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Here are the maps from the sprint competition I did in Hungary a year ago (and reported on here). Note that the control numbers are on the map, which speeds things up. Hopefully I can organise a similar event in the Midlands next summer.
The large versions are followed by the reduced-size versions.
Oof. Last but two of the finishers. Two and a quarter hours. This after the guy on car-parking had estimated I’d take an hour. An hour! There was only one runner inside one hour on M40 today, and I’d say that was a heroic effort. 8 km with 22 controls and 500 m of climb, in 30 degrees of heat. I’ll save the inquest for later, but I don’t really mind my lowly position – I had an enjoyable run really (except for the pain in my feet towards the end) and hopefully I’ve learned something from it. The stars and the part-timers are all heading north tomorrow for the final day. Follow the Long Final at worldofo.com
I’m finally in the Miskolc area and I ran yesterday in the middle distance event at Bükkszentkereszt (63rd) and the sprint today in Miskolc city centre (55th). This afternoon I went up to Csanyik to watch the WOC sprints. Photos here.
Today was the middle-distance qualification at the World Championships and two Brits have qualified for Wednesday’s finals: Rachael Elder and Oli Johnson, and there were a couple of near misses.
Three live video feeds will be available at a cost of 5 euros per day (sprint+middle count as one day).
Since I was somewhat confused by the recently published Hungaria Cup event details I emailed the organisers and I’ve received a kind and helpful response from Miklós Bogdány. So, to clarify (if clarification is necessary):
1. The first start times are now 12:30, 10:00, 15:30, 12:30, 9:30, 8:30. (The times on the “Invitation” page on the website have yet to be corrected.) Add your start times to those start times! In my case, adding 60, 43, 48, 32, 135, 72 makes 13:30, 10:43, 16:18, 13:02, 11:45, 9:42. Though all of these are, of course, subject to change. 
2. Directions aren’t given to the sprint assembly (“Downtown Miskolc” is somewhat vague) but this info will be available at assembly on the previous days, and if someone tells me I’ll put the address here!
3. If several people are going from the same club, the organisers will prefer to give all those people’s bumf to one person (the “team leader”) at registration. This will not be rigidly enforced though, so separately-travelling team members can receive their bumf separately.
4. By “bib” they mean “rectangular piece of paper or paper-like substance with your competitor number on it”. Clearly it will be best if you get hold of your number before you go off to the start, but you will be allowed to start if you fail to manage this.
5. The warning in Section 5 “Parking” refers to Day 6 only.
6. I was surprised that so few courses will have access to water. It could be blisteringly hot, so I think there’s little alternative but to carry a drink, on the Long days at least.
Here in Debrecen it’s party-day. Not, I have to admit, because of the Tájfutó Világbajnokság, nor even because of the City Carnival, but because five friends and family (including yours truly) have birthdays around now, and (above all) because it’s summer. It’s a typically hot and sunny day today, although – shock, horror – it rained yesterday.
Late last night I decided it’d be easy and fun to arrange a little orienteering race as a kind of party game. The map’s drawn, the lawn’s mown…
Update: results (so far) Norbi 1:41 Matyi 1:55 Pisti 2:05 Zoli 2:23 Laci 2:25 Kati 3:15 Márti 3:28
These are the closest approximations I could come up with without resorting to the phonetic alphabet. I’ve broken the words up into syllables (not always logically) and respelled them as if they were British English words. I’ve also given the meanings of the placenames.
magyar mod-yor Hungarian
Bükk book beech
Hernád hair-nahd
Kosice kohsh-eats-eh
Lillafüred leel-loff-oor-ed lily spa
Miskolc meesh-cohlts
Palota-szálló pol-oh-ta sahl-oh palace hotel
Sajó shoy-oh
Tapolca top-ohlt-sa
Tisza teess-sa
Aggtelek og-tel-eck old land
Bánkút bahn-coot lord’s well
Bodzás-rét bohd-zahsh rate elderflower meadow
Bükkszentkereszt book-sent-kerr-est holy cross
Galuzsnya-hegy gol-oozh-nee-a hedge dumpling hill (?)
Hollós-tető holl-ohsh tet-ur raven top
Királyasztal kee-rye ost-oll king’s table
Kurta-bérc koor-ta bayrts short hill
Létrás-tető lay-trahsh tet-ur ladder top
Lófő-tisztás low-fur tee-stahsh horsehead clearing
Nagymező nodge-mez-ur great meadow
Szelcepuszta selt-sep-ooss-ta ? plain
Szép-hegy sayp hedge pretty hill
Szögliget sug-lee-get nail grove
Vivrát-hegy veev-raht hedge ? hill
Áron Less ah-rohn lesh
János Sőtér yah-nohsh shirt-airr
László Solyom lah-sloh shoh-yom
Száva Zsigmond sah-va zheeg-mond
Tibor Zsigmond tee-borr zheeg-mond
Zsolt Gerzsényi zhohlt gair-zhayn-yee
cél tsayl finish
rajt royt start
tájfuto tie-foo-toh orienteer
tájfutás tie-foo-tahsh orienteering
világbajnokság vee-lahg-boy-nock-shahg world championships
Just discovered these notes Dave Peel made a year ago. (pdf)
I met Marti in November 1997. Since then she’s watched me go off to many orienteering events. Very rarely has she been at an event, and she’s never taken part. She’s not averse to sport – she doesn’t mind cycling, swimming or running – but has avoided O like the plague. Despite the fact that our 4-year-old doesn’t come home in tears after a run round a Yellow course, Marti’s been convinced that orienteering is, to coin a cliche, a “nice jog spoiled”.
