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!)
This was probably the closest orienteering event to me, being based in central London. Hampstead Heath is known as the “green” lung of London and despite its location near the heart of the city, it easily large enough for a District event.
The final day of the O-Ringen, and the second day bathed in glorous sunshine. Unfortuantely I had caught a bad cold the previous night, and was feeling pretty dreadful. I ended up just running the first couple of legs, then going for a nice wander and completing and the latter half of the course, the easier section, so that I could get a good feel of the course without aggrevating my cold. 
Day 4 was the sprint race – less than 4km in length, and rumours of the terrain being very different to the previous days’. The fact that the walk to the start from the assembly area (and finish) was over 3km left the JOKers wondering whether the course would be a straight line back to the finish. In fact, the walk to the start essentially went right around the competition area – three sides of a square.
The rest of the course was OK in general. No. 3 was wedged down a gully about 80cm wide – one way in and out, for most people, except me – I instead jumped directly on the control from the crag above, almost squashing several other runners in the process. I made another big mistake at number 9 (going from SW to NE on the other extract here. Here, it started to rain and I found it quite difficult to see. The control was considerably further to the east than I thought. The nature of a sprint race is that you have to just go for it, so I was running around madly every time I made a mistake – often making it worse.
Day 3, and the JOKers had the undeniable luxury of essentially staying at a club hut on the map. Considering that we were on the edge of the city though, we were all suprised at the ruggedness and remoteness of some sections of the map. The dominating features were distinct lines of crags, running directly north-south at around 500m intervals. The forest however was almost universally runnable and very fast, making this the most pleasing “conventional” map of the five days and my personal favourite day.
I only made one serious error on this course, at Control 14. I made a very bad route choice indeed on the leg from 13 to 14, deciding to go over rather than around a hill, but then at the highest point, deciding do “go around” after all and dropping down in the wrong direction. This exhausting climb probably caused the big error around the control. I was search just 50 metres too far to the west of the control, on as it turns out a parallel reentrant. Only the hefty cliffs further to the west stopped me from going even further away, and in fact provided a useful relocation feature.