JK2012 - Scotland

Gone are the days of Easter meaning, for me at least, 4 days in church serving the Altar. Nowadays over the long bank holiday I worship the Orienteering Gods at The Jan Kjellstrom - aka the JK, British Orienteering's most prestigious event outside of the British Championships in the 4 separate foot-O disciplines of Sprint, Middle, Long and Relay. The JK contains all 4 of these, with the middle and classic times cmbined in an overall competition. There's little recovery time between the 4 hard races and at time crucifixion seems the easy way out.

This year we were treated to typical tough Scottish terrain and almost-typical Scottish weather in northern Perthshire. Thankfully the typical Scottish Midgies weren't on hand.

Anyway, the reason for this post - somewhere to host my quickrouted maps:

Friday's Sprint Race - Livingstone.

 An enjoyable race around a fairly trick albeit NED-ish area. an OK result in 42ndish (50th last year) but there were some mistakes in there. I did 17:40, the course was taken out by Murray Strain in 14:37. Blimey.

Saturday's Middle Distance Race - Dunalastair.
I like the idea of middle distance courses but you don't get many of them about, and when I run them I'm generally crap. As this was a World Ranking Event GPS watches were not allowed, so not even I know what happened when it took me 14,5mins to find control #1, an entire 200m away from the start kite. After that some bits were OK but a lot was bad. Mainly because I was mad.

Sunday's Classic - Craig a Barns (Dunkeld).

This was meaty. 2hr 16min for 11.6km (600m climb) tells the story - I was out for a long time and flagged from about 70 minutes in (as expected due to lack of rougher training of late), losing a lot of concentration and impetus, and thus time. However, similar courses in the past have seen me out for over 150mins, so I'm moving in the right direction. I also managed to head up a group of 4 guys who clocked times within 9 seconds of each other - ridiculous over this amount of time. The Course was won by Douglas Tullie (OMM Elite 3rd place) just shy of 87mins. A class run.

Monday's Relays - Newtyle (Dunkeld).

My first relay run for my new Klub, CLOK, I ran the last leg on the big boy's course. I was out on my own for all of it as we were well adrift by the time I went out, so I didn't get the head-to-head experience I enjoy, but was just glad of the run. My cleanest of the weekend as well, although my 42ish mins was still 10mins shy of Oli Johnson on my specific course (although he was fighting for the medals so had something to run for).

The O tech is improving but still more practise needed, and I should get it over the next few months. Next up - Coledale Horseshoe, then the British Orienteering Champs, also in the lakes.

Back in the Swing

First up, a bit of a plug for Team Accelerate's Shelf and his Big Alps Run. Take a look at his blog and twitter, and donate!

The cracking weather has coincided with a return to running on a regular basis. I've had a good 8 days solid running. OK, most of the runs were short and road-based, but I've started venturing out into the moors, what with having daylight after work. The good news is that my knee is being a lot more cooperative with the residual twinges becoming more and more dispirit. Many thanks to Tim's words of wisdom for getting me back on track - just need to remember to keep doing strength exercises on a regular basis now!
Needless to say I was disappointed to miss the Edale Skyline, but next year.

Instead I took in the British Sprint Orienteering Championships. Unfortunately I got a bit excited about being able to run fast again and made some shoddy shoddy nav errors.

JOSH BEEEECH! (Putting the 'Testes' in Test Runner)

I was no way expecting to pull a run worthy of A-final qualification out of the bag, but I was some way down on where I wanted to be - and the B final was, somehow, even worse! However, it was great to catch up with ShUOC and other orienteers you seldom see due to geographical constraints. My performances have given me some focus ahead of the rest of the season. It was also great to see SPOOKer Shminty pull a stormer out of the bag and win the men's race. I'm sure his performance has given lots of encouragement (and food for thought?) to a lot of the guys out there. Maps and routes are available here (17th on H1A) and here (a distant 50-something on FB1).

'Ector Anus, Shmint Doggy Dogg and OJ 

I took a lot of photos of the finals. Some of them were even OK!

