Paul’s
Orienteering Blog
Jump to: current Jan/Feb
2007
Sunday 22 April 2007
SLOW District event – Wimbledon Common, London
Back orienteering
properly again for the first time since the JK, this was a nice pleasant Sunday
afternoon event at an area I now know fairly well in south-west London. Billed as “After the London Marathon”, I
don’t think anyone did actually come after having run the 26 miles in the
morning, but it would have been a good warm down!
I thought the course was
very well planned, with lots of changes in direction and variety in leg
length. I felt my running speed was a
bit below par – I can’t really blame it on the heat suffered by marathon
runners in the morning, so perhaps it was still post-JK fatigue. This was also coupled with my usual selection
of mistakes, which totted up to 5 minutes – half of which was looking for a
small depression at number 7, having got fairly close to the control site but
not quite finding it, and then spending a long time to get back there. Despite my mistakes this was basically a
classic runners course, with lots of fast open areas and track running. Nick Barrable came storming past me 7
controls from the end, and I was just pleased to still have him in sight at the
penultimate control (although he did beat me by a whopping 11 minutes overall).
A very pleasant
event, though a shame more people didn’t turn up – only 124 competitors in
total which is very low for a district event.
I wonder if this was due to the overall start times, or just the
location being quite a way into London – or perhaps just a sign of the
decreasing number of orienteers generally.
Brown course – 9.2 km / 125 m
Result: 62:12 (winner 51:39) – 7th out of 27 Full results here Splitsbrowser RouteGadget
Tuesday
17 April 2007
SLOW Street event – Raynes Park, London
This was the final Street-O
of the season – the summer evening series is due to kick off next month when we
can get out into terrain in the evenings, which I’m looking forward to. For the only time all year, this Street-O
could be done in the light (as long as you started early enough), which made a
pleasant change. Competition was stiff
tonight, with both Nick Barrable and Ed Catmur turning up, but I managed to
finish 4th behind them and Matthias – although it could have been
better if my route had been somewhat better planned. I ended up having to charge all the way back
to the finish from what was probably the furthest out control on the map –
running very close to some other controls on the way but not having time to
visit them – and still ended up 1 minute 10 seconds late, incurring a 40 point
penalty. If it hadn’t been for the 1
minute 11 seconds I’d had to wait at a level crossing for a train to cross
during the race, I’d have been ok! Still
it was a very enjoyable race, and one of the best street-O maps I’ve run on.
Street score course – 60-minute time limit
Result: 420 points (winner 490) – 4th out of 27 Full results here
Friday
6 – Monday 9 April 2007
JK – UWE Bristol / Forest of Dean / Caerwent
The weekend started on Good
Friday in Bristol at the University of the West of England, with the JK sprint
race. Although this didn’t count towards
the overall results, I think it is an excellent addition to the JK program (it
was held for the first time last year), and far more enjoyable for me than the
training days which used to be held on the Friday. With only 6 courses on offer there were lots
of people running each course – over 200 on the men’s open class – which made
for some great head-to-head competition.
For some bizarre reason I was named as one of the top 30 seeds
(apparently based on last year’s final UK Cup series results – I had some quite
good scores here having attended most of the events, but even I could have told
the selectors that seeding me was probably not a good idea!). The terrain was fairly simple, although as
ever with sprint races you had to keep concentrating fully at all times to
avoid making any errors. I’m pleased to
say that for almost the first time ever I had a mistake-free run! My running speed didn’t feel that fast though
and I felt quite tired in the second half of the race, and as a result my clean
run was still only enough to just put me in the top half of the results
(although of course I was really saving myself for the next three days…).
Saturday’s run at
Sallowvallets was quite disappointing for me, with a significant number of
mistakes which proved very costly given the 
short Elite course (only
just over 6km). My major mistake was on
8-9, a 300m leg across a fairly vague semi-open area to a ditch. I found a control on another ditch on the way
there, and really should have worked out where this control was and gone
straight into mine. However it took me a
very long time to finally work out what was going on and relocate, by which
time I had lost around 3 minutes. I
found it very hard to get going again after this, with the following leg being
a very hilly slog (at least it was the way I went! – in hindsight the southern
route round might have been better), and I felt very slow and lacking in energy
for the rest of the course – by the time I finished I was wondering if running
Elite was a bad idea, especially given what lay in store the following day.
