David Currie

This month’s SOC street event took place from the Crown in Highfield, Southampton. There was a slightly better turn-out this time although the planner (Colin Hicks) couldn’t make it through illness. As usual, I set off without really having worked out what I was going to do. Indeed, it was ten minutes in before I realised that the controls were worth different points. However, the route I was taking turned out to be quite good, sweeping round the outer higher scoring controls first before circling in to the middle.

I thought I was in trouble at the end when the last two controls were on a piece of map that was disintegrating with my sweat! After running up a couple of dead-ends I passed the start and fortunately was able to pick up a fresh map. Still had five minutes before the hour was up when I finished.

Petr and Petra laid on an excellent afternoon’s entertainment for SOC. We met at the Sir Walter Tyrrell pub for a short walk. This was punctuated by two exciting micro-O courses planned by Petr. The specially drawn maps were at 1:2500 and three people started every minute on the gaffled courses. Each control consisted of a letter which, when combined, spelt out a Czech word. No-one was dressed for running but a fast walking pace was about right to ensure that you didn’t overshoot the controls. Christine was eventually declared victor.

Afterwards we retired to the pub for some excellent festive fare.

BADO/BAOC held the Southern Night Champs at Bulford Ranges this evening. The area is mainly open but with large sections of impenetrable green. The temperature was hovering just above freezing and, with no starts times allocated, it took a few controls to warm up after having queued to start. (I pitied the M50 competitors who had to wait for about half an hour.)

As I’ve said before, I’m not particularly good at attacking the forest and this was certainly necessary in places as the planner frequently used the green patches to try and make things more interesting. (Can you stay on an accurate bearing while fighting your way through thorny buses bent over double?) Some of the large knolls may have proved trickier to find if the army hadn’t surrounded them with tall posts and reflective signs telling the tanks to keep out. (I’m guessing that they are actually ancient burial mounds).

I eventually became unstuck about two-thirds of the way round, losing about five minutes trying to find the right route through a warren of paths in a large green thicket. Wasted a bit more time at the end when my vague navigation was caught out by a bank of freezing fog just where I intended to relocate before re-entering the woods.

Ended up in 5th place in the results just over five minutes down on Tuomas Tala. All good fun but I don’t think the area has enough of interest to warrant returning in the daylight.

The maps in the New Forest have such fantastic names that I couldn’t resist using this one in the title. Unfortunately, my run wasn’t quite so fantastic! My legs were still very tired which made the decision as whether to leg it round the muddy paths or head straight through the brashings and dying bracken no easier. It was probably my brain that let me down the most though. Looking back, I think I did something stupid on at least half of the controls. (And just to prove I wasn’t completely with it, I then left my wallet in the post-event pub.) Last time I looked at the results I was lying in third place on the Brown course, over four minutes down on Colin Dickinson (who has the benefit of at least 20 years on me).

Good to see so many adult newcomers at the event though. Hedley was doing a sterling job providing some initial instruction. Lets hope it pays off and we see them all again.

18Last night saw a highly successful games night organised by Christine for SOC. The evening started with a game of Bing-O. The twist here was that the usual numbers had been replaced by IOF control description symbols. To make things a bit easier we had earth symbols in the first column, water in the second, rock in the middle, vegetation in the fourth and man-made featues in the last however there was still much frantic searching through the crib sheets provided to each table.

Next up was an exercise we picked up at coaching conference. A map with 20+ controls on it was placed at one end of the room and a blank map at the other and each time had five minutes to copy as many controls from one to the other as they could. We decided to limit each person to copying one control at a time but even that seemed too much for some!

The evening ended with a “New Forest Pony Drive” – a bit like a beetle drive but with Christine’s best attempt at a pony replacing the usual insect.

SOC‘s second street event of the year took place in Chandler’s Ford on a freezing cold evening. Roger Pleasant had drawn up a new map, extending the area to cover a section to the east of the Hiltingbury triangle. With a good spread of controls it was by no means obvious that it was possible to get all of the controls and choosing a route was tricky.

I started off slowly as, the faster I ran, the colder my hands felt! After about half an hour I’d warmed up a bit but had also realised that I wasn’t going to get all of the controls. It involved a bit of a sprint to get back to the King Rufus in time but I just made it with four controls outstanding. Jon Forster picked up one more but forfeited the extra points by being back late.

Had great fun at the Wimborne Orienteers Night Owl event this evening. Moors Valley Country Park has a dense path network so controls were never far from a track. This meant you could sprint most of the time and the only problem with navigation was trying not to overshoot some of the smaller path junctions. Unfortunately I didn’t twig straight away that I should be able to get all of the controls and had to go back for one at the end but still managed all 26 in 53:54.

Setting up the start in the pouring rain wasn’t ideal preparation for my run at this year’s SOC November Classic. The map was named “The Reptile Centre” after the tourist attraction at the northern end. As I set out of the start I new it was going to be a slow run – I could still feel last week’s KIMM in my legs. This was made worse by the brashings littering the forest floor and the mudbaths that passed for paths. I felt the course could have been better as too often I found myself following some obvious line feature in to the control. Consequently, the couple of navigational errors I made were mainly due to tiredness. Still managed 83 minutes for 12.7km which isn’t too sluggish. Unfortunately a trio of touring Scandinavian buses meant that I was well down the results with Mats Troeng clocking in at a mere 63 minutes and his brother not far behind!

At least we had a chance to dry of afterwards with a nice meal at The Oak Inn, Bank with friends. I can recommend the Thai fish cakes!