You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'badge event' category.
We had a good day in Shropshire – cold but mainly sunny, with mist drifting in and out to increase the challenge. It seems difficult to get good turnouts at events south-west of the conurbation and Sunday was no exception, even though the hill is one of the most interesting areas available for orienteering in the region. I enjoyed my run – the rough open land is tussocky but is almost all runnable, which is more than can be said for some areas! – but made a couple of small navigating errors and ended up 21st out of 42 on Blue.
On Tuesday I came first on the middle course at the first event of this year’s Night Street League, 54 minutes for 6.1 km. Though I know the town quite well, I don’t think I’ve run round Walsall before, and don’t remember having come across the windmill, which was one of the controls.
At both events I was being careful not to jar my left knee, after the trouble it gave me at Fineshade, but it seems fine. I did make a point of trying to keep to the grass alongside the tracks on Titterstone – there’s not much cushioning in my O shoes!
SINS is West Mercia’s two-yearly orienteering weekend, and this year it’s been blessed with perfect weather. I’m walking (as opposed to hobbling) again but I decided not to overdo it and “ran” course 12 at Brown Clee today, which was the shortest “expert” course available, at 3.2km. It was a good course, I made mistakes on a couple of the legs even though I was walking, and I got round in 80 minutes. I overshot #3, ending up at the lower pond, and after #8 I was dim enough to follow some tapes that I wasn’t supposed to follow…
The next couple of weeks will be taken up with various committee meetings. Checking the fixture list, unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be ready to run at Kingsford (June 4) but I’ll try and make my comeback (!) at Uffmoor Wood on the 14th.
My calf’s improving daily, so rather than cancel my entry for today’s badge event at Bentley I downgraded from Blue to Orange, and Steve Nightingale kindly lent me some walking poles. Unfortunately the Orange course didn’t go into Bentley Wood itself, but it did take me on a picturesque walk round the grounds of Merevale Hall. My pace was about 20 min/km and I came 11th out of 23. There was one tricky control, #4, getting to which coincided with a soaking hail shower.
At the top of the map you can see the remains of the POW camp.
Time for a few ads…
1. Harlequins’ Thursday evening series is under way and carries on through August.
2. Droobers’ new park race series begins in Coventry tomorrow.
3. We’ve just had a bank holiday, I know, but the next one is very soon. That means Springtime in Shropshire!
4. Before then, on the 17th, there’s a Level Two event in Bentley Woods, and the entry deadline is this coming Sunday. Maybe the timing is bad, it coming the week after the big races in Nottingham and Thringstone, but I hope the number of entries pushes on well beyond the current 145. (Even assuming they do, I think some of the age classes ought to be combined at smaller regional events like this one: e.g. 18+20, 21+35, 40+45, 65++.)
Although I can’t find the map, I’ve found the results of the only event I’ve run there: it was the Midland Champs in February 1996. A good run by my standards: I got a “silver” time on M21S. This year’s event seems better value for money: the M40L was 8 km in 1996, while this year it’s 10km!
Excluding the string course, there were 637 competitors, and these were the course winners that day:
10 Megan Greenall OD, Nicholas Tinker MDOC
12 Emma Whitehead DVO, David Hodkinson NOC, Matthew Dickinson DVO
14 Julia Leventon WRE, Stephen Wright NOC
16 Hannah Wootton HOC, Alastair Footitt NOC
18 Claire Daniel HAVOC, Adam Harrison WAOC
20 Jo Abbott WRE, David Jenkins LSOC
21 Alice Bedwell BOK, Jamie Stevenson ESOC
35 Janet Evans NOC, Stephen Kimberley DVO
40 Jane Booker NOC, Barry Elkington OD
45 Judith Holt LEI, Roger Richards WCH
50 Sue Porter LEI, Rex Bleakman DVO
55 Judith Powell WRE, Brian Morris WRE
60 Marlene Palmer WCH, Peter Bayliss WRE
65 Barbara Bradley WCH, Frank Smith OD
70 Phillip Broadhead LEI
p.s. I love you too, Mark.
I had quite a good run at Leith Hill last year, on my first ever outing at the JK. 77 minutes, achieving my target of 12 minutes per kilometre.* There was a touch of frustration though when I looked at the results and saw the winner’s time: 47 minutes by Peter Sacares of LOK. Wondering why he doesn’t run the Long!