Looking forward to the JK in Scotland over the Easter Weekend. I'll be testing against the best (terrain and runners), needless to say I'll be getting my moneys worth and I'm really looking forward to it. Hope the weather stays nice (but not too nice).

Bit of O today on Hamsterley Common:

Good heathery fun under Bluebird skies, a few mistakes but getting better. Was still 10mins down on Duncan Archer (who'd supported Leg 3 on DFR's Andy Blackett's 23:30ish BG the previous day - well done Andy!). It was all very civilized, especially as I had Bach's Mass in B Minor going round my head after last night's performance with Cleveland Philharmonic Choir.
I didn't see any Hamsters though.

Painkiller

Knee injury of late, so I had to miss Black Combe and some Lakes O the other weekend - oh well, I had a swanky new pad to move in to.
My knee wasn't completely fixed but I was getting antsy from the lack of running (I even considered joining a gym. For all of 15 minutes) and headed down to Great Malvern with the intention of running the 2 Orienteering events down there - I was seeing Uni friends and helping out, but the lure of 2 UKCup races was too much to resist.

Saturday - Great Malvern Urban Race after several hours marshalling. Tired, leggy but knee held up OK. Made a few daft mistakes and it felt like a struggle all the way round. Off the pace but I know I'm better than this.

Sunday - Midland Champs, Foxley and Garnstone. Brambly, some silly silly mistakes due partly to tiredness and partly to getting back into 1:15k maps. A lesson.

Click for bigger images. The results for both can be found here.

 Lads Leap next week. I'm going into it with no form and very low expectations. There's (at least) 4 other English Champs races I'm doing in which I hope I can show myself what I can do.

Heading towards a Crazy March

Just a few lines to show I'm still alive.

On Saturday I set a new 5km PB at Middlesbrough Albert Parkrun by 25 seconds - I've now joined the Sub-17 club, clocking 16:53. I put a bit of pressure on myself for this as a few clubmates and friends have got a little close of late. The pleasing thing about this run is that I was carrying a bit of a curry baby from the previous night, and I'm still sure that 9am is not my optimum time to run.

Next target is a hard one - sub-16!

I followed the parkrun up (almost) immediately with some SprintO training around Teesside Uni, going at a fair pace.

That evening my 'recovery run' was some night-O around a Golf Course near Northallerton. Being a Golf dectractor I thoroughly enjoyed crashing around the woods and fairways and got a bit carried away. Then I was caught a minute by Lewis Taylor, a good young(ish) orienteer and we hammered the last 10mins or so to the finish. We made a few little mistakes due to the speed but I like to think I helped Lewis win, 50seconds ahead of me and 35 ahead of Peter Bray.
Head-to-Head GC NightO - really good fun!

Sunday was a short, fast race from Commondale in the Moors. Not much climb but the ground was quite heavy. Needless to say my legs were a bit on the sluggish side and I couldn't keep with the lead grupetto, but it was a lovely day and I really enjoyed myself en-route to 6th place (after a sprint finish) - much better than last time just because of the weather!

March is going to be busy but a lot of fun. I'll be in the Lakes this weekend for the Black Comb Fell Race and Whitbarrow Scar O event. Black Combe is going to hurt due to my lack of hills - think I'll start racing once we crest the summit for the first time, and really go for the descent split!

I'll then move into my new house and spend no time in it over the following weekends!

Fell, Road and Forest

Last weekend I had one of my worst runs for a while. OK, I still managed a top-10 at the Danby Beacon, and was running at a good tempo pace, but something was missing. I was knackered from a hefty week at work and trying to shoe-horn (too much) training into the week. I was rubbish on anything other than flat or downhill (wasn't as good as normal on these anyway) and even managed to get lost at one point, missing the tapes on the way back. oops!

Marking eventual winner Cam at the start - but not for much longer... (Photo: Esk Valley)

What doesn't kill me can only make me stronger. I'm still not too far behind in the overall Winter Series standings,  but really need to win all the races I can (think I can make 3 more) to finish atop the table - and with Cam in the form he is that's a tough tough challenge!