However, I really
enjoyed Sunday’s epic classic course, which at 15.9km and 620m climb was one of
the longest and hilliest courses I have ever run. I had decided to take it fairly steadily, and
just try to concentrate on navigating well after yesterdays errors. We had a 
long route-choice leg early
on, from 3-4, and I took a poor route, deciding to head around the northern
edge of the map rather than following the more obvious southern route through
the valleys (look at the RouteGadget link below to see the leg). I don’t think the route choice actually cost
me too much time, maybe a minute or so, but I ended losing another minute or so
at the end of the leg by missing the control.
The route choice I’d taken did mean that I’d already found control
number 6 on the way to number 4, which I went straight into later on! My “3-minute man” caught me on the way to
number 5, but I then managed to stay ahead of him and eventually run away from
him, which was pleasing. I stopped for a
breather and took on some energy gel at the 2-minute timed road crossing
(managing to foolishly take 2:06 for it!), which was only about 4km into the
course.
I started to pick
up the pace a bit between 12 and 13, when I suddenly found myself in a pack of
4 runners (those who had started 3 and 6 minutes after me, and 3 minutes before
me). I had to take the next few legs carefully
though, in the tricky green contoured area which was full of controls and very
lost-looking people. Thankfully I didn’t lose much time in there, and stayed
with the pack I was with for a while 
afterwards. I took a different route from the pack from
16-17 (I decided to play it safe and go round the hill), and got there at the
same time, and again from 18-19 where I went more round and gained around 30
seconds. I chose another good round route from 21-22, which saw me go 30
seconds ahead of the pack, who then took another 5 or 10 minutes to catch me up
again. I caught up my 9 minutes on
club-mate Simon just before the spectator control which gave me another boost,
as did my brother Mark on commentary announcing me coming through (“a time of
104 minutes so far” – long way still to go!).
The pack I was still with then managed to generally split up for the
last loop and I found myself running alone by the end. Unfortunately I managed to make a number of
small errors on this final loop, losing a minute each on 3 separate controls,
which was probably partly caused by the feeling of fatigue – my legs were
really starting to hurt by this point. I
really staggered down the run-in and collapsed at the finish, a time of 130
minutes which was a bit over what I had hoped for, but still pretty pleasing
overall. Total mistake count was 8
minutes, which was only slightly more than the short race the day before
(although still over my 5% target).
The relays were a bit of a
struggle for me. I found I had very little energy left after the previous days’
efforts, and really felt like I was going very slowly. The terrain was fascinating however, a
military training area like none I had run on before with derelict buildings
and train lines throughout the area, as well as far too many barbed wire fences
to cross. I was on the last leg of the
men’s open relay, and went out on my own in 10th place. I didn’t see anyone on our race for the
entire course until I caught sight of Paul Couldridge of British Army about
300m behind me with just 4 controls to go.
I held him off for as long as I could, but in the end he was faster than
me and finally overtook me going into the last control, which was really
disappointing, especially as I thought I had just dropped the team out of the
top 10. As it turned out one of the
higher ranked teams was disqualified on the last leg, so we did actually get a
top 10 finish – the highest place for a SLOW men’s open team at JK or British
for many years, I’m told.
All in all it was
a very enjoyable JK weekend, probably the best JK I can remember since the
sun-drenched Penhale Sands in 1997 – must be something about the
south-west! Next year’s JK is slightly
closer to home, with the sprint race taking place approximately 2km from my
house at the University of Surrey in Guildford.
Day 1: Open course – 2.9km / 70m. Result: 16:19 (winner 12:11) – 92nd
out of 207. Full results here RouteGadget Splitsbrowser
Day 2: M21E course – 6.2 km / 255m.
Result: 48:10 (winner 31:45) – 57th out of 64. Full results here Route
Gadget
Day 3: M21E course – 15.9 km / 620m.
Result: 130:02 (winner 91:14) – 36th out of 50. Full results here RouteGadget Splitsbrowser
Day 2/3 overall – Result: 178:12 (winner
123:17) – joint 38th out of 48 Full results here
Relay: JK Trophy leg 4 – 6.5km / 135m.