Of course I was falling into the trap of expecting other people to use the same reasoning as me. I run Short or B courses because I don’t have the stamina to go further – not happily anyway. I’d get better value doing the long course but it could turn into a dispiriting trudge. And I’ve got more chance of getting my bronze badge (if BOF haven’t abolished them).
But, let’s face it, there are some orienteers who could easily run the Long or A course but just don’t want to. They enjoy a shorter race. And that’s their prerogative.
*(There’s a tad more climb this year but I ought to set my sights on 10 minute k’s and a total cross-country time of around 2 hours.)
Mrs B had a tough weekend: no sooner was I back from Sheffield than I was off to the Wyre Forest for this badge event, HOC’s biggest event since Brown Clee. There was added danger today – some stretches of the route to Bewdley were quite icy and/or misty. But although the conditions were quite crisp, the running was very pleasant for the 300 competitors.
My run started well and I made progress against Ian Gamlen, a COBOC runner who’s consistently better than me, but as my brain and body got tired the mistakes crept in. I reached control 11 fourth in 37 minutes, but finished sixth in 64 minutes. I made a terrible route choice to #12 and also managed to get lost on the shortest leg on the course! So all the good work was undone. 
My course was well planned – Rollo put out a lot of controls (72) and it was worth it – several times I came across controls that weren’t mine, making my task that little bit harder.
Memo to self: HOC have discussed getting RouteGadget a couple of times, but we really ought to get it!
Just one day of the Elsh* sixday, on the way down to hols in Tenby. Maybe Russ is more of a masochist than I gave him credit for, if he offered to control this event. It’s a tough area! Tussocks, overgrown rock fields, bracken and low heather, so that it took me almost 70 minutes to cover less than 5 km. (16th place out of 21.) Ten minutes of that was lost on control 4, which turned out to be a lot further than it appeared on the map… (A pity after having got to control 3 in 5th place.) I think it was a tricky control, half a mile diagonally uphill through bracken, so credit to those who found it rather more efficiently than I did. I correctly ignored a control down to the right, and also correctly noticed that I needed to pass the hilltop to my left, but as I got closer I went wrong somehow and I’d have been happy to go out again later and find out how. I came to a depression with a boulder in it, which may have been the one clearly marked on the map, but the rock stream I came to next was going downhill, so can’t have been the one just above the control. It didn’t help that the bracken was covering a larger area than that shown by the undergrowth screen on the map. Finally I saw two guys running east and realised that although they weren’t on my course they were probably running away from my control. I ran up and to the left and hey presto…
Click to enlarge (550 kb)
I had the same start time as Martin Dean, whose Croeso blog is here.
Something a bit peculiar about Andy Hemsted’s results. Andy took 45 minutes for one control, achieving the fastest time for most of the others, and the same thing happened when he ran a couple of days later at Wentwood. Is it possible that he went to the pub during the races?
*That’s what Catherine calls it. 
No run today – I had a christening to go to.
Last month the UK Cup Middle Distance event was held at Weston Heath in north Shropshire. It’s an interesting area and I ran there at POTOC’s badge event on 16/2/03. I wasn’t doing much orienteering at the time so I didn’t register for a race, so I had to make do with a colour-coded course, and it must rank as one of the worst-value trips to an event that I’ve ever made. After driving 50 miles it was quite a disappointment to discover that the course had just six controls, and that I’d only be spending about three minutes of my run in the interesting part of the area.
Walking back to my car after the race I was surprised to hear Hungarian voices. (My wife is Hungarian.) If I remember correctly, it was a lady and her two sons, members of the Chester club.
Meanwhile, here’s a few photos from yesterday’s Ultrasprint in Sheffield.
I had a good run at this national event, only slightly spoiled by the trouble with my knee for the last 20 minutes. For each leg, I’ve included my time, my leg ranking on M40S, and Andy Hemsted’s time. It only occurred to me afterwards that his course was exactly the same as mine, only he had the benefit of a map that it was actually possible to read…
Part One. This was the more challenging half of the course, navigation-wise, with speed less important, and I’m pleased that I was in third place by the 7th control. Gives me hope that once I get my speed up (if I ever do!) I can be reasonably competitive.
S-1 (6:56 5th – Andy 5:02) Right at the start I had to make a route choice: over the fence crossing and through the wood or go around on the tracks? I think if I was being a bit more competitive I would’ve just run up the track, but I went for the more interesting option… The first 150m was tough going but, once I found the fight, getting to the next fence crossing was easy. Then I set the compass to W and found the feature without any trouble.
