David Currie

The orienteering season got under way for us yesterday with a SOC event on an area called Salisbury Trench (east of Janesmoor Pond). Christine was saving herself for the Hursley 10K on Sunday so just took the children round the yellow course. (Actually, the children plus the pictured bear which Duncan has on loan from school as ‘Star of the Week’. It’s slightly concerning that he’s been awarded this in only the second week of the school year as normally it seems to go to those in need of some encouragement at school! Anyway, I digress…)

I went round the blue course which was quite fun, particularly given that the paths had been (deliberately) left off the map. The bracken needs a little longer to die off properly but the area was still pretty runnable although, as Pete Bray demonstrated later in the day, it was actually runnable at a lot faster pace than I was doing! The controls had been hung fairly high for which I was grateful as my compass-work was a little rusty. My ankle was also playing up a bit – a reminder not to get too carried away. The one event a month that SOC puts on is about the right frequency without having to stray further afield.

Today was the start of SOC’s Summer Series of events at Fleming Park. Christine cycled down early to spectate the parkrun (her calf is currently knackered) and then the rest of us joined her.

Duncan declined to start so Emma went round the yellow with Christine in tow. She was really pleased with her second place so will hopefully be a bit more enthusiastic before the next event. I enjoyed my subsequent run round the light green although could have done without the cold showers (it was lovely sunny day when we arrived). I was in first place when I finished although, to be fair, both Rob and Roger had done the parkrun beforehand. Most importantly, there was a great turnout. Let’s hope it continues for the rest of the series.

Yesterday was the first Sunday of November which can only mean one thing: the November Classic. We were down to help on the start. Christine was down to run first and I was on duty calling out names (always an embarrassing job when you can’t remember the names of people you’ve known for decades!). As is usually the case with SOC, the start was well staffed and the children weren’t needed so they sat in their folding chairs and read (something that Duncan wouldn’t have been able to do a year ago). The mist took a while to burn off but it was otherwise dry and the autumn colours were lovely.

I didn’t get off to a great start on my run wasting about 3 minutes on the second control which shows up well on RouteGadget. (Christine tells me the path I should have set off down was not obvious but no excuse really as the angle was totally wrong.) Next wobble was at 18 where I must have been stood on top of the control before running away and then coming back again. In my haste to get away I then veered off to the left on the next leg but didn’t lose much time correcting myself.

When we eventually made it to the assembly field to download I was going to complain that I seemed to have an extra four minutes on my time but then remembered I had auto-pause enabled on my Garmin. Shows just how much standing around I must have been doing! The time was good enough to win the Brown course though even if all the action was on the Black. Mostly I was just pleased that, other than when climbing through the odd fence, my back hadn’t given me any problems on the way round (and doesn’t appear to be any the worse for it today).