David Currie

744We spent the bank holiday weekend with Christine’s parents (and assorted other orienteering members of the family) notionally to attend the Triple O Severn event in the Forest of Dean. The assembly area for every day was Speech House which seemed to work well. Saturday was a regional event on the area that they had chosen to call Mallards Pike (south-east of assembly). The Black course was fairly sparcely populated as anyone running the Elite classes the following day had to do a special middle distance course as the colour-coded courses used part of the area they would compete on.

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742This year’s Oxford-Cambridge Orienteering Varsity Match took place this weekend, a little later than originally scheduled. We went along to the individual event on Saturday held at Epping Forest North West. I had a run on the Mens A course and Christine took Emma round most of the Womens B in the running buggy. I was over 10 minutes slower than the winner, Mark Bown. I’ll put some of it down to helping Christine with the buggy on the way to number one and number two being in the wrong place. As a result of which, the splits show that I was already five minutes down on Mark when I left the second control.

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It was the first round of the CompassSport Cup yesterday with our match being hosted by BADO at Pamber Forest (in the vicinity of Aldermaston). Christine retired from her run due to odd,baby related, pulls. I had a pretty decent run for once. My splits graph shows a sudden increase in speed from leg 7 onwards which is where I first sighted Ralph Street. In my defence, that was all it was, a sighting, and I didn’t see him again until 11 and then not again until 18. In fact, it was only from 20 onwards where I was actually chasing him (no chance of catching I’m afraid). I was fifth in the results but still over 5 minutes down on Dave Rollins who must have been flying. Emma managed to bring up the rear on the string course again but at least she was getting round under her own steam this time! Sadly (or not depending on your thoughts on travelling to Leicestershire for the final) SOC lost out narrowly to TVOC with SLOW having a clear win.

I’ve now uploaded my route for Sunday’s National Event at Burnham Beeches. I think my winning of M21L can only be attributed to the fact that nearly everyone else was running the Elite course (I baulked at running 15km).  Due to the low numbers, M21L was on the same course as M18E, M20E, M35L and M40L and I had the pleasure of being soundly beaten by the winners on all of those courses.

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715Christine sadly had to attend a family funeral today so I took my brother along to the JOK Chasing Sprint at Whippendell Woods on the outskirts of Watford. The weather forecast was for a dull start clearing late but in reality we were treated to glorious sunshine all day. The assembly area was based on one of the Lees Wood scout huts and the grassy area outside provided the ideal location for competitors to soak up some sun before and after their runs. I decided not to run with control hanging, car parking and start duties being enough for me in one day. It must be over 10 years since I’ve last been to Whippendell but from the area of the woods I did see, it seems much improved from what I remember. The open forest must have made for some great opportunities to make up places in the chase.

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712SOC put on a superb event at Millyford Bridge today, helped not least by a good dose of sunshine. Christine ran the green whilst I looked after Emma then I went out on the blue. I made a few blunders: wrong veg. boundary at 8, too far right at 13 and taking on the brashings between 15 and 16, but still enjoyed my run. There were lots of newcomers in attendance at the event – let’s hope we see many of them again.

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