I headed back to the Peaks on Tuesday night to get in some much needed rest and see Dad (now sporting a rather suspect moustache as it's too warm in Africa for a beard) before he headed back to the Congo. I managed to get some good miles and hills in and was starting to feel good again. I recce'd Lad's Leap (rather unsuccessfully) and the second half of the Edale Skyline (me and Hobbs both went balls-deep in peat on Brown Knoll) before heading back North East.

Yesterday was the Signal Road Relays - effectively the North East 6 Stage Road Relay Championships. Billingham had 2 Male and 1 Female teams made up of runners of varying abilities. I ran the anchor leg for the 1st team on the 2x1.8km course. It was a really nice day and a good setting for road relays, the course around a lake and park having 2 drags per lap.

Banter Start (a photo taken by me for once!)

I pushed quite hard but felt comfortable throughout, passing our local rivals Middlesbrough & Cleveland 200m from the finish, completing the course in 11:55, which is the best Vdot (61.0) I've produced ever - according to Attackpoint. I was 7th fastest person on the last leg - although GB international Ricky Stevenson ran 10:09...

Tarmac! (credit Helen Johnson, BMHH)

 Maybe it's time to have a crack at a sub-17 5km, though I still maintain 9am is too early.

Sunday was the qualifying round for the National Club Orienteering Competition - or the Compass Sport Cup as it's also know, my first proper race for my new(ish) club (or should that be Klub?) CLOK. We had reigning champions SYO, as well as AIRE from Leeds and EBOR from York to compete against, but with only the top 2 to qualify we missed out in 3rd place. Oh well, at least we managed to get one over EBOR, and I'll just have to find something else to do on the weekend of the Final - in September!

Anyway, as for my run, I'm improving with this O malarky, but there's still some prety hefty mistakes to be ironed out. I made 2 big mistakes - including one early on which lead to scrappiness over the rest of the first quarter of the course. I eventually got going again, losing bit here and there but not too much, only to make a big miss again from the end - I just saw a hill and set off up it, when I was nearly at the control - d'oh!
The 8km/310 course took me 72:43mins and saw me finish 10th - a quite pleasing run albeit a large 12mins down on James Logue (where have you heard that name before...), but closer than I'd normally be to the likes of Duncan Archer.

Spot the errors! (2 and 20 the biggest, 11 and 12 not quite as bad) - click for better image.

I should be able to get a useful amount of O in over the next few weeks ahead of the big races in the spring and early summer - there's still a lot of room for improvement. Now I just need some more regular climb in my training else I'll suffer come the early Fell season.

A Snowy Double - O and XC.

I've been eating an inordinate amount of Broccoli of late. I don't know why, it's just there and cheap and someone's got to do it.

Mmm, Broccoli (courtesy the Internet)

Anyway, after the snow (just an inch here) roads were cleared (ish) overnight and today's activities were go! Today I'd venture into a forest with a map in anger for the first time since a rather hungover day in October. There was snow on the ground and an (almost) bluebird sky above - not that I saw it much under the canopy. I was running at my club CLOK's event at Hutton Mulgrave & Skelder, just west of Whitby.

The Brown Course was 7.3km/180m straight line. I ran 8.4km/186m (?!).

Map and Course

Map with my route

I took just under 60 minutes, winning the course by about 10mins. My main aim was to not make any big mistakes and practise running on bearings wherever possible. I managed the former, only 2 losses of about 1min I reckon along with some smaller hesitations. I did manage to drift of line a few times, I'm still not great at looking at my compass whilst running in terrain. However, I was pleased with my run as I was expecting to be a lot rustier than I actually was. More O over the next few months should see me right!

After the O I hooned it back to Stockton so Yasha could catch his bus. This left me with enough time to head out to the old Racecourse above Richmond for the latest NYSD XC Fixture. After the morning's exertions I was pretty tired but kept plugging away over the 9.5km/130m fast course (there was nowhere to hide, all very honest). Nothing spectacular but a good tempo run and I was 3rd counter for Billy Marsh House.

Epic Heel-strike. Courtesy Dave Aspin.

Needless to say I was pretty tired after all this effort, but I'm going to stay up as long as I can to watch the Superb Owl tonight. I feel well and am looking forward to some good training over the rest of February (work dependant).

