Scottish 6 Days - Day 1 - Alvie

This is a very good area. Mostly open run-able forest with minimal bracken. I had a clean run but felt tired.

Results

WMOC Final

I had a poor run in the final, making a 10 min error at control 8 which dumped me third from last!

On the up side Liz Campbell dominated W50 to win Gold, Mark Saunders had a good run to finish 19th in M45, Jon Musgrave did extremely well to finish 17th in M45 seeing as he picked up the wrong map at the start and Anne Donnell finished just outside the medals in W75 in 4th.

Link to Route Gadget

WMOC Qualifying Event 2 M45-Heat 2

Link to Route Gadget



WMOC Qualifying Event 1 M45-Heat 2

Link to Route Gadget



Results

WMOC Model Event 2

I’m feeling more confident after today’s model event although I still made a couple of errors. I find it difficult to make the judgement of whether to run the line or to run out to the nearest linear feature. Some controls in flat areas are very difficult to hit and if you are 50m to one side you probably won’t see it even in white. With such low contour detail mashes and vegetation boundaries will be key along with accurate compass and distance judgement.

Again the map doesn’t look very inspiring although it was better than it looks.

WMOC Model Event 1

It was nice to have some controls out in the terrain. I made fewer mistakes but still found the terrain vague and extremely tricky. The map looks fairly straightforward but the ‘white’ belies the density of the underlying vegetation. It’s very easy to run within a few meters of a control and not see it.

Special mapping symbols are brown X’s, which are anthills, and linear brown dots show the direction of planting ditches.

I have travelled to Ruka in Finland for The World Masters Orienteering Champs. The first qualifying event is on Tuesday and I’m trying to get as much training in as possible to familiarise myself with the terrain.

The areas I have trained in so far have varied from rough and not very inspiring to fast detailed pine forest similar to Loch Vaa near Aviemore.

Some sections (see bottom S.E loop) have good contour detail and regular ‘Lakes O’ technique seems to work well.

The flatter areas are very difficult to follow. Loosing contact would be disastrous. I’ve been trying to follow marshes and pace count in an attempt to attain acceptable accuracy.

Sorry about the quality of the map image, I don’t have a scanner.

Midnattssolgaloppen Day 4

I got caught out by the map changing scale to 15:000 on the last day and didn't realise until I'd messed up the first control. I had a bad miss on 5 as well. Despite a poor run I managed to hold onto 6th overall.

Results



Kavaloya Island west of Tromso

Midnattssolgaloppen Day 3

Midnattssolgaloppen Day 2

Results

Midnattssolgalopen Day 1

Results

Did some training in an amazing area today. Video clip below. Day1 of the Midnattssolgaloppen is in an area adjacent to this tomorrow.

I flew out of Manchester today to start a two and half week O trip in Norway and Finland. With the contracts exchanged on the new house and the excitement of competing in Scandinavia I’m hoping that I can turn the corner with my results.

Tonight I’m staying in Oulu Finland, having flown to Helsinki and then on to Oulu.

I’m driving to Norway tomorrow where I’ll meet up with Jonathan Lagoe and compete in the Midnattssolgaloppen

Monster drive 1

On the 5th of July I’m driving back from Tromso, Norway into Finland to compete in The World Masters

Monster Drive 2

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. I seem to have lost some focus over the last few weeks. A string of poor results combined with moving house might have something to do with it.

Here is a summary of my recent races:

The Twin Peaks. 9-10/06/07

I had a reasonable first day finishing 2nd but still miles behind Martin Bagness who was 10 minutes ahead. I guess having made the map must account for some time but not that much!

Because Martin wasn’t running on the second day all I had to was cruise round the course to win overall. Like day 3 of the Portugal O Meet, when I started with a similar attitude, I disastrously missed out a huge loop of the course without realising until I was walking back to assembly. Must remember never to take that approach again.

Results

Scottish Champs 17/06/07

I had a good run in the open but made a big error in a sketchy bit of forest towards the end which cost me 3 mins and loads of places

My route on Route Gadget

Eycot Hill 24/06/07

I had a fairly good run finishing just behind John Tullie on the brown course. The only problem being that I found a taped cane close to one of the real controls site and assumed that it was missing So, I miss punched once again!

