David Currie

Duncan and I had a Saturday morning to kill together so went along to the SOC event at Stoke Park Woods. Seeing as we weren’t trying to fit in multiple runs I suggested that we do the orange. Really we should have stuck to the yellow as Duncan would have been able to do more of the navigation himself. He didn’t seem to grasp, for example, that we didn’t have to follow the purple line which meant we made some interesting route choices ploughing cross-country through the undergrowth. As you’ll see from the photo, some of the control placement made punching interesting for Duncan too! He seemed to enjoy himself though but I think we’ll go back to yellow next time.

The Harvester night orienteering relay was once again within an hour’s drive of our house so no excuse not to get in a couple of teams. There was a last minute panic when we discovered that the ageing headlight that Christine was going to use had completely failed to charge but a fellow club member came to the rescue. Saturday evening was very pleasant as we drove through the magnificent grounds of Sandroyd School to the field which was to be home for the night.

Christine ran second leg for a ladies team and, although she originally had me down for a night leg, we decided that the only way to ensure that we weren’t going to be abandoning the children was for me to run my now traditional long last leg on A. Thanks to the event wi-fi I could keep an eye on my team’s progress each time I woke during the night without having to leave the comfort of my sleeping bag. Things weren’t going quite as well as we had hoped so I had plenty of time for breakfast but still went out half an hour before the mini-mass start.

The earlier runner’s had reported that the forest was full of bracken and nettles. During the morning daylight I could at least see these but that didn’t necessarily mean that they could be avoided completely. Even sticking to the paths was difficult as many of these were also disappearing under the undergrowth and I overshot a couple of supposed path junctions.

We finished 8th on the A course which doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that, of the 12 teams, one was non-competitive and two mispunched… Christine’s team faired better finishing 10th out of 27 and third ladies team. We took the children out on the yellow course in the morning where we could appreciate the area from the safety of the paths. Emma was in a particularly grumpy mood as Duncan wanted to run on ahead the whole time. Unfortunately the night time rain also returned part-way round and we set of for home straight after to go and catch up on some sleep!

SOC had an event at Busketts Lawn (near Ashurst) today. We’d offered to help and a very thoughtful organiser had suggested that we should assist on the start which would save us the 1.8km walk there and back. Christine went out for her run first and I and the children were left in charge of the all important task of putting a map under each box so that competitors don’t have to faff around with trying to take just one map from the pile. The children seemed to love this job and, other than the odd complaint about cold toes, they kept going until Christine got back from her run.

They then went out on the White course and I was relieved from my post shortly to go out on the Brown. I dawdled around the first half until Rob Patterson caught me up. We raced around the next six or seven controls together before I finally got away. I probably clawed back a minute by the end but he still beat me by four overall. Looking at the download from my Garmin I ran a full min/km faster in the second half and my average heart rate went up from 144 to 160!

The area didn’t offer much variety with the strategy for most legs being to run straight trying to check off features on the way and not worry too much about missing the feature as a bit of running in circles in the right vicinty would usually pay off. It was still a nice place to run through despite all the mud.

Our first orienteering of the year took us over to the WIM Galoppen at Moors Valley Country Park. I went out on the Brown whilst Christine shepherded both children around the White. Emma started two minutes after Duncan and Christine and had caught them by the second control. Duncan exacted his revenge on the string course! I’ve succumbed to the children’s cough over the past few days which, combined with a general lack of core strength, meant that I found all of the brashings and furrows hard going (and the planner had, unfortunately, done his best to ensure that use of the extensive path network was minimal). I may have been sixth in the results but I was a good 12 minutes behind the winner! Thanks to Simon Errington implementing my feature request, I can also now link directly to my route on RouteGadget.

Whilst Christine was out on her course we relocated the car round to the main Country Park car park and the children used up what remaining energy they had in the play ground and on the play trail. They certainly went to sleep quickly this evening! We’re booked in for orienteering the next two weekends so it’s good that they enjoyed the day out.

The second week of the Easter holidays we were booked in to a lovely cottage (once we found it!) called Heartsease near Brecon. We’d brought our bikes but I’d managed to forget the Trailgator for towing Duncan. Rather than cycling up to the waterfalls above Talybont as planned, we drove up, went for a walk, and then Christine and Emma cycled down to the dam where Duncan and I met them again (Duncan having practiced his cycling back and forth on the dam.)

The next day we repeated the walk we did two years ago up Pen y Fan. The main difference this time was that Duncan had to use his own leg power to get up to the summit! Both children were very good and it was only towards the very end of the walk that they both started to grumble a bit as they got tired.

On the third day of the holiday we were joined by Christine’s parents (in the nearby Pencelli Castle campsite) and they took the children to Dan-yr-Ogof caves leaving Christine and I to do another ascent of Pen y Fan, this time walking from near our cottage and taking in Fan y Big and Cribyn as well. The following day we all headed over to Cardiff and had a lovely time with Christine’s brother and family.

Then the serious business started – the JK. The Friday was a sprint race around Swansea University. I had a reasonable run finishing 8th on M35 in what was not a particularly tricky area whilst Christine picked up a Silver medal on her course. After a quick trip to the fun fair we then rushed back to the cottage to cook a big dinner with Christine’s cousin and family having arrived to stay in the cottage next door.

Saturday’s event was on Merthyr Common. It’s not my sort of area as I can neither run nor navigate fast in that terrain. I was therefore pleased with a 6th place in what would have looked like a respectable time if Duncan Archer hadn’t come and beaten the rest of the field by 10 minutes! On Sunday we returned to the same assembly area but the weather which, until this point had been very kind to us, had turned. I not only carried the mandatory cagoule but wore it all the way round my course! I finished 7th in a similar time to the previous day which brought me up to 5th over the two days. Christine failed to make it three second places in a row and dropped down to 4th.

We had to move out of our cottage by this point and went to stay with Christine’s parents in Monmouth. This meant we could leave the children there on the Monday whilst Christine and I went to the (sunny once more) relays at Pwll Du. I ran the last leg in the JK Trophy bringing the SOC team home in a respectable 17th place. Christine managed another 2nd (on first leg in W120+) although her team ended up 5th. Now we just needed a holiday to recover!