David Currie

I’m on a course at work this week but stole out yesterday lunchtime to go to the BAOC event up at Farley Mount. I took 52 minutes for the 8.6km A course. Only one big mistake: at number twelve where I lost sight of the control coming off the path and headed towards the edge of the unmapped open assuming it was where the fence lay. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case and there wasn’t much left of the fence other than the odd post to guide me back to the control.

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Today we returned to the scene of last year’s British Night Champs (Hawley and Hornley) for the BKO Concorde Chase. I had a bit of a head cold so wasn’t running at 100% speed which is a shame as the area is generally very runnable. I suspect it was affecting my concentration as well: at number six I started heading north-west as if going from seven to eight. The paths fitted (sort of) and I wasted some time running around the unmapped thickets until I realised what I’d done.

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For those who wonder what this strange sport that I partake in at weekends is (or indeed those that think it’s something Scouts do with twigs), British Squad member Oli Johnson has written a nice introduction on the planetFear site.

We had a full car for the drive over to the Guildford Orienteers regional event at Waggoners Wells today. We arrived in plenty of time and I treated myself to a new pair of O-shoes (VJ Integrator spikes again although bizarrely a size up from my last pair). You could start at anytime within your allocated start block which is fine on M21L but I wouldn’t like to have had to wait in the queues for one of the more popular courses, even on such a bright sunny day.

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Yesterday was the first SOC street event of the year. Courtesy of Colin Hicks there was an hour’s score event starting at The Crown in Highfield, Southampton. There was a fairly obvious loop collecting in the high scoring controls in Swaythling which meant most people set off in the same direction. Having crossed back over the river it was then time to see how many of the remaining controls could be picked up on the way back to the pub. I was fairly confident by then that I should be able to get them all and made it back in just over 57 minutes. You can see my route on Google Maps.

These events are now every three weeks going on in to the Summer with the next one starting at 7:30pm from the Oak Road Car Park, Dibden Purlieu on 31 January.

SOC had a district event at Anderwood today. After helping out at registration I went for a turn round the Brown course. Must have started reasonably well as I was in joint first place at the second control but my legs were really too tired to sustain that pace. The area is pretty runnable (give or take the occasional marsh) so running strength counts. Indeed, if you’re feeling weak then you just end up adding more distance trying to stick to the paths or contour around the hills when you should just peg it in a straight line.

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Headed up the M3 this morning for the BAOC Around Aldershot Race. This was primarily a Mountain Bike Orienteering (MTB-O) competition but, due to the small matter of not having a mountain bike, I was left running the 18.4km Long-O. This turned out to be pretty much a 20km trail race. The controls were all pretty easy as they were reachable by the mountain bikers and there was a lot of dead running whilst you got out on to the Mytchett and Ash maps. Only there could you reap the benefit of being on foot by cutting a few corners.

Still, it was all good fun and I made it back just before the rain started in a time of 96 minutes. The results show that GG took a ‘mere’ 14 minutes out me although, in my defence, my slowest splits were those off the paths where I was being careful of my ankle. Rob Little looks to have a good strong finish, pushing me down in to third place.