Results

Rogie

This is a fantastic area. I had a good technical run and stayed close to the line on most of the legs. Unfortunately I started run low on gas around 10 and finished up 6 mins off Martin Dean’s course winning time. More later.

Results

I had a short run around some of the controls on this month’s Map of the Month. The marked course is 5.5K although I cut it short because I was feeling tired from a fairly intense period of racing over the last week or so.

This is only part of the Loch Vaa area. The forest to the west is currently out of bounds to protect Capercaillie nesting. A bit of an inconvenience I guess but the same restriction is also holding back a housing development on the edge of Boat of Garten, which would impact heavily on this world-class area.

New housing for local residents is a big issue on Speyside . Like most national parks the Cairngorm National Park has a problem with affordability of housing for people living and working in the area and the likely solutions will inevitably have an effect on the natural environment.

Link to an article in the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald about a proposed housing development near Aviemore.

Caw National Event

I wish to lodge an appeal with Graham Walkden (Race Organiser), about the fact that you used my old red (and a bit slow), SI card number for my entry rather than my flashy new (super-fast) SI card number. By my calculations this oversight has cost me at least 3 seconds in punching time and has had a devastating effect on my plan to win by 1 second. Knowing the kind of chap you are Graham I know you will treat this appeal sympathetically and I await your considered judgement on the matter.

M45L (34) 8.0 km 405 m

1 Quentin Harding SROC 1:02:54 0:00
2 Andrew Hyslop WAROC 1:02:56 0:02

But seriously, great area, great courses and a beautiful day. Many thanks to Graham, Marion and LOC

Results Page

Warrior OC Battleaxe 3 - Esthwaite Intake

What a great event! The map was divided into two sections, the eastern area being the northern end of the Graythwaite map and typical South Lakes complex oak woodland while the western section is the Esthwaite Intake portion of Grizdale Forest which is technical pine plantation interspersed with linear marshes.

Results

Glen Truim

I had a good technical run but tripped on a tussock between 6 and 7 and whacked my knee on the only rock sticking out of the marsh for hundreds of metres. Apologies to anyone in the near vicinity for any colourful expletives that might have reached your ears.

After rolling around for a bit I heroically ;-) ran through the pain and finished the course. I was hoping that I could have fought my way back but it seems that from initial conversations I was down at least 4 mins on the course winner, which was Martin Dean.

The terrain was quite varied with some good technical sections in the birch forest but I did think that Saturday’s event at Dunactonmore was a much better area.


Results

Dunactonmore

This is an area behind the Highland Wildlife Park on Speyside. Both Pat and I had pretty good runs and we really enjoyed the area, which was a mixture of open moor, birch forest interspersed with juniper thickets.

Its interesting that all my orienteering mates seem to be suffering from withdrawl symptoms after the British Champs, having been generally unsatisfied with their runs. Here are a few quotes:

Martin Dean - "After a string of poor technical races recently, I decided to concentrate on 'the process rather than the outcome' See O Kansas Blog".

Jonathan Lagoe - " I've decided to be more decisive in my approach to racing rather than worrying about being in constant contact with the map" Gt Mell Fell - come on!

Donald Petrie - "My navigation has completely gone to pot! "

Myself - "I have this dream where I am running effortlessly through undulating pine forest without any thought of making an error and in perfect tune with the terrain. Running through the controls without hesitation, twisting and turning through features, staying on-line - its still a dream"

Many thanks to Norma Atherton for planning excellent courses and to BASOC for organising a really good event.

Results

Pat and I went to an INVOC evening event at Clunas. It was a refreshing change to attend an event with only 20-30 entrants compared to the 100+ that is normal for a Lakes evening event. The area was really excellent, set in an open pine forest with subtle contour detail and plenty of negative features.

Despite the fantastic terrain neither of us had a good run. No more thumb compass for me!

Many thanks to INVOC