David Currie

Now that Sunday’s courses are up on RouteGadget, the true horror of my run is available for all to see. My first problem was that I was still in “standing in a sunny field collecting car parking money” mode when I started (it had been a last minute reprieve which meant I was rushing to get out so that Christine could have a run afterwards). Three was where things started to go wrong as I just failed to pay attention to the direction I left two in and then tried desperately to make the ground fit the map around where I wanted to be.

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866We had a fun weekend of orienteering blessed by some good weather. On Saturday it was the Winchester Urban Race. This started and finished at the Rugby Club and the 1:5000 map stretched south to the Cathedral and Wolsey Castle. If you think city racing is all about tricky route choices influence by narrow cut-throughs, dead-ends, and control sites where the side of the feature is all important, then the event wouldn’t have disappointed you. (more…)

851After a bit of indecision, Christine finally decided that she wouldn’t run on the Saturday of the British Orienteering Champs due to a calf injury but we would all go up to Cannock Chase for the weekend and she would still run in the relay. This meant I could move my individual start to a late time and we could drive up to Rugeley on the Saturday morning rather than having to stay up on the Friday night. This probably meant we missed the worst of the bank holiday traffic and we actually had a very smooth journey arriving in pleny of time.

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We headed in to Southampton this morning for the second of SOC’s Summer Series on the Common. I took Emma and Duncan round the yellow course again whilst Christine ran but this time I also got to have a go. It was slightly disappointing that although, as promised, it wasn’t the permanent course, it did use the permanent course controls so I had been to them all before. I made the mistake of trying to take the direct route through the green to control 6 but otherwise it was just a question of trying to run as fast as I could. It was good fun though and we were joined by Christine’s parents for a picnic afterwards. We’d made the mistake of promising Emma the paddling pool which doesn’t open for another week but she seemed happy enough in the playground.

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848Southampton Orienteering Club’s Summer Series kicked off today at Stoke Park Woods in glorious sunshine. There looked to be a reasonable turnout with plenty of new faces (the series being designed to pull in beginners as well as satisfying the desire of club members to have more local events). Christine went round the green course and I took Emma and Duncan around the yellow. I’ve been to the woods a couple of times before for RR10 races but have either been going too fast or, more likely, been too out of breathe, to notice the forest itself. There was talk of brashing but at least from the tracks it looked like a nice piece of compact woodland. More importantly for Emma, there were lots of streams for her to play in. We were back home by lunchtime which is a major plus. I’ve undoubtedly ruined my chance in the scoring system for the series by not running today. However there were a few other people missing, most notably due to the antics of Eyjafjallajoekull leaving them stranded in various parts of Europe. If we ever get our summer hols booked then there’s a fair chance we’ll miss 2 or 3 of the events later in the series anyway. The next event is on Southampton Common in a week’s time so see you there!