EUOC Big Weekend - back on the O

For my first Orienteering of the year (and what felt like ages) I ventured into auld enemy territory - Edinburgh.
Sheffield and Edinburgh University O clubs have a good-natured but strong rivalry, as befits two of the country's (well, as we're still one country at the moment) foremost exponents of the dark art of map, compass and running hell for leather. I've wanted to head up for EUOC's Big Weekend for the last 3 years, but exams and looming deadlines always got in the way. However, not having these frivolities to worry about any more, (or the perceived stigma of being a current ShUOC member!) I was looking forward to hopefully kick-starting my O year and seeing just how rusty I'd be after what felt like an age away from the map.

I didn't get many pictures whilst up there. This is about the pick...

Saturday's entertainment was a City Race taking in Edinburgh Southside, the Castle Mound, Royal Mile, Dumbiedykes estate and Pollock Halls of residence. Having looked at previous courses I was worried that I'd forget how to marry running and navigating.

Around the Royal Mile (North West) and Dumbiedykes (East)

An iffy night's sleep (thank you hostel dorm) slowed me down just enough that I could keep on top of the navigation. However, this didn't stop me making some silly mistakes, especially towards the end of the course where I was finding it difficult to pick up all the map detail and make quick decisions. I was also finding that my legs didn't have all that much in them - although maybe this was due to the fact that I was trying to make them run uphill in some instances - most unusual given the bulk of my current training. The 6.9km course yielded just over 10km of running - so as you can tell from my average pace of 4:50min/kms I wasn't shifting too much.
However, despite the fears of forgetting how to orienteer, and not feeling too great about my run, it was enough for a top-10 finish in a pretty good field. OK, so not all the top guys were pushing it (Spongey took a 12-minute 'comfort break' en-route), but of those who beat me only one was not a local.

The evening's entertainment involved a ceilidh, haggis and Edinburgh Student's Union. Needless to say this didn't set me up fantastically for Sunday's Mass Start event on Arthur's Seat.

I do enjoy the start-line banter, fun and head-to-head competition of mass-start O events, even if they don't really let me practise my technique as much as I need, tending as I do to just thumb the map whilst following using those more gifted than myself.

Quickroute of my race. Green = fast, red=slow

Despite the previous night's excesses I actually felt quite perky - for the first part of the race. I got in a quite good group around the butterfly loops and was really enjoying running on such a nice day. However, once we got to the long leg I decided to take the high option, and was dropped. I was still within sight of some good orienteers, but didn't have the energy to get back to them. As we got into the MicroO section on Sailsbury crags my race went to pot; I couldn't think straight, my legs died and I really struggled on anything that didn't have a bit of downhill on it. I just about managed to hold of the best of the vets, finishing in 14th place.

The microO section of the race. I just couldn't really hack the change of scales on this occasion!

There's a more all-encompassing review of the weekend's happenings on nopesport. I really enjoyed my first proper trip to Edinburgh, and was pleased to come away with the positives that I'm not as rusty with my Otech as I feared. However, there's still a lot to be worked on both technically (hoping to hit up a lot of events in the next couple of months) and physically (HILLS! and lots of them).

OMM 2011 - Tentative results.

The 2011 Perthshire OMM came down to a sprint-finish today. Duncan Archer and Shane Ohly, setting the fastest time of the day by 6 minutes to take the win from Chris Near and Tim Higginbottom. Doug Tullie and John Rocke finished 5 minutes down in 3rd place, a good performance considering Doug's illness earlier in the week, 4 minutes ahead of Steve Birkenshaw and Jethro Lennox.

From a brief glance at the splits (and Twitter!), Duncan and Shane appeared to run a controlled race, taking time out of Near and Higginbottom on 8 of the 11 legs (including finish) on the day 2 course. Birkenshaw and Lennox started hard with a slew of fastest split times, taking minutes out of the other 3 pairs over the first 4 controls and hitting the front of the race. However, a series of poor route choices from then on, losing 3-4 minutes to Archer and Ohly on at least 3 legs, put paid to their chances of another OMM victory.There's also talk of them punching the wrong penultimate control on day 1 (same feature and less than 100m away, tricky on a 1:40k map) for which they were penalised 30mins. More news on this if I find it.

