Paul’s
Orienteering Blog
Sunday 24 February 2008
LOK Regional event – Holmbury Hill, Surrey
Holmbury Hill is
an area I know pretty well, having orienteered here many times over the years
(including the World Cup spectator races in 2005), run across it many times in
Surrey Hills races, and also run a tough hilly half marathon here last July
(see blog entry for 15 July 2007). Today
the forest was at its best, a glorious day for orienteering and a 
very enjoyable course,
though tough running in places.
I felt strong from
the start, having had a rest day from marathon training yesterday, and flew
round the first few controls – too fast for my own good of course (where have
you heard that before) and I ended up losing 2 minutes on number 3, having got
to within about 10 metres of the control I convinced myself I was above it, and
ran over 100m downhill before painfully slogging back up. Thankfully I didn’t let that mistake get to
me, and I did the rest of the course reasonably well and kept running at a
fairly decent speed, at least in the first half.
I started to slow
down after number 13, where I had taken a down-and-up route, and the person I
had been running with for a few controls went round (don’t know who this
was). I soon realised that his was the
better route, and ran very hard on the 25m climb up into the control – I did
get there just after him so not much time lost, but felt thoroughly knackered and never really picked the pace up again, eventually
losing this guy ahead of me a few controls later. Paul Couldridge went storming past me a few
controls later and I didn’t have the energy to stay with him for long which was
a bit disappointing (although maybe it shouldn’t be, as he’s aiming to do the
London Marathon in under 2:45, which I can only dream of!).
A few small
wobbles later on, but generally a clean enough run apart from the early
mistake. It was tough running through
the dead bracken and heather at times, and the slopes were relentless – lots of
up-down-up-down – but I did manage to run reasonably strongly to the end. A very enjoyable event.
M21L course – 11.1 km / 365 m
Result: 77:47 (winner 66:56) – 11th out of 39 Full
results here
Thursday
21 February 2008
LOK Street-O – Hampstead, NW London
This event taught
me that, regardless of how many street-O’s I have done over the last few years,
I really still need to keep concentrating on the map reading and navigation
throughout, and cannot always just blast it round the streets without
thinking. I had my biggest amount of
time loss on a single control for many years, and for probably the first time
on a street-O I managed to get myself utterly lost for about 5 minutes!
I was going very well in the
first half of the course – other than the fact I’d taken I pretty silly route
which would make it difficult for me to get round the whole of the map in total
– but with a 1:7500 A4 map I thought I had a pretty good chance of covering
most of the area. I then made my huge
howler, by convincing myself I was navigating from control 1 to 2, instead of
from control 7 to 1. As control 7 was
perilously close to the edge of the map, this meant that the route I took led
me straight off the map and quickly onto a very large road (which turned out to
be the A41 Finchley Road) which I just couldn’t work out. I then convinced myself this must be the road
marked as the thicker-than-usual straight line at the bottom of the map and
tried to relocate off this, before finally realising that this particular line
was the border to the map, and not a road at all…
I then ran around
in circles for a bit, before realising that relocation is almost impossible on
a street-O map if you don’t know where you are – with every feature on the map
looking the same – and the only way I was ever going to relocate was to retrace
my steps. My GPS later told me than I
had initially left control number 7 after 31 minutes, and finally returned
there after 42:30; I then proceeded to correctly navigate to number 1 in a time
of 2 minutes. So, an 11½ minute mistake,
which then drastically changed my route planning and meant I just had to run
almost straight back.
So my worst ever
street-O result by some margin, and thoroughly deserved. To add insult to injury, I realised after
getting my marked scoresheet back that I had forgotten to write down the answer
to number 2 despite having been there, and I was not given credit for control
10 because I had written the answer in the box for control 11 (harsh in the
extreme I think). Oh well, just one of
those days…
Street score race – 60-minute time limit
Result: 190 points (winner 338) – joint 16th out of 40 Full
results here
Sunday
17 February 2008
WIM Regional event – Avon Water & Set Thorns, Hampshire
I always like
running in the New Forest, and had my best run of the year down here last
November at the SOC Regional event, so I thought it would be nice to come down
to the event today (which is less than half an hour’s drive away from my
parents house, which was a good Saturday night base). Parking was at Brockenhurst College (where my
brothers Ian & Mark went to 6th Form), but that meant a bus ride to the
forest itself, which proved very frustrating indeed as there were clearly not
enough buses running. I waited in a queue for 30 minutes for a bus to arrive
both on the way there and the way back afterwards, which was very annoying – so
much for the event details claiming you should allow 30 minutes total journey
time from car park to start (it was closer to an hour). I can see now why some people always avoid
events with 
bussing!
