Attackpoint, the best training/logging website for orienteers in the world, as had a makeover. I like.
Attackpoint needs more UK orienteers on it, logging their training*/races – it’s the kind of site that works best when many similar people are on it. With more UK orienteers, there would be more UK events posted on the website, more chance of being able to compare splits from a UK race…
*lazy person that I am, my training is entirely made up of races at the moment.
1. I’ve updated the list of events I’m planning on going to:
4-Dec C4 Banstead Heath, S London
11-Dec C4 GO Blackheath, Guildford
18-Dec C4 DFOK Joydens Wood, SE London
27-Dec C5 ELO “Festive Frolic�, Hedderwick Hill, Dunbar
8-Jan C3 SAX Eridge Park, Tunbridge Wells
14-Jan C5 CHIG Hainault Forest, NE London
25/26-Feb Varsity Match, Kent
4/8-Jul JWOC Spectator Races, Lithuania (with JOK)
2. A great route choice leg from the Epping Forest North event two weeks ago:
How would you do 24-25?
3. I’ve added map extracts to the two event logs below.
4. Esher Micro-O – the first Micro-O in the UK, and hopefully not the last, as I really enjoyed it, although I was much too slow and adjusted to the scale and contour interval changes badly (at both ends!)
Here is the first Micro-O control – note the absence of a control number on the descriptions. Below it is an extract from the “master” map showing the positions of all the controls.
I definitely enjoyed the Micro-O and feel to should be part of a significant part of races on the UK. Unfortuantely due to the “purist” lobby/fear of change/effort needed in organising, it is unlikely to take over the UK orienteering scene overnight.
…or actually just one of these.
First draft of the events I plan to go to in 2005-6, based on the BOF fixtures list*:
4-Sep C4 SOC Queen Elizabeth Country Park, Petersfield Trains were not running to Petersfield on that day.
11-Sep C4 HAVOC Thorndon Country Park (South), Brentwood 9.3km/7.9mpk.
18-Sep C3 SOS Hatfield Forest, Bishops Stortford
25-Sep C4 WAOC Rowney Warren, Shefford
OR 25-Sep C4 BKO Lower Star Posts, Camberley
2-Oct S4 SCJS Swinley West, Ascot
OR 2-Oct C4 DFOK Lesnes Abbey Wood, SE London
9-Oct C4 SO Eartham Wood, Slindon
OR 9-Oct C4 SOS Chalkney, Earls Colne
16-Oct O3X Clowbridge, Burnley
OR 16-Oct C4 HH Sherrardspark Wood, Welwyn Garden City
23-Oct C5 WAOC Therfield Heath, Royston
OR 23-Oct C4 LOK Leith Hill, Guildford, Surrey
6-Nov C3 SOC The Reptile Centre, New Forest
OR 6-Nov C4 SUFFOC Ickworth Park, Bury St Edmunds
12-Nov C5 HAVOC Bedfords Country Park, Romford
13-Nov C3 SN Ash Ranges, Aldershot
20-Nov C3 CHIG Epping North, Epping
OR 20-Nov C4 BADO Snelsmore Common, Newbury
27-Nov C3 SLOW Esher Commons, Esher
OR 27-Nov C4 SOS Brandon, Brandon
4-Dec C4 Epping SW, Chingford
OR 4-Dec C4 SOC Denny Lodge, New Forest
11-Dec C5 SOS High Woods, Colchester
18-Dec C4 DFOK Shooters Hill, SE London
South-central events are a big turn-off as they use EMIT rather than SI. Hence those will in general be the second choice when there’s two events on the same day. I’ll almost certainly be doing the train/biking combo to get to the event too, so those in the middle of nowhere might not get a lookin.
* I really wish this list was written in a better way…
A geek results analysis of the Scottish 6 Days. All you could ever want to know. “Tony” was my running partner. In general, he makes fewer mistakes than me but is a little slower on the flat. The points are calculated officially by the event organisers. The “average” runner gets 1000 points, with runners affecting the results on a standard deviation basis. From the 1000 point base, 200 points represents one standard deviation.