Elsewhere, on the A-Class a 7 minute overnight lead became a 9 minute win for Peter Hodgkinson and James Taylor over Mark and Ashley Bown. Dave Schorah and Tom Beasant were again 34minutes quicker than their closest rival on the B-class, winning by the best part of 70 minutes. Andy Llewellyn and Rich Robinson showed that they really should man up, winning the C-class by 119 minutes. Alex and David McCann held onto 1st on the D-Class by 2 minutes.

Once there's some route-gadgets and training logs are up I'll post a slightly more in-depth view of proceedings. All there is to say is - Orienteers won all 5 non-score courses!

FRA Relays/HangoverO

This year's UKA Fell and Hill Relays (more commonly referred to as 'The FRAs') were held in sunkissed Kettlewell last weekend. I headed down on the Friday evening with Andy from Durham FR, and we bumped into many fell runners, and a rather bemused lad who was doing a road-trip and had stumbled into Kettlewell on race weekend, in the pub.
On Saturday morning I woke at 7.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. It was pretty chilly and the first proper frost of the year. I went for a walk in the direction of leg1 to take some photos.

Ducks Crossing

Cam Head above an inversion layer

I was running leg 3 (the Navigation leg) with Dave Ward, who said he was a bit ill. Dave tends to beat me in longer races, and I beat him in shorter races, so hopefully over the 7miles or so we'd be fairly well matched. Noel (Leg 1), Paul and Adam (Leg 2) had great runs and set us out in 18th place with Dark Peak Vets and not far off HBT and a Wharfedale Team. We picked up the map and both of us thought we had a score course. We asked the ladies handing out the maps if we could take the controls in any order and we heard her say yes.
Needless to say it wasn't a score course. We got to #1 with the other 3 teams then headed to #4 where we saw the race leaders (John and Rhys from DP) going through and were told by the marshals that we did have to take the controls in order.
Bugger.
Overall we dropped about 3 mins and 2 places. We were running hard but after the mistake all thoughts of nav had gone out of the window. We followed the other teams which lead to bananas at #3 and #4. Dave and I were well matched on the hills and through the terrain, but I was much quicker on the downs.

My route. Green=fast. Red=slow.

Overall our team finished a respectable 21st, but we were so close to the top 20! Pennine's other teams did well in their classes (V40 6th, V50 3rd, Ladies 9th). It was also nice to see many of my ShUOC friends do well in the Dark Peak senior teams - who finished 1st and 8th.

Compass Sport Cup Final.
After the FRAs I headed down to Sheffield for the Final of the UK Club Orienteering competition, which was being held on the Longshaw estate. My club (SYO) have won for the last 4/5 years. Last year I managed to place as a counter due to people being missing at the FRAs. Unfortunately this year's performance was hindered by the mother of all hangovers, I was pleased to just get round and I felt much better after doing so. I Orienteered quite well considering and it perked me up following the previous weekend's debacle at the UK Cup final. However it did rekindle my enjoyment in Orienteering after a few months off.

Brown Course at Longshaw

I'm now into a few weeks of rest before starting some winter training - going to have to be a bit better constructed this year as I try to maintain my upward curve over recent years.

Look out for an OMM preview (even though I won't be going), hoping to fit one in early next week!

WOC 2011 Preview pt.2 - Sprint Contenders.

So, despite the fairly unpredictable nature of orienteering, here's some of my WOC predictions, based mainly on conjecture and rumour, but the cold hard facts of recent results, IOF runner ranking and WorldofO.com's ranking system (which also separates accoring to different disciplines) may also be taken into account! Seeing as WorldofO.com have not yet mentioned who they're tipping to do well, and the start lists are yet to be published so I'm not entirely sure who's running what, I'm sticking my neck out somewhat!