The forest itself was
quite nice, typical nice New Forest terrain, gently undulating but fairly
runnable (although some tough undergrowth in places). Unfortunately the race didn’t go very well at
all for me, which was disappointing after two slow races on the previous two weekends. Today it wasn’t so much the running that let
me down as the navigation – I haven’t made this many mistakes for a long
time. My errors are too numerous to go
through, but they were mainly in the first half of the course, and the biggest
one was a 3½ minute error at number 1 – quite a vague area and a tricky
control, but I really approached it badly.
From looking at
the splits and Splitsbrowser, I reckon I had lost around 10 minutes in mistakes
by number 9, less than half way round the course. The second half actually went much better,
and I probably only lost another 1 minute in the whole rest of the course – but
the damage had very much been done! I
was at least pleased to keep on going at a reasonably good pace, but overall I
will write this down as a bad day at the forest, and move on to next week.
M21L course – 11.8 km / 160 m
Result: 86:38 (winner 64:55) – 9th out of 15 Full
results here Splitsbrowser
Tuesday
12 February 2008
SLOW Street-O – Kensington and Notting Hill, west London
This is the first venue to
feature twice in my blog I think, having been one of the very first entries in
January 2007. We used the same map this
year – with the novel 1:13,333 map scale – and I had already decided beforehand
that I would aim to run in the northern part of the map (Notting Hill) as I had
stayed exclusively in the southern half (Kensington) last year. The controls were reasonably well spaced
throughout the map, and all worth an equal 10 points (unlike the usual sliding
points scale), so it probably wasn’t too bad a decision, although there were
certainly more controls in the Kensington area.
As it turned out,
I completed all the controls in the northern half with a good 20 minutes still
to spare, so I managed to get quite a few controls in Kensington as well. I made a risky decision right near the end to
go for one extra control which I thought might be a struggle – and paid the
penalty by being just under 2 minutes late back. Still, it was good training as it meant I was
up to sprinting speed for the last 5 minutes!
I covered 11.4km tonight
– around 700m more than last year here I think, and about average for the
recent street-O’s (although I did this in 62 minutes tonight rather than the
usual 60!).
Street score race – 60-minute time limit
Result: 290 points (winner 340) – 5th out of 58 Full results here
Sunday
10 February 2008
TVOC Regional event – Downley & Naphill with Bradenham, Buckinghamshire
Another regional
event this week, the 3rd out of 5 M21L courses I am intending to do in
consecutive weekends. It’s all good
training for the London Marathon, although this weekend I decided to do a
proper long marathon training run on the Saturday, and did a good run of a
fraction under 20 miles in just under 2½ hours around the Thames towpath and
Richmond Park. Very good marathon
training, but probably not ideal preparation for an M21L course the following
day, and my legs really found it quite tough today. My heart rate today stayed 10-15 beats lower
than I have been averaging on orienteering races (average of 163 today), and I
didn’t have the pace I would normally have if racing fresh. I fully expected this to be the case though,
and just treated this as another good long training run towards the marathon,
which is my main target for 
this spring.
I had last run at
this area at the Chiltern Challenge event two years ago, although today’s area
had been extended to the south-east to include a small block of wood around
Downley, and as a result the map scale was changed from last time’s 1:10,000 to
a slightly less-readable 1:15,000. I
thought the course today was pretty good, making the best use of the area (and
was a very different course to last time).
The area itself was pleasant enough, although there was lots of holly
around which made running in a straight line through the forest quite hard at
times.
Leg 2-3 was 2.0 km
long, and unfortunately I missed the fact that there was a taped route across
an otherwise out-of-bounds field half way through the leg. This wasn’t marked too clearly on the map
(although admittedly the control descriptions mentioned the tape route) and as
a result I veered round the field thinking it was all out-of-bounds, losing a
little bit of time – as well as having problems finding the control at the end,
before luckily relocating off a wet pit (around 2 min loss in total). I then slightly mucked up the next short leg
as well (see picture) by charging off too fast and not checking the compass.