I don’t think I’d ever come last before this event – unfortunately I managed that feat here, mainly due to some appalling mistakes near the end of the course – after the hard, technical section was over! Oh well, despite my trauma, this is a fine area, one of the top 10 in the UK. The central part of the map, with the detail created by the old mine-workings, is absolutely superb. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had “the flow” as I was able to glide from control to control without pausing, spiking each one in turn, in the middle section. It was only when I was trying to out-race another JOKer from my club that I went hurtling in the wrong direction for 500m, becoming trapped in some thick, unpleasant forest – running from control 23, I got confused by the large path junction, headed west thinking I was heading south, and turned right, along the white section of forest (see the extract) until I hit a road, a long way north… This was a five minute error, completely fatal in a race of this kind (this was a middle distance race – unusual in the UK.)
The other error was that, having completed the tricky middle section well, I switched off mentally, came into the area for control 22, and spent another five minutes searching around 100m too far south. Making 10 minutes of errors on a middle distance race is curtains, and so I ended up 23rd out of 23 finishers (plus 2 mps) taking 71:00 to complete the 6.2km course with 270 metres of climbing. The winner completed the course in just 35:31.
My best result for years even though it took me two hours to get to the event due to a combination of biking, railing and walking in.
Full writeup shortly, + writeup of the two World Cup spectator races I attended at the beginning of the month. My results for these were… less good.
Overuse of the “earth features” symbols, at Irchester Country Park. Almost the entire map, which can be viewed here, is like this.
(Suggested by Ian W. I haven’t actually run on this area yet, and don’t own a copy of the map.)
This was one of the few events I’ve done South-East of London – the map is near Tunbridge Wells. I did the Brown course, which at 8.5km and 215m climb was one of the harder Browns. I really did manage to mess this one up, making numerous errors, particularly legs 5, 6, 12, 14, 19 and 21 (I made many other smaller errors too – this was not a great technical run on my part!)
Leg 5-6 can (just) be seen in the second extract below. My mistake here was to optmistically plunge into the “Undergrowth walk” just south of control 5. For January, this was pretty overgrown. I out of it eventually, only to get stuck on more vegetation just south of the stream. 3-4 was an interesting one, too – the cliff just to the north was huge, and I approached the 4th control having gone down the wrong path and on the “blind” side of the cliff. The first extract shows some later controls – I made a big (>5 minute) mistake coming to number 19, missed the control and went rushing up the path to the east, only realising what I’d done when I came to the steep earth bank beside the path, 500m down. 21 also was tough – a “bingo” control in featureless, poor visibility terrain – I hit the road behind the control and had to relocate.
My time in the end was 91:16, a disappointing 10.7 mins/km. The winner did 64:16 though (7.6 mins/km) so it wasn’t the quickest of areas for South England!
This was the first Pembury Walks event for 25 years – the area, an RSPB reserve, used to be regularly used until a bypass was built right through the heart. The course necessitated a hair-raising (but untimed) cross of the dual carriageway at one end, and a long, tedious and unpleasant crossing by a long-winded bridge at the other end – made worse as it dropped you into an uninteresting part of the map. Without the bypass, this would be a nice area indeed. The northern-most part is flat and fast, and there is a nice heathery/open section right in the middle of the map that felt more Yorkshire for a moment than Kent.
One thing to note though – this event was in early January, when you would normally expect vegetation to be at its lowest. But there was a lot of vegetation out there, some of it very unpleasant. Any other time of the year, this map would probably be too overgrown to have an event on.
This was not a classic map by any means, but was a nice enough jaunt around the campus and fields and woodland surrounding BCUC (Buckinghamshire and Chilterns University College.) I did Green (the longest course available) and went around it pretty fast, recording a time comfortably under my 8mins/km target, but Rob Palmer beat me soundly, running 20% faster and finishing just over 6 mins/km.
My biggest mistake was a 60-seconder, approaching number 10 – the middle of the extract here, from the top left. I was confused by the pond being on the hillside, and not at the lowest point. Also, the grass was long and it was difficult to see the shapes of the thickets from the direction I approached from. Still, it was only 60 seconds.
It was a real shame that by far the best looking terrain, an attractive runnable wooded area in the centre of the map, was out of bounds and not used in the competition. If this, and the other out of bounds areas, were opened up, this could actually be a very interesting map to run on. For now though it was just a nice bit of exercise, and nice and easy to get to (via the Tube!)
