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Corridors at Longmoor Camp

Making the most of being off work we went over to the Army Summer Series event at Longmoor Camp this afternoon. There was a great selection of courses on offer: blue and brown only map, corridor exercise, map without paths, compass and pacing exercise and a novice course. Nice to see no “normal” course as many folks wouldn’t look at the other choices if there were. I opted for the corridor exercise to start with thinking I might move on to the blue and brown next.

I had a slight hiccough on the first control as I failed to notice the contour surrounding the open area and the sand looked much more runnable than the steep grass covered bank. Then I managed to leave the second control 90 degrees off course but corrected myself before disappearing too far in to the white void on the map. Things improved after that although really Longmoor has too many paths for a good corridor exercise as more often than not you could zig-zag along the paths without leaving the corridor if you so desired. The 4.1km course still kept me occupied for half an hour though.

Unfortunately there wasn’t time to do the blue and brown only course but, Christine having returned Thomas Rollins to his Mum, we went for a walk round the compass and pacing exercise together. The tanks traps turned out to be a bit rough for carrying a baby though so when the rain tried again I headed back to the car with Emma.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Orienteering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Corridors at Longmoor Camp”

  1. Michael Yeo says:
    27 June 2007 at 9:01 pm

    It kept me occupied for rather longer as I seemed to have completely lost the ability to run off paths (for the second day running!). Could have been quicker if I had left the corridor to follow the paths that I knew to be there, but decided to stick to the straightish line which meant walking a lot. Had some trouble with 7 and 8 where the summer vegetation didn’t appear to match the winter map!

  2. Sam says:
    27 June 2007 at 9:56 pm

    any excuse not to do the brown/blue only map….;-)….best leave that to us experts….ahem….;-)

  3. Neil Broderick says:
    28 June 2007 at 8:07 am

    Dave,
    you will have to explain to me what a corridor exercise is? I am guessing that it doesn’t involve running down a long corridor. Similarly what is a map without paths (other than the obvious)?

    thanks,
    Neil

  4. Dave says:
    28 June 2007 at 10:59 am

    Neil – Exercise descriptions as follows:

    Brown and blue only
    These are the only colours on the map i.e. just contours and water features. Good exercise on an area where you might otherwise just rely on paths and open areas.
    Corridor
    The map is blanked out except for a 50 metre corridor either side of the line between the controls. Forces the runner to take the straight line option.
    Map without paths
    Just that – a map where all the paths have been taken off. Again, removes the reliance on paths for running and navigation.
    Compass and pacing
    A blank sheet of paper with just the course marked on to practice just these two techniques.

    Mike – the last bit in to 7 was certainly a bit dodgy. I was just lucky to meet Mike Elliot coming at it from the opposite direction. For 8 I headed out on a bearing along the semi-open and kept going until I hit the path. Then I’m afraid I just legged it round the path!