Archive for the ‘Orienteering’ Category

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Boxing Day Canter

Thursday, December 27th, 2012

On Boxing Day we were registered for Wimborne Orienteers’ Boxing Day Canter: a one hour score with bonus points for the unmapped Father Christmas, fairies and Christmas Tree. Sue hobbled round with the children (ankle operation in the New Year) so the other three of us all had a run. Christine having pointed out Santa in the distance shortly before the start, I was the first to reach him. This was something of a mistake as I failed to punch a control on the way and, as I then fell in just behind Tim Britton, I knew I was already a control down. Tim was making more direct routes and was generally faster in the terrain. I had to rely on the occasional falter on his part to stay in contention.

With 40 minutes on the clock I was in front and heading to the high point controls at the North end of the map. After a couple of blunders that must have cost me around four minutes in total it was going to be a long sprint back in to try to make it back in the allotted time. Instead, I decided a late return picking up more controls on the way would be a better bet. This also had the benefit that it increased my changes of finding the so far elusive fairies and tree. I was nearly eight minutes late in the end but I was rewarded with a clean sweep on the bonus points. In the final reckoning I was in fourth place. Interestingly, four out of the top five were also back late which suggests that this may actually be a good tactic. You can see my route on RouteGadget.

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Blue at Matley

Monday, December 10th, 2012

On Saturday we went to the club’s local event at Matley on the outskirts of Lyndhurst. I went out first on the blue and got off to a bad start, wasting nearly four minutes on the first control. I’d failed to appreciate that, although a nice example of runnable New Forest terrain, unlike most events, it did also require a degree of navigation. I wasted a bit more time at 7 and 9 before I settled in to a reasonable rhythm for the rest of the course. Perhaps not surprising though that I was nearly six minutes down on the winning time and only just added of Christine in the results. I then took over from Christine who was making slow going on the yellow course with the children (taking bikes round did not make for faster progress!) All in all a very enjoyable event and we even picked up a Christmas tree in Ashurst on our way home (we bought it – we didn’t just dig one up in the forest!).

20121208 Matley Blue GPX

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On your bike

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

On Saturday, after a bit of indecision, we finally decided that we’d go to the orienteering at Dibden Inclosure and not the Hants Cross-Country at Farley Mount (or, indeed, both). It was a lovely day but the orienteering was decidedly average. Dibden is not the most exciting of areas with only the occasional squiggle of contours to break up the otherwise featureless forest and marshy, heather strewn, open. After the first few controls, I even found myself checking that I had actually picked up the blue course map rather than the orange!

Emma and Duncan seemed to thoroughly enjoy the yellow course though. Plenty of mud to squelch through and Duncan walked the whole way round without any bribery or complaining. At Christine’s suggestion, we’d put the children’s bikes in. Nine months on, Duncan’s balance bike actually fits him. He particularly enjoyed the off-road riding although struggled a little with balancing whilst traversing slopes! Emma has never spent more than a few minutes at a time on the stabiliser free bike that she got for her birthday (other than when hooked up to the back of my bike) but that was all set to change. She started just scooting without her feet on the pedals. Then she would cycle with me holding on to the saddle and it was soon apparent that I was doing a lot less holding than on previous occasions. Once we hit the open, Emma just needed to help getting started and then she was off… Hopefully it is just the start of many fun filled years of cycling.

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First London City Race

Saturday, September 22nd, 2012

It may have been the fifth City of London Race today but it was a first for us. Christine was running first and the rest of us headed in to the race venue (Kings College Students Union) to pick up my number and drop off a bag. We managed to lose Emma there as she raced off up the stairs but turned off at the toilet floor whilst Duncan and I carried on up to assembly. We were eventually re-united though and headed out in to the sunshine to await Christine’s return.

I enjoyed my run. I didn’t make any major mistakes (no dead-ends for example) but I made a few bad route choices. In particular, in the Barbican my eyes just glazed over looking at leg 9-10 and I decided to head out and around the roads. Even then, I failed to take the shortest route to get out to the road. That said, I lost at most a minute and a half and that’s making the big assumption that I would have executed the straighter route correctly. I don’t know whether my eye sight is failing but, in general, I couldn’t make any of the fine route choice decisions whilst on the run. I also wasn’t too impressed by the dust, bricks and mortar that raining down on me in one stairwell as some adjacent scaffolding was being removed. Even more so when I discovered I had to go back that way again!

Christine had taken the children off to see St Paul’s whilst I was running and then we had a trip along to Trafalgar Square (not sure what the children will have made of the SlutWalk demonstration!) and in to the National Gallery (it’s Art Week at school next week). Duncan had largely shunned the buggy that we’d brought with us but we were thankful for having brought it when he had a short nap in the gallery!

It was a good day out, helped by some sunshine, and I’m sure we’ll be back for more in the future

20122209 City of London Race GPX

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Navigating the Test

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

Iain McNally ponders his route to the finish.