Sprint: Aix-les-Bains (Qual) and Chambery (Final), Tuesday 16th August.
Trying to predict who will win in each class is pretty ridiculous (at WOC2010 in Trondheim, the top 7 men were separated by 7.4 seconds, with the women's gold being decided by 0.7 seconds); as appraisal of the main contenders seems more sensible.

Chambery old-town (from WOC2011 website), part of the sprint final map.

Men.
The first sprint rounds of this year's World Cup (WC) were dominated by the Swiss, rounding out the top 5 in the first race (with 2 more in the top 10) and 4 of the top 8 in the 2nd round knock-out sprint. there team is unbelievably strong: defending champion Matthias Muller, 1st year senior Matthias Kyburz (winner, WC 2011#1 and 2009 JWOC sprint champion), Daniel Hubmann (4 WOC sprint medals, many podiums at WC races), Fabian Hertner (European sprint champion, silver in WOC '09 and '10 sprints) and Matthias Merz.
Outside of the land of Toblerone, the Swedish sprint specialist Jerker Lysell (Winner, WC 2011 #2) and Norwegian sprint specialist Oystein Kvaal Osterbo (4th WOC 2010) will head strong Scandinavian delegations, with the Russian Andrey Khramov (2008 & 2009 champion) always dangerous.
Potential outsiders (here comes some nepotism!) include Britain's Scott Fraser, Graham Gristwood and sprint specialist Murray Strain, France's Frederic Tranchand (surprise bronze in 2010) and Lucas Basset (JWOC 2011 Gold) or the Czech Stepan Kodeda (JWOC 2008 Gold). Then again, you can never discount anyone from having a stormer (I know it's a cop-out!)
I'm going to stick my neck out and go for a 2xSwiss and Lysell podium.

Jerker Lysell (from WorldofO.com) at WOC2010 Sprint (11th place) - now with the mockers put on his chances!

Women.
Reigning champion (and 17-times world champion in all disciplines, 5 in sprint) Simone Niggli (Sui) is not in France this year as she's expecting her second child, leaving Sweden's Helena Jansson (2nd last year by 0.7 seconds; 2009 champion) the stand-out favourite. Competition will come from the the other Swedish runners, I'm assuming 2 of  Linnea Gustafsson (WC#1 Winner), Lena Eliasson (WC#1 2nd) and Annika Billstam (WC#1 3rd), Norwegian all-rounder (and perpetual 2/3rd place runner) Marianne Andersen (WOC 2010 3rd) and Finnish all-rounder Minna Kauppi (2x sprint silvers, 7x WOC champion). Even with Kauppi and Jansson missing the early-season WC races due to injusy, I'm going for both to medal, along with Gustafsson, but, as Australia's Hanny Allston showed by winning whilst still a junior in 2006, anything can happen, and has!

Minna Kauppi (from WorldofO.com) at WOC 2010 Sprint (4th place) - mad as a box of frogs but pretty damn fine. You can find more pictures on her website ;)

As for the British girls, the experienced Sarah Rollins (5-times British Sprint champion), along with WOC second- and first-timers respectively Hollie Orr (current British Sprint champion) and Tessa Hill (11th place WC#1) all have an excellent chance of making the top 20.

I'll update with Long and Middle contenders after those respective qualifying races have taken place (Saturday and Sunday respectively)

Preview - World Orienteering Championships 2011.

This year's 28th World Orienteering Championships (WOC) are being held next week in the alpine foothills of the Savoie-Grand Revard region of France, centred around the towns of Chambery and Aix-les-Baines. In competition between the 13th-20th August, runners from 49 countries will compete in the 28th (by my counting!) WOC, fighting it out in the 8 (current) world championship disciplines - Sprint, Middle Distance, Long (Classic) Distance and Relay for both men and women.

During the week it will also be decided whether Scotland (YAY!) or Sweden (Boo!) will host WOC 2015.

The Forest Terrain.
Without beating about the bush - it's rough as a badger's arse and about as technical as it gets!

Swedish test race on Le Revard II, neighbouring the competition areas. From Olle Karner (Estonian runner) webpage.

