David Currie

Having relocated our accomodation base to Saunton in North Devon it was then a long trek back down south to the first day of the JK individuals at Cookworthy Forest. A journey that we questioned whether it was worth it. One small mercy was that we were in the parking for those with under 6s close to the assembly field which meant we didn’t have the long bus journey (or wait for the bus) that others suffered from. It did, however, mean that we planned to just run straight to the start from the car. Half way there, there was a sign saying ‘No whistle, no go’ so I ran back to the car for a whistle and also picked up pins for a race number. When I got back to the race numbers there was no start list to tell you which number to take and I wasn’t going to run half way across the assembly field to find what my number was.

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839Having exchanged my parents for Christine’s, this morning we packed everything up in to the car and headed to nearby Bicton College for the JK Sprint Race. The college grounds provided a mixture of open fields, woodland and a complex of buildings. I was running M21E and the courses started out across the fields before heading in the to the woodland. This is where I faultered a couple of times, struggling with the large scale for what is otherwise classic orienteering terrain, as shown by my GPS track on RouteGadget. That was more than enough to see me way down in the results. After some sunshine, the rain returned in force whilst we waited for Christine to finish. Ambulances aren’t an uncommon sight at orienteering events given the nature of the sport but the arrival of a police car is always somewhat worrying. It was only later in the day that we heard the tragic news that Dave Stubbs from Berkshire Orienteers had passed away whilst out on his course.

On Saturday we went to the SOC local event at Dibden. The longest course on offer was a Green which included several legs from the Mens Open at the British Relays. The course started with a few track legs which weren’t particularly interesting but were a good chance to warmup. When we reached the legs from the relays they weren’t the same gaffles I had but I was pleased to find number six without too much trouble as this was the area I wasted time in at the British. In proceeded to waste a minute or more on the next leg although in my defence I still couldn’t see the distinct vegetation boundary even when I was stood at the control site. Total time was just under 27 minutes for the 5k course so a good burn-up.
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