Somehow I ended up being responsible for putting together an SOC team for this year’s Test Way Relay (thanks Roderick!). The Portsmouth crew took the first two legs with Jes Dickin leading off and handing over to Andrew Nash. Christine was also running the second leg but for Eastleigh.

I was on the third leg, from Stokehill to Middleton. This isn’t one I’d done before and I failed to recce the route which probably cost me a minute or so due to hesitations and two points where I set off down the wrong track. In both cases I realised my error within about 20 metres so no great harm done. From there the Morans (Ian and Tamsin) took the team down to Stockbridge. The Currie clan stopped off for their traditional dip in the Test at Chilbolton Common. The sun had brought the hordes out but it didn’t make the water any warmer!

By this point we were just 10 minutes behind my (unscientific) schedule. Kevin Bracher took us to Mottisfont and Philip Cooper from there to Romsey. Iain McNally was on the last leg down to Totton which is where things went a bit awry when he decided to check out the trout fishing possibilities. I’m not sure that it cost us any places but put us well over the five and half hours for the 44 mile route. The tide being in, Iain got even more intimate with the water on the way in to the finish. He didn’t, unlike one runner, try and build a bridge across!

Posted in Orienteering, Running | 2 Comments »

Back to Dorset

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

At the weekend we were back in Dorset, this time for the annual Coast Path Relay. Originally down to run the first leg in Lyme Regis again, we made our excuses as this year we would have to travel down on the morning of the event. We consequently joined in the action at Abbotsbury Castle where I helped with the hill up from the coast, Christine ran to the end of the castle,  and I took over to the next road bend. We then went up to Hardy’s Monument for the kids to have a run around. Having met our team captain there, Christine picked up an extra leg to Kimmeridge Bay. I took over from there for my usual leg to Chapman’s Pool unfortunately this year without a hill team to help me up to Clavell Tower. By the final climb I was reduced to a walk and wasn’t travelling much faster than yet another KERNO hill team making their way back to the car!

Next stop was Studland Bay where the children had a good play on the beach and we enjoyed watching the displays by two Tornadoes and a Vulcan courtesy of the Bournemouth Air Festival. Sadly SOC had slipped some way off the pace of the other teams, not helped by a stray rock draining the oil from the sump of one of the team’s cars. There were still five of us to enjoy the final run along the beach to the finish line. We were greeted by a fly-by from a Spitfire and a Hurricane which perhaps reflects the more sedate pace of our team! The results speak for themselves.

Posted in Family, Orienteering, Running, Travel | 1 Comment »

Orienteering at Hursley

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

1037I’m using some vacation to catch up on a few blog posts (which I’m going to shamelessly back-date). The end of July saw the last in SOC’s Summer Series of events which was notable for a) actually feeling like Summer unlike most of the other events in the series, b) being on a new area: the IBM site at Hursley and c) being organised by me! Simon Bevan had done a great job of the map, building on some initial work by Charlie Richardson. Given the lack of traffic on the day, I think I had been overly cautious in marking all of the car parks as out of bounds which limited the shape of the courses. On the day, I also spotted a couple of places where I’d been a little careless with the overprint that meant route choices weren’t as clear as they should have been.

Anyway, I didn’t hear any complaints on the day which I suspect had as much to do with the sunshine as anything else. It was certainly good to see so many people staying around for the prize giving and barbecue afterwards. Christine and I picked up first place certificates for the series. We have been to all but one this year which, when set against the fact that we are currently slipping down the British Orienteering rankings having completed insufficient ranking events, says a lot about our orienteering at the moment! We got to know some new club members particularly well when we discovered that Duncan had turned the car lights on at some point and we needed their assistance to start the car.

Thanks go to IBM for allowing the event and in particular Rick Kellaway for his support. Hopefully this will be the first of many orienteering events at Hursley!

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Summer (?) series returns

Saturday, April 14th, 2012

We decided to sneak in a trip to the first event of the orienteering club’s summer series before Emma had to head off to a party. Unfortunately Southampton Common wasn’t at its summeriest with a steady drizzle eventually turning in to a downpour. Emma, Duncan and I went round the yellow whilst Christine had her run. We made it round the 2km course in just under 35 minutes which must be some kind of a record for Emma. We may even have to start her on some navigation soon! Duncan, meanwhile, stayed resolutely in the pushchair. The rest of the family then departed in the direction of Longdown Farm (with my lunch) and it was my turn to tackle the light green. Theoretically no real navigational challenge but I still wasted a minute at number 9 having failed to realise which clearing I had run up and another 30 seconds or so at 17 when I got ahead of myself on the map. That would have brought me under 4 min/k which would have been nice but I’ll settle for a first place in the results. It’s a shame I then got completely soaked cycling back home!

20120414 Southampton Common Light Green GPX

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