I’m just back from the O-Ringen in Gothenburg. I’m catching up on some badly needed sleep first, but a write-up, pics and a per-day analysis are all to come shortly, along with an event log for the Richmond Park event (my O-Ringen warmup – !) and a provisional plan of what I’ll be doing for the orienteering season 2004-5.
This is my big idea. BOF has been building up a national registration of club maps from around the country – but there exists no big “map of the maps.” I’m going to try and build one later this summer.
This was the second Frolic event of the summer season, put on by LOK this time. Trent park surrounds Trent University and is a rather pleasant mix of parkland and rough open, with small pockets of forest to slow down the pace. Considering it’s July, the undergrowth was not too bad at all, and the weather was pleasantly cool and dry. Like last week, it’s not a technical area, and so not ideal “training” for the Oringen in just two weeks. Still, it’s good to get out of London’s heart and experience another new area. I took part in the 3km main race, caning it around and finishing in a great time (for me) but decided to sit out the following sprint race, as I was pretty tired already, and besides – they’d packed up the start!
I suppose if I made any big mistake, it was going from No. 9 to 10 – I was right behind another competitor and because I really don’t like following, I decided to take a cunning (and more direct) route than going around on the paths. Unfortuantely the rough open was rough – it is July after all, and the other person gained 10 seconds on me here by whizzing around the path and then on an unmarked path.
I’m never one to skip a chance at orienteering, not only because it’s just a short train ride, but also because it’s one of southern England’s best orienteering areas – indeed parts of the forest feature in my top 10 of all UK areas.
So, last Sunday (the 27th of June) I went along for HAVOC’s Frolic event. This consisted of a 3km race, which everyone ran, followed by another 3km “extension” loop. The main race was on Pole Hill – a fast and easy, and decidedly non-technical area.. The extension – which was run following a short break after the main race, was through parts of Epping Forest itself. It was extremely flat (25m climb in the 3km) and there were large areas of green. However the lack of serious undergrowth, and the beauty of the area, made it a great run. My only mistake was a big one – for some reason I was convinced vandals had nicked Control 7, as it was clearly not where it should have been. It turns around that the map is a little, um, vague, here – the control was at a different path junction to the one it appeared to be on the map. I only realised this on continuing on my way (following 10 minutes of hunting) and spotting the blighter. Ah well. It was a lovely, hot day, but with a cool wind, and sunbathing was the order of the day following the event. My time was respectable for the main race, but with the one big error (and a couple of other really stupid ones) I finished well down the list for the extension race.
Results are here – I’m not quite sure why I got such a big handicap seeing as I am M21, but of course it means I finished higher up the results than I might have deserved.
After missing the Wendover event two weeks ago I was determined to make this, last Sunday, only a few miles from the former. Great Hampden has a reputation for being “green” (ie. lots of undergrowth) and with the event taking place in June, I was expecting something physical. The longer courses took the runners through a very hard, physical section, before running the rest of the race through flat, relatively level forest. Not realising this myself, I was exhausted within 20 minutes, but was able to keep going well in the latter stages, to end up with a not-too-embarrasing time.
Oxford UOC were out in force (as it was the Town vs Gown event) and also the Great Britain Women’s Squad turned up. I don’t think the organisers were expecting this, but it made for some excellent times to aim for on the Brown and Blue courses. I ran Blue myself, in retrospect I could have run Brown, as the extra 3km was in the very flat section and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it much.
I had one really big mistake, on the third leg (see extract.) Instead of dropping down the steep, green valley (like most other people) or climbing up and over, I unwisely tried to contour round the steep slopes. This proved to be painful and exhausting, and slow going, and I bashed my head on a hidden branch stump, half-way along. This was pretty concerning (it was bleeding a lot) and I took time out to stem the flow. After I recovered from that though it was relatively plain sailing. I do now however have a nice “Harry Potter” gash on my forehead and must have looked a state on the train back!
Result: 73:49 for 6.5km, 125m climb (11.2 mins/km.) The slow mins/km was entirely due to the disasterous leg expained above. Despite this I finished well near the top of the results list, and I’m quite pleased about this.
Having turned up here on a Sunday back in January, only to (later) realise that the event had been the previous day, I was determined to get back ot this promising looking country park for its next orienteering event. So last Wednesday I disappeared early from work to compete here in a local event.