The wealth of contour detail (mainly negative Karst-like features), altitude between 1200 and 1500m, along with rough underfoot conditions (rocky and covered in brashings, by all accounts) make running quickly and navigating cleanly tough on their own - let alone together! Add to that some 'iffy' sections of map on the training areas in which some of the best in the world have ditched 10+ minutes on one control, and the picture as to how hard it is starts to become clearer.
  However, with estimated winning speeds being much less than those seen in test races, coupled with new mapping of the WOC areas by the Romanian Marian Cotirta, suggest that the actual race areas are that bit kinder physically and the maps (hopefully!) a better representation of the terrain than experienced previously.

La Feclaz - part of the area used for the Middle and Long finals and the Relay - more open ground (both meadow and ski-slopes) on the map than in the surrounding training areas suggests WOC competitors will experience slightly easier running, although the forest still looks green, rough and rocky! (all old maps of WOC2011 areas are here).

The Sprint Terrain.

2010 Sprint Gold Medalist Matthias Muller (Sui). Picture courtesy of WorldofO.com

This year's sprint races are again an urban/parkland and forest mix. The qualification in Aix-les-Bains appears to be a more wooded affair, whilst the maps of the final areas in Chambery suggest a mixture of old-town alleyway hunting and hilly parkland-cum-forest.

Sprint Quali area - parkland and woodland.

Part of the sprint final area, Chambery old town. 'Traboules' is the French version of  gynel (sp).

The Programme.
WOC starts with Long and Middle distance Qualification on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th, respectively. The Sprint races will be on Tuesday 16th, qualification in the morning, finals in the afternoon/evening. The Long Distance final is on Wednesday 17th, Middle on Friday 19th before the champs are wound up with the usual finale of the relays on Saturday 20th, before the post-WOC banquet...


Coming soon - some conjecture as to who may win, and British team hopes (they're the same things, right?!)

Scottish 6 Days of Orienteering, Oban 2011

Every 2 years the majority of the British O community, along with a fair few from shores of varying proximity (Europe, USA, Down Under and so on) decamps to Scotland for a week of top notch competition and socialising. This year all 6 days were in the area surrounding Oban on the Scottish West Coast - intricate contour detail and a mix of open and forest was expected. I was running the toughest course of the week - M21 Elite. There proved to be quite a battle at the bottom of the standings in which I played my part! Here's a brief overview of the week, including maps and quickroutes - I'm using this blog to host the pictures, but there'll be more technical analysis (and boy do I need it!) on my attackpoint training log in due course.

Melfort Harbour, South of Oban.

Day 1 - Dunollie and Dunstaffnage.
An OK start to the week on a mainly open area with a few patches of wood, but nothing more. I overshot a few controls and took a few rougher, slower routes. I'd like to have been a bit more confident but a good basis. 79:05mins - Oli won in 56:34.

Day 1 with route (map already drawn on)

Day 2 - Ardnaskie, Middle Distance.

Middle Distance races tend to go one of 2 ways for me - really well or really poor, normally the latter being more prevalent. I knew this area would be tough technically, having been used for WOC selection races, and it didn't disappoint! Vague contour and vegetation detail resulted in lots of mistakes. I started with a big (3.5-4min) mistake to number one, managed to run well to 10, after which it all fell apart, especially to the last control. 52:44 mins, 21mins down on Oli, a ridiculous amount for a middle distance!

Day 2 - a bit of a 'mare.

Day 3 - Creag Mhic, Classic Distance.
I was really looking forward to this day - a classic area by all accounts, again used for WOC selections. 14.5km with 825m climb (straight line) over rough open, vague woods and a wealth of contour detail on a 1:15k map scale to add to the challenge. I set off steadily - no point in wasting energy - but wasn't making any big mistakes until #7 where I went round in circles and made a parallel error on a marsh, loosing around 7 minutes. I had a few people to run with during the meat of the course (10-19) and managed to limit mistakes (bar a banana to #20), although the effort, both mentally and physically, meant I lost bits of time here and there. I was out for just over 2.5 hours - Oli was out for a mere 96 minutes!

Creag Mhic Classic Distance.

Thankfully we had a rest day after this, went on a boat and saw some whirlpools and the Paps of Jura (from a distance).

