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Last Thursday evening I was the only idiot hardy soul to turn up chez Spears for their Night Street League event. Most people took up the offer to postpone their run till tonight, and I bet they had a lovely time dashing about in the dark on this relatively mild February evening. Me, I was out in the snow. I enjoy running in the snow though, so i took the chance that my run wouldn’t be very competitive. And I exacerbated the situation by making a big error at control 6. I put my map down to tie my lace, picked it back up and ran off down the wrong path. When I came out on the wrong road I didn’t notice because I was caught in the old orienteering trap of trying to make the terrain fit the map… In the end it took me over an hour to complete the 6km so I expect to be well down the results, but tant pis. It was a different experience.
It’s a fortnight already since I popped over to Lilleshall to partake of a slice of this year’s British Orienteering coaching conference. The day got progressively more active, starting off with lectures about training, followed by a coaching workshop and then after lunch we worked out down on the soccer pitches.
All useful stuff, but BOF chief executive Mike Hamilton saying that he knows nothing about orienteering did get on my tits a bit. He’s been in post for four years!
On Wednesday I went down to the Ordnance Survey in Southampton for the first national conference organised by the people who bring you the wonderful Geograph website. There was a good mix of talks and discussions, and for a map geek like me it was great to finally have the opportunity to visit my mecca. 
In case you missed it (like me) here are links to the series of route-choosing puzzles that “World of O” ran on their website during December. You can draw the route you think you would’ve taken, then scroll down the page to compare it with what the experts did.
1. Hungary 2. USA 3. France 4. Finland 5. New Zealand 6. Czech 7. Russia 8. Croatia 9. Norway 10. Switzerland 11. Australia 12. Finland 13. Austria 14. Switzerland 15. Slovenia 16. Germany 17. GB 18. Switzerland 19. Finland 20. Norway 21. Hungary 22. Czech 23. Norway 24. Switzerland
Fun in the sun on Cannock Chase this morning. After yesterday’s exertions, I’m not sure I would’ve been up to running an adult course today, so luckily it was time to take Catherine.
Because I was racing I didn’t get any action shots, but others were out taking pictures of us sweating and I’ll link to some later.
Today’s races in Edgbaston were excellently planned by Iain Embrey – the only problem for me was that I was a bit leggy. The mistakes I made were minor, though in this format of orienteering they cost me a few places! Like most people I was caught out by control 6 in the prologue, which was up on the terrace, but at least I did find a way up to it. In the mad dash at the end of the prologue I found the 1:600 scale tricky, and wasted time getting to control 5, but I fared better than those who found the transition from one map scale to another more than their tired brains could manage.
My time of 25 minutes dead for the 2.5 km in the morning gave me a reasonable start position for the afternoon race, starting just ahead of 4 other runners, including Andy White and Rachel Emmerson, all of whom caught me up almost immediately! I had a good battle with Andy and Rachel up to control 15: I’m slower than both, but I was lucky enough to make better route choices to controls 5, 11 and 13 that allowed me to keep up. Sadly I went and spoilt it all by making a 90-degree error exiting control 15, heading east instead of south, and wasn’t able to catch them again. I completed the 3.5 km in 31:38. My times were nowhere near the winning times, but I’m not sure I want to be as scarily fast as those guys! 
As usual, the subject came up of what this kind of event should be called. We understand what we mean by a “sprint”, but 3.5 km doesn’t sound much like a sprint to anyone else. Finally, well done to Alison Sloman for the excellent maps. Mapping buildings to show where they can be run under, through or over is an awkward job.
Main West Midlands events in bold…
Sat 6: MADO League, Cranham (Gloucester)
also Burton Dassett (between Leamington and Banbury)
also Swynnerton Old Park (nr Stoke)
Sun 7: Robin Hood Trophy, Blidworth (Mansfield)
also The Begwns (Powys)
Sat 13: Birmingham University
also Mountain Bike Orienteering, Cannock Chase
also: Western Night League, Blakeney (Forest of Dean)
Sun 14: West Midlands League, Cannock Chase
also East Midlands League, Derby
Tue 16: Half-Term event, Leicester
Thu 18: Night Street, Bournville
Sat 20: MADO League, Malvern
and Western Night League, Forest of Dean
Sun 21: East Midlands League, Charnwood Forest
also Lizard Hill (between Cannock and Telford)
also Southern Championships, Lydney (Forest of Dean)
Sat 27: Oversley Wood (Alcester)
Sun 28: West Midlands League, Dymock (Ross-on-Wye)
Coming up in March: the Welsh Championships near Aberystwyth (Sat 6/Sun 7)
… as the Magyars say. We’re doing well. Not only did we win the Laurie Bradley Trophy on New Year’s Day (just!); not only did we qualify for the Compass Sport Cup Final; we’re leading the West Midlands League!
Although I couldn’t be at Worcester Beacon for the Compass Sport Cup match, where my participation wouldn’t have improved our score, Rough Wood was a different story. I was one of the 25 Harlequins who contributed to our total, and if I hadn’t been there we wouldn’t have won. Just goes to show that sometimes duffers like me can make a difference…
Last night was round 6 of this season’s Night Street League and the venue was Redditch, considered by some to be the region’s best area for this particular variety of the sport, because the paths between the streets on the housing estates give loads of route choice.
Another good night for running: cool and damp, and I’m running well, but not well enough: third in 49:30, just 5 seconds behind Andy White. I didn’t make any mistakes, but I need to stop less often to consult the map!
Last week I was out at Highgate Common for the normal night version of the sport. I think I’ve done about half a dozen night races of this type now and I’m getting used to it, though it helped that it’s an area I know relatively well. (I ran past #17 because I started late and didn’t want to make Barry and Peter wait too long for me at the end.)
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