Month: July 2006

I’ve put up my Swiss photos on a Flickr set here. A few were taken by fellow SLOW runner Paul Nixon (thanks Paul) on the last day when I was running.

Writeups of each day are here. I’ll eventually get around to scanning in some map fragments, too.

Swiss O Week was definitely the best orienteering holiday I’ve been on. The location was superb, the weather was amazing, Switzerland is a great country to holiday in, and the orienteering wasn’t bad either. Not quite as technical as Lithuania, but certainly more scenic. Orienteering in the heart of the alps, across the alpine meadows, steep forests and glacial debris was a real experience.

The afternoons were generally given over to touristy things. While some did some serious hiking, many of us (including myself) were content to take the nearest cable car, cog-wheel railway or gondola up some mountain. The Klein Matterhorn cable car summit station, at 3800m above sea-level, is the highest I’ve ever been on land.

We were very lucky with the weather – the Alps were a lot more forgiving than my previous holiday there five years ago. Every morning, the sky would be blue and the Matterhorn would look just like it does on a bar of Toblerone. A few clouds would appear in the sky in the afternoon, and a cooling breeze would start. Then, in the evening, a distant thunderstorm would rumble, cooling down the air (it did rain, once, on the last evening.) The next morning, everything would be “reset” back to the blue sky. The temperature was pleasantly moderate – hot enough to sunbathe in, but not oppressively hot like London, or the rest of the Europe at sea-level, was suffering last week.

One thing that sticks in my mind are the dry alpine pastures, heaving with grasshoppers. Everywhere you stepped, the grass would become alive with the insects leaping away. They are harmless, of course, and it was nice to have no midges, mosquitoes or ticks – Zermatt, at 1600m altitude, is too high up for these critters.

My only regret is that I wasn’t well enough for the street race (the fifth day of the event.) Zermatt’s winding streets, open grass fields and complete lack of cars, would have provided a compelling racing experience. I’ll have to content myself with Oxford’s own street race, later this year.

Stopping off at Montreux and Geneva on the way back was a bonus. The Montreux Grand Prix happened to be on the same time that I was in town. And Geneva, with it’s old-town streets, water fountains and cosmopolitan people, was a delight to walk through – even if it was a little too hot.

HAM (Men’s A-Standard, Medium Distance) – Top 7 UK/IE Results

Not wanting to lose my recently-acquired fitness from the Lithuanian races, I headed down to Esher in Surrey after work on Tuesday, on another hot (although cooler than Lithuania!) and muggy day, for a SLOW evening event. I’ve been on Oxshott Heath before, it is part of the larger Esher map. The race was in November and I remember the Oxshott Heath part being quite overgrown and brambly. So, I was a bit nervous of it’s quality in July. Thankfully the planner had been careful to avoid the worst of the scrub. The course was just 3.7km but with 16 controls – a real middle-distance sprint.

Everyone was started off at one minute intervals, and went steaming down a long track. So, inevitably, I did the same. Two minutes later, I realised I had massively overshot the first control, which had been a mere 100m away from this start. For the next 13 controls, I was running hard, able to practice good control flow technique – I could punch and leave the control site in the correct direction, without stopping running. It felt great being able to run flat out, at a much faster pace than normal. A poor bit of navigation and a bit of risk taking, though, meant I made a 1 minute mistake at 6, but it was a big blunder at No. 14 that cost me a good run – this was a long leg through a lot of bracken, I went round – then got confused by the path network and intricate contours. I ended up being led to the control by the next runner. I sprinted the rest of the race – particularly as I saw Simon E just behind. As he’d started 3 minutes later, he’d won anyway – but I went for it all the same. I ended up 8th out of 40 runners, with Simon 4th, Paul 10th and Pete 12th.

I had made suprisingly many mistakes – but then maybe I under-estimated this British terrain after the technical feast of Lithuania. Looking forward to plenty more middle distance races though – these seem to be my best orienteering discipline.

My second TVOC summer series evening event, and the seventh and final event in a busy month of orienteering. Getting to the event was a bit of a mission – leaving work at 1715, I had to get across central London, on a succession of 3 trains to Marlow, and then a 2 mile walk to the start – just made it for the 1930 start.

Bloom Wood is a fine area and it was great to run on it on a pleasant, but very warm, summer’s evening. There was very little vegetation even now in late June, and has been used in the past for a UK Cup middle distance race. The race was a mass-start, with the course arranged like a figure-of-eight, so that people started in four directions.

I made a silly mistake on the first leg, not bothering to check my compass, and was too far to the left. The first few controls were very fast and intense – my first loop was just 1km. The second loop was the big one, with a 900m leg, some tricky map detail, and a monster hill.

I saw no one going my way at all for the second loop, so assumed I was on to a very good time – I picked up the pace and powered around the course, unfortunately then making a 2 min mistake at 10, a 1 min mistake at 11 and a half-min mistake at 13. Still, it was a great run and I finished around 6th back – a much better result than at Hughenden. I beat Jon M but Rob P was well ahead of me.

Although the weather was cloudy, it was very muggy and so quite tough going. So two pints of lemonade and a huge meal at the local pub with the other JOKers/OUOCers was a top idea. Then it was just a case of getting back to London.

Thanks to the organiser for planning good courses, pre-marking and bagging the maps and choosing such a great area!

Attackpoint entry