It was the regional qualifying round of the CompassSport Cup today with SOC competing at Harewood Forest near Andover. The weather was utterly bizarre: as I got changed there was an absolutely freezing wind blowing, while competing it was quite warm under the blue skies, yet as I made ready to leave, it started hailing!
My orienteering was pretty sloppy. On the majority of legs I ended up a good fifty to hundred metres adrift of the control site. I should have learnt on the way round that I couldn’t rely on rough compass when the undergrowth meant that one could seldom follow a straight line. That said, I had donned gaiters as the final details had emphasised the brambles, yet they didn’t prove to be too bad even if they were everywhere.
I wasn’t therefore overly surprised to discover from my splits that I was seven minutes down on the winner. I was somewhat surprised to discover that it was Fin Mats Haldin, currently ranked 25th in the world! Looking at the final results, even if I had finished just a couple of minutes faster my time would have looked pretty respectable. Sadly it wasn’t the club’s day either finishing just behind TVOC but with Southdowns out in front.
Hail! I am glad that I missed that. I was on the other side of Andover, racing at Thruxton (bike race) and the wind was bad enough — never thought I would be struggling to go faster than 20km/hr in a race on the flat! But at least it wasn’t hailing. Driving home I saw the little orienteering signs and did think about stopping and competing but decided that I didn’t fancy running around in lycra and a bike helmet.
Pedal cycle I’m guessing rather than motor bike! Wouldn’t fancy wearing lycra on the latter!
I managed to manouver out of my usual relegation position into almost mid-table mediocrity. Had a problem with 12 (couldnt relate map near the control to the ground) and 13 (no attack point and I wandered in circles before re-locating). Depression at 17 seemed futher north than the map suggested too. Saving energy for the run-in didnt help either as you were still 2 secs quicker!
I too had trouble with 12. Despite thinking I had come in off the corner of the dark green strip I still ended up to the north-east by the fence. I was fairly lucky with 13 although if you could judge the distance from the earthbank correctly then that reduced the bingo element to just one dimension. 17 seemed okay to me. Did you come in from the northern path junction?
I was still two seconds down on the winning time for the run-in. Obviously need to improve my punching technique!
I came in from the Eastern path junction and ended up in the much larger depression. I then trotted 20m NNE to the correct depression.