1-2 (5:34 11th – Andy 3:32) I aimed north but I found it difficult to follow the terrain. I knew when I was getting close when I could see the wooded area below me to the right but, worried that I might be too high or too low, I slowed right down and virtually walked into the control.
2-3 (2:21 10th – Andy 1:42) I stopped after a few seconds when I hit a vehicle track, and it took a while to convince myself that it wasn’t mapped. Otherwise this was an easy control.
3-4 (3:12 12th – Andy 1:39) There was a clear elephant track to follow as far as the ruined wall, which turned out to be an earthbank. Crazily, I found the control from there alright but thought I could see the number 157 on it, so I ran to look a little north and south. Then, looking back at the control, it now said 158!
4-5 (0:59 6th – Andy 0:51) Just head up the hill to the building!
5-6 (6:03 9th – Andy 3:48 ) It was easy to see which way to go, but somewhat disconcerting that the pond (obviously) wasn’t visible until I got up to its edge. South from the pond was also easy enough, though I made the daft decision to go left around the little hill just before the control and found that way impassable.
6-7 (8:41 5th – Andy 6:00) I set the compass to SE and ran, or tried to, across the tussocks and marshes. There were some trails where feet had knocked the grass, but it would’ve been easy to follow the wrong one. (It was here that Andy overtook me and I figured his course must be similar to mine…) I headed north of the pool but I was cross with myself because I had to run further north to get to the fence crossing. I ran down the track to the gate and turned E into the wood, expecting to cross the little track but I didn’t find it. Instead I found lots of brashings and, luckily, the control.
Part Two: I fell back on this section. The navigation was relatively straightforward (or should I say too easy?)and there was loads of path running, on which people were zooming past me – especially after I had my knee trouble.
7-8 (7:07 14th – Andy 3:53) I’m not sure what went wrong here. I was doing okay until I noticed I hadn’t seen the first ride. I slowed up, and found the second ride slightly hidden behind a row of trees. Then I turned off the ride a bit early and fund my way barred by a fallen tree. I don’t liketrying to spot tree-type boundaries but the kite was visible enough.
8-9 (4:10 11th – Andy 2:21) This was one of the legs where I had trouble reading the map (because I had my lenses in). After wasting some time wondering whether I could go straight, I realised I had to go over the gate by the (non-existent) water station. The control location was as plain as a pikestaff, and one of those I don’t like because once you’ve run down to it you have to run back up again.
9-10 (7:19 13th – Andy 4:26) I didn’t see the southern gate on the map, and followed another runner over the fence. Thence it was easy enough to find the field and the track, thought not so easy to run up it to the water station. Water! At last! After 50 minutes! (Hello Kerstin!) I hit the control perfectly, having set my sights on the end of the pond.
10-11 (4:13 3rd – Andy 6:46) A triumph! My best control. Where I was wise was in running down the path and ride all the way to the track, then just turning left after the green stuff. Voila.
11-12 (4:28 7th – Andy 2:33) Back to the track, round the bend, down the hill (oops – crossed the fence, sorry), through the copse, down to the stream, turn right and there was the niche.
12-13 (6:59 14th – Andy 4:29) Joy – another climb. Then, as I reached the top, I “felt my knee”, and I think any of the several runners who passed me as we did an impromptu 800-metre race along the track could probably see I was now carrying an injury. It was discomfort rather than pain though and I decided not to stop. Maybe I was wrong, but I felt that if continued jogging along it might do it more good than harm. From the track to the control other runners had made a clear path.
13-14 (3:00 10th – Andy 2:03) Once I’d negotiated the rhododendrons and got into the control circle, the kite was soon visible.
14-15 (7:20 13th – Andy 3:59) Another uncomfortable track leg. I decided the simplest route choice was to run all the way to the gate, then go E down the hill. I found a thicket, ran around it and came to a path. Ah. I realised then that if I squinted I could just about make out a faint green dot, and the green dot I actually needed was a bit further down the hill.
15-16 (1:00 14th – Andy 0:31) I got slightly disoriented here.
16-F (0:21 5th – Andy 0:18 ) One always has to put on a show for the crowds, doesn’t one.
Here’s a suggestion for an alternative course that would’ve kept us off the tracks:
(Click to enlarge)
Recent Comments