Result: 47:08 (winner 37:19) – 10th out of 16. Full results here Route
Gadget Splitsbrowser
[Team result: 148:55 (winner 123:10) – 10th out of 26]
Sunday
1 April 2007
MV District event – Box Hill, Surrey
I’d never run at
Box Hill before, an area only about 20 minutes drive from my house. Having done this event today, I can say that
I probably won’t run there again. I have
to say that I really didn’t enjoy the race today, and felt like the entire time
I was either fighting my way through grotty green forest or staggering slowly
uphill (sometimes both). This was
compounded with the fact that I made several errors on the early stages of the
course, which culminated in a loss of interest and motivation by half way
round. By the time I’d got to number 15,
around 2/3rds of the way round the course, as well as feeling thoroughly
knackered I’d also started to feel a niggling persistent pain in my lower left
leg, and it didn’t take much internal persuasion for me to decide that I was
going to call it a day at this point – especially given the proximity we were
to the 
finish at this stage.
Maybe the forest
wasn’t quite as bad as I convinced myself, although there did seem to be plenty
of other people commenting on how much thick forest we had to run through. In hindsight I should have stayed far more on
the paths wherever possible, although this often would have involved extra
climbing. My 7-minute mistake on number
3 certainly didn’t help matters – I had veered too high up the slope, and spent
ages hunting around for a small depression in some horrible brambly
forest. It took a long time for me to
bite the bullet and run up the hill to the nearest possible attack point at a
path junction, and take a bearing back in (at which point I did finally find
the flag) – that, if anything I learnt today, is something I should do much
sooner in a similar situation.
All in all a
disappointing event for me, but I am now far more focussed on the JK next week
where I am hopeful that strength, motivation and navigational ability will be
in much more ready supply.
Brown course – 7.8. km / 390 m
Result: retired (winner 72:15) Full
results here
Saturday
31 March 2007
SLOW short race – Longy Down, Surrey
This was an excellent little
short race, held on the 1:5000 Esher Commons map which had been prepared for
the Micr-O race at the 2005 OK Nuts Trophy.
The map contains superb intricate contour detail, making it ideal for a
race like this – a whopping 28 controls in just over 4km, making for a real
high-speed control-picking exercise, with careful fine navigation required
throughout. The course felt quite hilly
with lots of running up and down the main slope going through the middle of the
map, which made it a very good work-out as well.
With so many
controls it was inevitable I would make a few errors. I was generally very pleased with my run, but
did lose around 30 seconds on number 14, and then a more costly error of nearly
a minute at number 23 – both primarily caused by poor compass work causing me
to veer off the straight line. The
splits show that I was in 2nd place at the map change at half-way round, but
the two errors in the second half of the race meant that I had to settle for
6th place overall. A very enjoyable
race, and good training for next Friday’s JK sprint race (although that should
be somewhat technically easier).
Long course – 4.2 km / 180 m
Result: 26:04 (winner 23:14) – 6th out of 40 Full results here Splitsbrowser RouteGadget
Sunday
25 March 2007
Reading Half Marathon – Reading, Berkshire
Ok so not orienteering, but
I thought I’d mention this little road run I did. I’ve become a bit of a veteran of road half
marathons over the last few years, this being the 9th I have done since 2004. I always run these races with a couple of old
university friends, and in fact it was probably due to entering the Prague Half
Marathon three years ago that I started running a bit more seriously and doing
a bit of training. It was amazing how
much my orienteering results improved when I first started road running back
then (I really was pretty slow before 2004!), and I do still like to do the odd
road race every now and then.
I hadn’t really
done any specific training for this race however, and indeed this was the first
time I had run over 10 miles since last August.
This started to show later on and I did find the second half of the race
quite hard work – I though I could just
turn up and do a half-marathon without really specifically training for it (in
terms of doing any long runs). In some ways I could, as at 89½ minutes it
was a pretty reasonable time. What
spurred me on was trying to stay ahead of the pacemaker carrying the big
"1hr 30" sign (!), which I just managed to duck under 90
minutes. This was still over 5 minutes
off my half marathon PB of 84:11 set last May – but this was a month before I
ran the Edinburgh marathon, at a time 
when I was training quite hard and used to doing the
long runs regularly.
