A further 8 days of orienteering, am I mad? A three day drive through the remoteness of the Dakota's to the even more remoteness of Wyoming (with less than half a million people, the US's smallest state). The woods and meadows of Medicine Bow National Forest, near Laramie, were to be home of this event, and at 8500ft, considerably the highest events that I'd ever done. All the events were on excellent quality adjoining maps, with lots of revisions, extensions and even some new maps produced for this year's event. There was an excellent range of events contained in the schedule: sprint, night, mass start, long, relay and a four day chasing start.

A low key mass start 'stampede' kicked the week off, with perhaps a third of the 200 entries competing. Three loops, same for everyone, with the first two run in an unspecified order. Felt as if I'd never run before, the temperature (over 30 degrees), but more so the altitude made every step a struggle - a gradual slope suddenly became a mammoth challenge. Amazing terrain though, makes the Curragh look slow. Wide open undulating planes, with mature pine tree filled re-entrants and numerous rock out-crops. Next to nothing under foot, the open being covered in shortest and driest grass, the woods mostly clean, aside from juniper on the north facing slopes and bushes in the few wet re-entrants.

Not having a head-lamp I had to sit out the following day's US night champs, took the opportunity to have a jog out of the sun's interference to try and acclimatise a little. The men's winners took a little over 60 minutes for the 10km plus course - hope that the rest of the week isn't going to be quite so fast and straightforward. It proved not to be, the subsequent day's sprint turned out to be a real navigational challenge - although with only one course for all, a 4 km prologue and an 8.5km chasing start final, the term 'sprint' was very loosely used. The pleasant running conditions, excellent map, and head to head racing meant that everyone had fun. I was going well and in the leading pack until about a km from the end, when the technical aspect suddenly evaporated, leaving a pure run across the prairie to the finish - I couldn't see for the dust as the two runners that I had been trying to give the slip, changed up a gear and disappeared. Won a mouse (the computer variety) for my efforts though - prizes being 'offered' to the top 40 finishers, offered being the preferred term as the list of prizes included such items as tins of tomatoes, Spam and sheep's feet...

After the first two days of the Four Day - the second being slightly shorter to allow an extra bit of recovery time - was the gargantuan task of the week: the Long champs. And at a shade under 21km with 800m climb, long they certainly were. A bit more used to the thin air now, but still very apprehensive as I lined up with all the other competitors for the mass start (the junior courses, though still mass starting, were of sensible length). Got dropped by the pack after about 6km - actually I was only in contention up until then as the leaders kept missing controls, felt okay until 12km, tired until 20km and really miserable for the final one. Was on my own once I was dropped (from 6km) and didn't really know how many were out front, reckoned there were somewhere between 4 and 6. Turned out to be four, who were having a great tussle for the lead. A split into two groups at the end of a long leg left the leading two trying to sneak out of a control without being spotted by the others, this they succeeded in doing but got over excited in their triumph, and duly messed up the following post, allowing the other two to catch up. While this was going on I was suffering on my own, hoping that I wasn't going to see anyone and have to run faster. Three of the above sorted things out quickly and were long gone by the time I came plodding along, caught a glance of the fourth behind me at about 2km from home, thankfully too far back to catch me as I was all out of gas! Fun, but hard, hard work.

A much needed rest day was followed by a relay of most excellent fun. A similar format to APOC was used, with runners being encouraged to mix'n'match to get a competitive team. I was running the anchor leg of a very multi-national team, comprising of an Australian M60, an American W35 and a Scottish M55. With excellent visibility, planning bring courses past the start and an assembly on top of a hill, meant that progress of a runner could be followed throughout their course. After a slow but steady first leg, my remaining team members both pulled up places to put me out in sixth place, a clean but lonely run enabled me to pass two competitors to finish fourth, much to the delight of my team mates.

Things were now getting interesting in the multi-day competition, and after day 3 I found myself with a 45 second lead over Scotland's Graham Ackland (the long race winner) in the chasing start, Eric Bone (USA) was third (the sprint race winner), a hopefully safe 8 minutes back. A mere 13.5km was to decide this duel... I knew that Graham was a fast runner, and as the start was a wide open featureless plain, I didn't hold much hope of being able to give him the slip out there. And so it proved, with him being able to reel me nice and easy over the first three kilometres, then as we slipped off the plain and into the tree covered granite boulders, I was hoping to be able to make up some time. Not being the type who can sit back and watch, I ran fast and clean through the detail but couldn't give Graham the slip (maybe I should have held back and waited for Graham to miss, then take advantage, but where's the fun in that?). Still together at the start of the long leg then (About 2.5km), this time I slowed slightly and waited for him to make a choice, he went slightly left and I right. However with the lack of trees and no real route choice, we could see each other for most of the leg and our routes eventually converged about a kilometre from the control. Back into the wide open now and a glance at the map revealed the last four kilometres to be of yellow standard, running to large objects in the distance. This Graham managed without difficulty, leaving me suffer on my own to finish an easy second. Not a disappointing result, but a very disappointing way to finish an excellent weeks orienteering.

This was an excellent event put on by a very small team for a very small number of runners. The terrain, planning (aside from the last 4km) and maps were excellent, as was the friendliness of the fellow competitors and organisers and running at 8500ft was a novelty. The event is held in this area every few years (though the next 1000 day is near Colorado Springs) and is well worth a visit.