took ages to get to the assembly area because we all had to wait ages for the buses to pick us up from the car park at Hexham race course. All the starts were delayed by an hour. When we finally got there I quickly changed into my CLYDE kit and went to the map collection tent (because I was first leg).

I had a good run. I was always near the front, but near the end of the course my legs began to feel like jelly so a few runners over took me, including the runner for the MAROC team that eventually came 11th. I handed over to Emma and went back to the club tent. I got some Wilf’s food and soon Emma was back. She told me that I had come in 15th and that she had moved us up to 7th.

Robert had a great run and came back in 4th, but there was talk of the team in 1st mispunching. We waited for definite news of the mispunching. Eventually Robert had to go back to the car park to go home, but finally we heard we were in 3rd. We were definitely the shortest team on the podium! We gave Robert’s prizes to his dad Malcolm and we slowly went back down the hill to the buses (but not until my dad had attempted to buy yet another pair of orienteering shoes).

I had a great time at the JK relays, but we still had to wait an hour and a half for the buses back to the car park.
Thomas Wilson

Thomas came in just behind a MAROC team and I caught their second leg runner (Abigail Masson) at the start triangle. We had exactly the same course and stayed together all the way round, taking turns to be in front. It was an easy course, but quite hilly. I overtook her on the way to the last control but she overtook me again on the run-in. We both collapsed at the finish. I beat her by eight seconds.

Coming third in the relay finished off a really good weekend for me – I won the sprint and came third in the individual. The worst part was the really long queue for the buses back to the car park – at one point I counted that there were 324 people in front of us in the queue!
Emma Wilson