I made a few other
small mistakes round the rest of the course, although was starting to tire
quite a lot by the end, and lost a lot of time on the long leg 16-17 near the
end through both lack of energy and concentration (and problems finding the
flag at the end). The overall result was
on the slow side as expected – and I reckon total time loss due to mistakes was
very high at around 7 minutes – but I feel quite pleased with a good long
weekend’s running.
M21L course – 10.9 km / 270 m
Result: 81:08 (winner 67:53) – 13th out of 28 Full
results here Splitsbrowser
Sunday
3 February 2008
GO Regional event – Furnace Wood, Woolbeding & Great Commons, West Sussex
Back to the area where the
British Championships were held in 2006.
I remembered having a tough run there at the time, taking 102 minutes
for my 12km course and feeling thoroughly knackered by the finish. Today was very similar indeed, although I did
manage to shave 4 seconds off my time from two years ago. I really couldn’t get running at all today,
and felt below par all the way round – much slower than last week for whatever
reason. Probably not helped by the fact
that I didn’t warm up at all beforehand, and I’d done quite a few long runs
during the week so felt quite tired – but it was just one of those days when I
couldn’t get running. Unlike all the
areas I have been running at recently, this one had a fair bit of climb in
places, and I did struggle on all the hills.
I had problems
from the start with my heart rate monitor band becoming very loose, and I had
to stop between 1-2 to try to tighten it up.
I then sprinted off to try and make up for lost time, and less than 10
minutes in the course was starting to feel very tired. Losing concentration, I made a ridiculous
mistake from 3-4, running the wrong way round a large out-of-bounds field and
losing a minute in the process.
I then really
struggled on the climb on a fairly long leg 6-7, which in hindsight I think was
a poor route, where much of the climb could be avoided if I had taken the
western route (although I didn’t speak to anyone else who went this way). We had another long leg from 8-9, with the
straight-line route going up and down a large ridge in the Furnace Wood part of
the area, and this time I decided I would try to avoid the climbing, and took a
very long track route round to the north.
This route turned out to be quite good I think, judging by the splits.
I lost a few bits
of time on some of the later legs with some poor navigation on route, but
generally was finding the controls ok throughout the course today. It was a good well-planned course with some
very interesting legs, but I just feel the area got the better of me today and
I had nothing at all in the legs for the last few kilometres.
M21L course – 11.9 km / 375 m
Result: 101:56 (winner 76:26) – 15th out of 28 Full
results here RouteGadget
Sunday
27 January 2008
BKO Regional event – Burghfield Common, Berkshire
I dropped out of
the Box Hill Fell Race I had intended to do last week as I was still feeling
quite under the weather after my illness over Christmas, but by the middle of
last week was feeling pretty much back to normal, and felt good going into
today’s race at Burghfield Common. Today
was a lovely warm day for orienteering, although the forest itself was quite
wet, with a number of paths which were waterlogged in places, as well as a
friendly ‘ditch’ which proved rather tricky to cross…
The area was generally quite
fast, with lots of paths covering the area and a fair bit of runnable white
forest, although there was quite a lot of dead bracken and brashings around in
places. I started fairly well, although
lost about 30 seconds at number 5 due to a slow route choice, but was caught up
by 2 minutes at number 6 by Mark Saunders from Bristol who was running very
strongly (and eventually finished 2nd).
I tried to stay with him for a while, which meant a tough sudden
increase in pace, but was pleased to keep him in sight until a tough climb up
to number 12 where he finally ran away from me.
I slowed down a little bit after this, but still carried out running
reasonably well. I lost about 45 seconds
at number 15, which was the map change control, partly caused by my distraction
of turning the map over during the leg and not concentrating fully enough –
silly mistake!
The dastardly
ditch was between 16-17 – it looked quite innocent looking on the map, albeit
in some rough forest (on the map extract opposite, just after crossing the road
and the large track), but on the ground just looked a slightly waterlogged
stream no more than 5 metres across, and having already run through lots of
water earlier on the course I just plunged straight in. Within a few paces I was down to my waist … and
then another pace took me down to my neck, at which point I let out a bit of a
scream and started swimming for safety!