Day 4 - Torinturk.
Fairly steep open hillside (a bit of woodland to start) today, A bit leggy, a few mistakes at the beginning and not quite as quick as I'd have liked on the fell. Only 1 big-ish error between 16 and 17 but otherwise fairly pleased. Hector won in 58:44. I ran 81:05.

Day 4 - Chasing Start.

Day 5 - Lochnell and Shenavallie.
Dead on my feet today and did not enjoy this, although I might have had it not been for the grotty first 5 controls. After this I didn't really care and lost a lot of time to those around me in the overall standings. I was out for over 90 mins whilst Spongey did 55:46!

Day 6 - Ardchattan.
I felt much better for the last day, knowing that the area should suit me. I was hoping to gain some time on those around me in the overall results, maybe even gaining a few places. However this went out the window on the first control as I binned 6 minutes being too far up the hill and unable to relocate quick enough, allowing my 3- and 6-minute men to pass me. However I now started to Orienteer properly and run really well, reeled them in and dropped them on route-choice to #10. I dropped a couple of daft minutes at number 17 but was pleased with my run even with my mistakes - I actually felt like I was Orienteering and racing properly. I took 83 minutes (should have been closer to 75), Spongey ran 59 mins to take the overall title.

Plenty to work on but I really enjoyed my week. I finished 44th out of 49 people who completed all 6 days, nearly 3 hours (!) down on Spongey who won. 538 minutes of Orienteering - some good points to take away, but some iffy bits I need to iron out - more practise needed.

ShUOC's Harvester Relays

Last weekend was the Harvester Relays - a 7 (or 5) person night-day orienteering relay. ShUOC were hosting this year's race in Eccleshall Woods and Limb Valley, a major undertaking for such a small club, and I'm pleased to say that we managed to do it with some style! Here's a couple of our promotional videos:

Saturday started a bit grim but thankfully after hitting town for some last minute requirements, once we arrived at the assembly the weather had improved and it was a nice afternoon setting up the Ultrasprint maze and watching the competitors bombing around it. Once the ultrasprint was done I set up my controls for the Urban event I was planning in Dore the next morning, before heading to bed to try and get some kip as I was both helping and running in the early morning. Despite lying down for a couple of hours sleep was not forthcoming and I got out of bed to have a look at the GPS tracking (a first for the UK!) of the first leg before heading off to my road-crossing station, where I stood for 1 and a half hours with Kris.

Start of the Relay (pinched from Ralph's fb album).

I was running leg 5 (the first day leg) for the depleted ShUOC team - 10.1km with about 280m climb. The plan was to be clean and controlled, no need to push too hard as I'd then make mistakes. I managed this quite well to start with - a few blips but only losing 20 seconds here and there. However I then made a right doosie at control 17, losing 6-7minutes. Thankfully I had a bit of a cushion on the teams behind us, but it did allow Dickie Wren of EPOC to catch me up a few controls later. The rest of the course was quite controlled, if a bit frantic after my mistake.

My Garmin GPS trace quickroute.

Of course the best bit about my mistake was that I was being GPS tracked, so everyone back at the start/finish could see what I was getting up to - I'm the Green 'ShUOC' blob, my run starts at 4.17 on the clock, with my big mistake starting at 5.07 - enjoy!
SYO won overall by a mile, ShUOC's team of Treb, Dan, Daverams, BommyT, myself, Little Rob and Schorah finished in 4th and in doing so managed to retain the UK Relay League trophy.

Once finished (and being the recipient of some quality banter. Well, I did earn it!) I had a bit of a rest before heading into Dore to hang the controls for Sunday morning's urban race. By now I was knackered, a bit hacked off with my mistake in the relay and missing the culmination of the Harvester, so a bit frustrated. We managed to get everything sorted out just in time for the start and everyone seemed to enjoy the courses I'd planned on what, when I first saw it, was a pretty unexciting area for an urban race.

By the time everyone had finished and the controls had been collected I'd been awake for getting on 30 hours and was well ready for a bit of kip before driving home - never before has 40 mph felt like a perfectly legitimate speed on Snake!