The race itself was good fun, and with
around 10,000 competitors was the biggest race I had ever competed in. The finish was in the Madejski stadium (home
of Reading F.C.), and it was great to run into the stadium and hear the noise
of the crowd – there really were quite a lot of people in the stands (despite
the picture!) – before running round the edge of two sides of the pitch to
complete the race, sprinting like mad to the line to cross in an official race
time of exactly 1:30:00 (but with a ‘chip time’ of around 30 seconds less).
Half marathon – 21.1 km
Result: 89:32 (winner 63:35) – 570th out of 9877 Full
results here
Sunday
18 March 2007
HH Compass Sport Cup qualifier – Egypt Woods and Burnham Beeches,
Buckinghamshire
After fairly
disappointing runs at my last 5 ‘proper’ orienteering events, all in technical
rocky terrain (last weekend in the Lakes, and the 4 days in Portugal), it was
good to get back to the stuff I know best – eyeballs-out flat runnable and
fairly easy south-east forest! I do like
these kinds of areas, probably because I tend to do comparatively fairly well
on them compared to trickier terrain.
I had a very late start
today – it was nice to have a lie-in, but it did mean I had the misfortune to
be caught out in the 15-minute torrential hailstorm which arrived at about 1pm
– not too pleasant in a short sleeve top. When I finished I was pretty
pleased with my result – finishing 8th, the 2nd SLOW scorer on the Compass
Sport Cup match, and beating a few people who had been beating me
recently. However my run certainly
wasn’t without its usual smattering of time loss, and when looking at the
splits it became apparent that I had once again lost quite a bit of time –
Splitsbrowser suggests that I lost around 6½ minutes in mistakes, which at 10%
of my total time is somewhat disappointing.
This included 1 minute at no. 5 (veered over 100m too far left), 2
minutes at no. 12 (got confused by the path network before reaching the control
and veered well off my line, taking some time to relocate), and 1½ minutes at
no. 14 (where I stayed too high and slowly fought my way through a significant
amount of fight). Once again I was
probably running too fast for my own good – one day I’ll learn!
What it does mean
however is that my running is going really well, and I really felt quite strong
today – a mistake-free run would have put me very high up the results, and
although I don’t tend to get mistake-free runs (!) it’s nice to know that at
least today my speed partly made up for navigational errors, which it hasn’t
done in previous weeks. I did really
enjoy the race, and it was nice to be able to run fairly straight and fairly
fast for most of the course. It was good
to see that SLOW comfortably won today’s regional heat and qualified for the
final, which will mean a fun club trip up to Mansfield in October.
Brown course – 10.5 km / 230 m
Result: 68:11 (winner 54:01) – 8th out of 81 Full
results here Splitsbrowser RouteGadget
Tuesday
13 March 2007
SLOW/MV Street event – Dorking, Surrey
This event was
part of the SLOW Street-O series for 2006/07, although was slightly further
afield than our events usually are, and was clearly in Mole Valley
territory. The event was organised by
MV’s Ian Ditchfield (a regular participant at SLOW street-O’s) and was hosted
from the Friends Provident social club, which had already hosted the Box Hill
Fell Race and the White Downs National Event earlier in the 
year.
The map was an
excellent full-colour affair, including contours (a first for one of our
Street-O maps I think!). Ian had planned
the course so that all the higher scoring 20 and 30-point controls were the
more easy ones to reach, nearer the centre of the map, with the further out
controls being only worth 10 points – an inverse of the normal system. This meant that most people focused
exclusively on the higher scoring more central controls, and made it more
crucial to visit all of the higher scoring sites. As it turned out, I managed to visit all ten
of the 30-pointers, and nine of the ten 20-pointers, with none of the
10-pointers.
However my route
was poorly planned, as I ended up getting back to the finish after 53 minutes,
with 11 controls still not collected but not enough time to get even one more,
as the finish was right at the northern end of the map, and I had already
collected all of the nearby controls by that point. In hindsight there were quite a few places
earlier on in the race where I could have picked up a few extra points and used
the 7 spare minutes, but I guess I just didn’t judge my pace well enough. I ended up finishing joint 1st along with
Steve Allen and Don McKerrow – a good result, but it would have been an
outright win if I’d planned it better!
Street score course – 60-minute time limit
Result: 480 points – joint 1st out of 28 Full results here