A few seconds later I was out the other side, but pretty wet and muddy
from head to foot. I am pleased to say that the waterproof map stood the test,
as although a bit soggy it held together very well for the rest of the course
despite its submergence in the water.
I finished the
course fairly well after this, spurred on by Rhodri Buffet who managed to
overtake me about 5 times within the space of 8 controls towards the end of
course – pleased to say that for once I didn’t let another runner making
mistakes put me off, which is not usually the case. Overall result of 80 minutes was pretty good,
much closer to the winner Tuomas Tala than I had been at the previous race 2
weeks ago.
M21L course – 12.8 km / 165 m
Result: 80:30 (winner 71:29) – 11th out of 35 Full
results here Splitsbrowser
Sunday
13 January 2008
BAOC CompassSport Cup qualifier – Yateley Heath & Minley Woods, Hampshire
Only 2 months after last
year’s Compass Sport Cup final, today saw the qualifying round for this year’s
final (which is taking place in October again).
Today’s race was hosted by BAOC in Army land at Yateley Heath, an area
which I have done MTBO at before a few years ago, but never foot-orienteered
in. Although there were large sections
of thick green on the map, these were mostly avoided, and the course was very
good – with lots of really short legs in a couple of great intricate sections
of the map, in the middle and right at the end.
By today I was
feeling pretty much fully recovered from my bug, although still lacking a bit
in fitness. I suffered by starting a bit
too fast, at my ‘old’ race pace, and by half way round was struggling for pace
a bit. However I was very pleased with
my navigation today – although admittedly it wasn’t generally a particularly
technical area – and other than about a minute of time loss at number 11 (where
I initially punched another control 100m to the north-east), I had a very clean
run.
My result of 67
minutes was pretty pleasing, and I scored a good 94 points for SLOW in the
Compass Sport Cup – although disappointing to be 2 seconds behind
Matthias! Look forward to another
Compass Sport Cup final in the autumn, at Sutton Park in Birmingham – a very
fast burn-up area from what I remember of it.
Brown course – 9.9 km / 145 m
Result: 67:11 (winner 54:56) – 11th out of 72 Full results here Splitsbrowser
Tuesday
8 January 2008
SLOW Street-O – Hinchley Wood/Thames Ditton, south-west London
I went down with a very
nasty heavy cold just before Christmas, which unfortunately stopped me running
completely over the whole holiday period.
This was quite annoying as I’d been intending to do quite a lot of
orienteering and training over these few weeks, thinking ahead to the London
Marathon which I am running in April. I
went for my first short run in over 3 weeks a few days earlier, and was still
feeling very breathless and asthmatic (which hasn’t been a problem for me for
years). Thankfully I finally started to
properly improve on the Monday and Tuesday (I feel like finally going for my
first short run on Sunday really helped my improvement along), and felt
reasonable enough by Tuesday evening, so decided to give this a go.
I remembered being
quite late back on both of the previous times I have run street-O’s from the
Catmur’s house in Hinchley Wood, possibly caused by the 1:12,500 scale (we
usually run on 1:10,000 street-O maps).
So I decided I would play it safe on the route and not venture out too
far so that I had plenty of time to get back – I also didn’t want to push it
too much after my illness. So less than
half way through the race I made the choice of not carrying on to the six most
northerly controls on the map, which was a reasonably long extension, and
headed back south. Ultimately I think
this proved to be a very good strategy for me in this race. Other than missing two 10-point controls in
the middle of the map, I got everything else other than the 6 in the north, and
made it back comfortably with 3 minutes to spare.
My running felt
infinitely better than it had two days previously, although my legs felt a lot
slower than they had done a month ago – I think I’ve lost quite a bit of
fitness from the extended rest, which I expect will take me a little while to
get back. But thanks to some good route
choice I ended up with a very pleasing result here, finishing in joint 3rd
place, which is my 2nd best result of the 07/08 street-O series (after 5
events), so I was pretty happy with the night’s run.
Street score race – 60-minute time limit
Result: 440 points (winner 520) – joint 3rd out of 36 Full results here
A few other
orienteering blogs: