So, on to the real races. I was running H21-2 throughtout the week. H21 was the most popular of all the courses and so was split into H21-1 and H21-2 – almost everyone else on the tour with me was also doing H21-2 (there’s also H21SE, H21E, H21N, H21M and H21K!) This first day was my worst day actually, although not nearly as bad as my highly traumatic first day in France. Indeed, the troubles today were all of my own making. It was also the wettest of the five days.
Out of just 12 controls on the 7.33km course I managed to stuff up 5 controls, wasting over 5 minutes on four of them. A combination of parallel errors, unfamiliarity with the 1:15000 and sheer recklessness meant I took around 105 minutes to finish the course, well done on most others in JOK, the club I was running with (and a good group to compare with – after all, none of us – Nick Barrable excepted – were ever going to be able to compete with “the Scandies” on level terms.
Annoyingly, the first mistake, to No. 3, was on a 150m leg. I was distracted by the large number of people passing just to the left of the control, and also (I have to say) the map was slightly vague too. The control was hidden in quite dense undergrowth just to the south of where I spent five minutes looking. Even with an obvious line feature just 50m beyond, I still struggled.
I was very pleased with the next couple of legs, and even caught up the fast Jon Marsden. A little too pleased in fact, I comprehensively blew the leg to No. 6, failed to notice a stream was 90 degrees to what it should have been, and got myself in a frightful mess. Even a full scale relocation didn’t help and I only hit an obvious feature that I could follow by luck. The leg is shown the extract here. The next leg again should have been straightforward (this was not a particularly technical area, exccept near the end) and I again veered to the right and wasted a lot of time. I didn’t aim off going to No. 9 and again went right, just missing the control on my left. And No. 10 was just horrendous – I was looking for the control far short of where I should have been. It was near the end of the race and I had lost contact with the map, again being distracted by the large number of people around. I only found the control while on the way to relocate at pylons.
At least the finish was dramatic. The O-Ringen organisers really know how to build one hell of a finish. There were masses of people watching and a huge run-in lane, below a balcony containing commentators, TV cameras and a giant clock.
Overall, not the best start to the five days, it could only get better on the following days and thankfully it did.
After arriving in Gothenburg on Saturday on a horribly early morning flight, and getting so lost on the way from the airport (always an embarrassment for any orienteer) that we ended up twice as far away from the city than we started, no one was really up for too much orienteering. But the following day was the last day before the O-Ringen proper, so we picked the most interesting training area and went for a “free run” on the map. Of course, everyone was fresh from running in the easy southern England forests, and the longest suggested circuit on the map (around 7km) looked a cinch. It actually turned out to be a harder and much more physical area than the competition areas, and the steady drizzle didn’t help for an easy circuit. A rather scary “bridge”, or rather, a submerged plank, across a large marsh, caused many to pause for a considerable time. I had to cut my own circuit short after running out of time.
The first extract here was typical of the first part of the course. Going from 2-6, the “green” marked proved very rough indeed and I had to give up and retreat at one point. The marshes were extremely wet, cold and unpleasant – in sharp contrast, the competition areas would prove to have good, fast marshes, but I was initially nervous of using them after today. 
This was the third leg in the Frolic summer series of events put on by London orienteering clubs, like the others the format was a 3km handicap race followed by a similar length sprint race. This was also my O-Ringen warm-up event (!) – hardly Sweden, in fact possibly the easiest area I’ve ever been on. Interestingly the winning speeds for the sprint race, which used the confusing Sheen Common only were slower than for the Frolic race, which used the fast, open parkland more. Ed Catmur won both incidently. My times were OK too – comfortably below my 8 min/km target speed.
The sprint race was more interesting. I didn’t realise, until picking up the map, that it was in the trickier Sheen common. The course was well designed and was a true sprint, with dead-level running, tight, close legs and enough on the map so that you had to keep your brain switched on. Every leg of mine was finished in under 60 seconds, except for an unfortunate (any mistake in a sprint is very unfortunate) error between 2 and 3 – see left – where I went east through the rough and then some how ended up in the marsh marked. It took a little while to extract myself from the vegetation. From there it was plain sailing to the end – the prior Frolic race helping with the layout, admittedly. I glimpsed Ed about half way around and so sprinted the rest of the way, but he was doing well under 5 mins/km and was never for the catching.
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 
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.