David Currie

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!

1004There was a full weekend of orienteering on offer on the weekend just passed. In the end, we decided not to make it three trips to the Forest and spent Saturday enjoying the sunshine doing a bit of work in the garden. I then headed down to the Hamptworth Estate on Saturday evening for the British Night Champs. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with night orienteering. You can’t beat the pleasure of running through the pitch black and seeing a control looming out of the darkness. Sadly, I tend to spend rather too much time running around in circles and this was not to be an exception.

As RouteGadget shows, I made two major blunders. Everything started well enough but at the fifth control I was rather thrown by the presence of contours in the New Forest and turned up-hill just 10 metres short of the control. Actually, I think I was thrown because my attack point was supposed to be a ditch junction whereas, in the daylight, it was evident that the ditch on the map actually turns in to a veg boundary. I had more trouble with vegetation boundaries at 12 where it looks like I had the rhododendrum boundary out by 90 degrees.

Each of those mistakes cost me five minutes. On top of that, in the tussocks and brashings I was generally too cautious and when I finished I was third out of three and a good 25 minutes down on the leader. As it transpired, the remaining three runners in my class managed to take even longer so I can still claim a bronze medal!

On Sunday, the sun was shining again and we all went along for a fantastic day back at Hamptworth. I took the children round the string course whilst Christine ran. Duncan walked the whole way and both were pleased to see sweets at the finish rather than the usual SOC raisins! We then sat in the sun next to a large puddle adjacent to the finish waiting for Christine to return.

I found the area much more enjoyable in the daylight when it was possible to make use of more distant objects in the vague terrain. Two mistakes again on RouteGadget. The first at 8 where, in the presence of Tim Britton, I failed to realise that I had drifted to the north. Then another two minutes en-route to 12 where I failed to negotiate the rhodies successfully. I was six minutes down on Jack Benham so my running speed was definitely up on the previous night. I can’t quite work out where I’ll end up in the SCOA Champs as a result – probably second or third.

I got back to discover that Christine (with a little help from the sweets) had persuaded Emma to go round the string course twice more (on her own this time) and Duncan had even walked round again. All in all, a fun weekend of orienteering although given my aching legs today, not one to be repeated too frequently!

998On Sunday we went to the Wessex event at Black Water near Burley (not in Dorset, despite the name of the event: Dorset Delight). Although Thursday night’s snow had disappeared from around our house, it was still very much in evidence in the forest. We were therefore grateful to Christine’s Mum for taking the children round the string course and saving us all from a prolonged day of split starts in the cold. It was a lovely bit of runnable forest and I enjoyed my run in the crisp snow and ice. The mapping and planning left a little to be desired (the former perhaps suffering from a summer revision and the latter from the former) as did my navigation. My meanderings through the forest can be seen on RouteGadget which explain why I ended up nearly six minutes down on the winner. Although my calf was a bit sore, my ankle stood up to the test so time to enter some more events…

986At the weekend, we went to our first orienteering event of the year (and Christine’s first as a W35!). I went round the 2.9km yellow course with the children which, when combined with the 800m to/from the start/finish and the hills proved a bit of an epic and we ended up in our usual position in the results. Other than a little pre mid-course snack whining from Emma, both children seemed to enjoy themselves although Duncan only climbed out of the buggy to punch at each control. I went for a run afterwards, sticking to the paths as my ankle still hasn’t fully recovered nearly three months on. I’m now on anti-inflammatories to try and remove the last of the swelling from the joint and hopefully allow the physio and exercises to do their work properly.

971It being half-term, we decided to head along to the Wednesday orienteering taking place at nearby Micheldever Forest. My ankle still hasn’t recovered from the trip up to the Peak District so I went round the shortest course (the 3k Yellow) with Emma and Duncan whilst Christine ran the Blue. Duncan was already asleep by the time we had completed the 1k route march to the start which was a bit of a shame as it wasn’t the smoothest of courses. In the background of this photo you can see the ‘ride’ that we had just come along – a mixture of foot high grass/brambles, foot deep water-filled trenches, and branches! I certainly got a good upper body workout hefting Duncan over all of that and needless to say Duncan was awake when we finally arrived at this control. We didn’t complete the course but did have fun and also enjoyed the Junior Squad cakes that were on sale!