Anyway, on Saturday I was taking Catherine to Sutton Park for COBOC’s little local event, and the sun was shining, and Marti said she’d come. I immediately took advantage of this (!) and asked Marti to take Catherine round the White course (or vice versa) while I got a bit of practice in for next weekend’s cup tie by doing the Long. Marti became a bit concerned when she realised that it wasn’t a string course, but the real deal with kites and dibber and compass, but I tried to reassure her by suggesting that although the map was confusing, the kites would be visible along the paths and she would just need to decide at each one whether to turn or carry on.
It was master maps so I drew them a map and off they went. A couple of minutes later, after I’d copied my map, I overtook them and left them to their fate! As I passed Blackroot Pool I knew they must’ve done okay – someone had already been round to collect their controls – and sure enough, they the two of them were, cheering me into the finish. I did my 4.5 km in 33 minutes, and they’d done their 1.7 km in 20 minutes. Celebrations all round! Best of all, Marti’s comment was “That was easy” and she went off to run round her course again…
Marti’s orienteering phobia had its roots in her youth. As a teenager, she’d once or twice had a go at a course with a small group of girl friends, and got lost and had an uninspiring time. That reminded me of my own experiences in Hungary – I’d enjoyed the challenge and the terrain, but it was remarkable that colour-coded courses were almost non-existent, such that there must’ve been a magical process that allowed beginners to become proficient in the sport. All the events I went to were organised by age class, with a token “Nyilt” (Open) course which was probably TD4! So we are very lucky here to have a much better way of running events, and I have a happy wife!
Time for another quiz, and about time I blogged a bit about my time in Hungary, so I’m going to kill two birds with one stone… Attached you’ll find the map from the first day of a two-day competition held near Nyírbátor in September 2001. I was running M21C and my times were 49:33 on day 1 (3.6 km) and 53:40 on day 2 (5.7km).
Your challenge is to draw the day-2 course given only my description of it, as follows:
The start was on the path north of the football ground, and though I could’ve run round the bend to the first control, which was at the four-path junction, I joined most of the other runners’ route along the direct little path. Control 2 was in a saddle atop one of the countless (buried) dunes. It was easy enough: along the path, sharp bend right, less sharp bend left, turn right uphill through the light green. 3 and 4 are just as straightforward. Push through the thick stuff to the road, head along it a little way, then go right along the path. Over the path junction and after another 100 metres turn left slightly uphill to the vegetation boundary. (Made even easier by an unmarked path.) After dibbing, head NW through the trees to the path I’d just crossed, and head north for a kilometre or so. The control is by the first tree in the flat open on the right beyond the wood.
Thankfully (?) the course now gets much trickier. The next control is on a ride junction, which sounds easy enough, but it’s some distance away with no path-only route to get there. I zigzag via ride and path to a channel of treed open that leads to a path across a dune, then turn north along a path that eventually leads to path junction. Then I headed west to what I’m pretty sure was not a pair of cairns. I crossed two dunes, turned left down the ride, and the control was back up on the second dune.
Along the top of the dune, then right, down towards the road, taking the path south (rather than the road) to its end, then a quick left-right-left to #6, the vegetation boundary at the earthwall end. #7 is easy, the only question is whether to retrace my steps back to the road, or go south along the earthwall and path to the perpendicular path and then zigzag onto the overgrown path; the control is on the sharp bend. Nearly there now. A quick scramble down to the road, then right onto the windy path to the village. Control 8 is on top of the little triangular hill in the trees to the east of the field. Then back out onto the field – the finish is the same as yesterday’s.
How’ve you got on?
While we were in Hungary (the venue for next year’s world championships) I was allowed a day off for good behaviour so of course I chose to go orienteering. The only event available was the county sprint championships, taking place at an open-air museum near Polgár. It wasn’t an expensive outing: 900 HUF for the bus there, 800 HUF entry fee and 300 HUF for lunch. It was relatively cool and windy, but rainless like all the other days we spent in Hungary. The turnout was pretty good – there were 134 competitors in a county with the same population as Worcestershire, and half of them were juniors.
The event was the fun side of orienteering – easy courses made even easier by the opportunity to wander around the park before the races! There were two rounds, at 10.30 am and at 2 pm. After a few days off from running, the run to the first control was a bit of a shock to the system! And then I made the obvious mistake on the second control of not noticing that it was behind the fence, and lost about half a minute. But the rest of the run was fine and I came 6th, just a few seconds off 3rd. My head was burning with the exertion!
My run in the afternoon was going very well indeed: 3rd at the 10th control, but then my boring old knee problem set in and I walked the rest of the way. Frustrating, but I was never in the running to be county champion anyway!
Holding a competition on such a tiny area is great for the sport. You need to have two rounds to make the journey worthwhile (I don’t think I’d've bothered with a 70-minute bus ride for a single 12-minute run) but the atmosphere was excellent. I’d definitely say that this needs to be developed as one of the two key forms of orienteering.
Local website. Results: first round, second round
Száva Zsigmond was there.
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