The orienteering season got under way for us yesterday with a SOC event on an area called Salisbury Trench (east of Janesmoor Pond). Christine was saving herself for the Hursley 10K on Sunday so just took the children round the yellow course. (Actually, the children plus the pictured bear which Duncan has on loan from school as ‘Star of the Week’. It’s slightly concerning that he’s been awarded this in only the second week of the school year as normally it seems to go to those in need of some encouragement at school! Anyway, I digress…)
I went round the blue course which was quite fun, particularly given that the paths had been (deliberately) left off the map. The bracken needs a little longer to die off properly but the area was still pretty runnable although, as Pete Bray demonstrated later in the day, it was actually runnable at a lot faster pace than I was doing! The controls had been hung fairly high for which I was grateful as my compass-work was a little rusty. My ankle was also playing up a bit – a reminder not to get too carried away. The one event a month that SOC puts on is about the right frequency without having to stray further afield.