Weald Park really is gorgeous to look at on a nice day (the evening sun shining through some of the ancient woodland was simply beautiful to behold) and I seriously believe that it would be able to host a World Park Race and show itself off in style. You could have the finish arena to end all finish arenas here. Sadly it’s a small area, and not technical, but ideal for a Blue colour coded course (5.7 km) which is what I did. Large parts of the park are gently rolling, short grassland, across which you can sprint like lightning.
Result: 47:08 for 5.7km, 125m climbing (8.3 mins/km.) I’m quite happy with this result, seeing as I hadn’t done any orienteering for six weeks before this.
Lake District maps are always full of technical and physical goodness, and Graythwaite – the area for the JK International event this Easter, was no exception. However the course planning for M21S was uninspired (especially on the first day, where we effectively visited all parts of the map except the really interesting section in the middle) and my bad knee played up badly after the first day, causing me to bail out mid-way through the second day. The long walk back to the finish was rather traumatic too. However the finish arena and assembly field was dramatic and beautiful and with the weather being nice too, it was great to laze around after the race.
I made some right stinkers/tools/technical mistakes on the first day – one was from 8 to 9 (see right.) For some reason I decided to contour, rather than go straight or drop down the slope to the east. There were many spurs and reentrants on the route which made this course painful, and I ended up a little lower than I thought. The 9th control was (I think) closer to the edge of the level area than the map appeared, and I eneded up running right past the control, just above it, at least three times (at one point, relocating right to the large fence/track junction beyond.)
In all, not a true classic like Bigland, but still an area to show off what the Lake District was all about.
Yepsport is now on the WordPress CMS, having been on Movable Type up until now from when it was first started earlier this year. The key difference (other than the look) is that WordPress pages are generated on the fly for every view. WordPress also has a very active community right now, so expect lots of new and cool webloggy stuff to appear in the months ahead.
To celebrate, I’ll be posting a number of new articles in the next few days.
I think I’ve got everything just about right in the moving across process, but if you notice anything odd, or something that looks like it doesn’t work, please drop me an email at o.obrien (at) outlook.com.
My other weblog (Yablog) will be moved across shortly. NB. If you currently subscribe to Yesport’s RSS, XML or Atom feeds, you’ll need to change the link you use. Follow the links at the bottom of the panel on the right.
As expected, I’ve bounced back very quickly from Monday’s low back injury, and was back at work today. I didn’t make the event tonight though. Assuming the pain continues to decrease, Sunday’s event is looking good.
My parents must be reading all three of my weblogs like every 10 minutes. I post to Yep Sport pretty infrequently, yet my dad still managed to snag my last story within hours of me posting it. I wonder if he’s discovered aggregation? My mum’s already put a book in the post…
Man it’s hot here in London! It’s going to be an uncomfortable summer in the flat if it continues like this. I think I prefer Edinburgh’s climate.
Good to see BOF has got rid of (or at least reduced the prominence of) pictures of little kids pottering around string courses in parks, and replaced the front page photos with those of some real atheletes in action. Orienteering is Sport for All, but it’s the champions that should be on the front page of a national federation’s website. Now if only they could actually get around to finishing the website… And why oh why don’t they just use a weblog – looks 10 times better, for 10% of the effort.
Well so much for my grand plan for orienteering between now and July.
I was on my way to work on Monday morning when something distinctly snapped in my lower back, and I’ve essentially spend the intervening time in bed, in agony. Acute Low Back Pain (ALBP) is a very common ailment amongst people of my age, apparently – in my case I seem to suffer from it every half a year or so – and for me it is extremely painful – I have been unable to get to sleep for the last 24 hours*. However it has generally cleared up in 2-3 days, and I don’t notice anything after that (until the next time around…) However it puts paid to tonight’s event and possibly Sunday’s too. Reading around, the best cure for ALBP is surprisingly to be active as possible and in fact it’s only by walking that I’m not in any pain. “Keeping your normal routine” is advice I’ve frequently seen and while that was not possible today (without a lot of screaming, I would imagine) I’m going to try my best for the coming days.
Factor in the pectoral muscle strain I had in December, and my runner’s knee recurring in both February and April, and it really hasn’t been the best of seasons for me. However my most recent ailment was probably compounded by the lack of exercise, rather that too much of it – and my sitting desk job can’t be helping. So I’m hoping to bounce back and at least get something out of this season: warm weather training if nothing else (it’s currently 25C in London!)
* I’m really trying to keep to a policy of not taking painkillers unless I absolutely have to, last night was the closest I’ve ever come to giving in.