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I intended to take part in the radio-O competition at Hay Wood today but some idiot at the Department for Transport decided it might be fun to close M42 junction 6 for a couple of hours, thereby creating a massive tailback and making me an hour late to the wood. So I ran a standard Green course instead – a small disappointment but Hay Wood is a good, challenging little area so I got a lot out of my substitute run. This was one of the first areas I wrote about when I started blogging early last year. My compass work has improved but I still made a couple of mistakes today, and – horror of horrors – I mispunched…
Just after I crossed the track on the way to #10 I could see a control in the distance, seemingly in the right place. When I got there I saw 137, thought that was right, punched and turned away to head for #11. Oops. 137 was on the path, a few metres north of the depression, which was control 138.
This was a very rare occurence for me. I can’t remember mispunching before, but I’m sure I must have. Even so, I’m sure I’ve mispunched no more than 3 times in 15 years. It’s not as if I wasn’t aware that one can come across several wrong controls on a course – I’d already bumped into a couple today, including one of the radio-O controls! The mistake I made was to start thinking about the next control without concentrating enough to notice that this one was only approximately the right code in approximately the right place…
Onwards and upwards. 
And I look forward to getting another go at Radio-O in the not too distant future!
Took Catherine to the Droobers event at Brueton Park on Saturday morning. As you can see it was a bit damp, but not dispiritingly so. By the evening I was feeling quite ill though, so wasn’t up to the trip to Fownhope yesterday. 
1. Simon Errington’s blogged nicely about our plinthing efforts. In the end it all came and went so fast; I managed to forget most of Roger’s tips but I still had a great time. The sun shone, and I felt fine. I nearly tripped a couple of times on the stakes though, which I had to lay vertical (and all the bending down and leaning out over the edge gave me aching legs for the City Race next day). Thanks to everyone who helped beforehand and on the day.
2. It was a bit manic chez Bailey when I got home – the Himley event was just a few hours away. Come the morning, the sun shone again, the courses were good (even if I say so myself) and it was a pity that there were so few people there. I’m beginning to think that the Black Country is more like a Black Hole… My publicising efforts seem largely to be a waste of time, and I think I’ll go back to taking a back seat and/or organising things bog-standardly.
3. Yet another sunny day on Sunday for OD’s league event at Oakley Wood, with its mysterious “fort”. I thought I ran well, with only a couple of mistakes, and was disappointed to be so far down the results. I think the truth is that I haven’t got my speed (such as it was) back from before my injury. Also, of course, in most of the events I’ve been entering lately he average ability of the competitors has been quite high, making me look (even) worse!
Warwick Council bought Oakley Wood last year and is now consulting about its future.
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.
Well done to those West Midlanders who ran well at BOC today. Foremost among them are new national champions Andy Hemsted (M60), Sheila Carey (W60), Jane Christopher (W65) and Hilary Simpson (W70).
Meanwhile I’m here in Birmingham saving up my brownie points for the JK weekend! It’s been a relatively quiet week – I ran in Stourbridge on Thursday night, another good run, and last Saturday I took Catherine to Coventry for the busy event at the scout camp there. OD are rather generous in their course classification. The “yellow” course we went round was a very pale shade of yellow indeed!
Update: successes in the relays… OD 4th and 5th in the men’s and women’s premier respectively; HOC 7th and 4th in the men’s short and M40 respectively. OD 1st in mixed-12, M14, W14, W40 and mixed-60. Congratulations – the Droobers maintain their winning ways!
Although we Harlequins aren’t as competitive, the club has an excellent participatory spirit and I’m looking forward to being part of one of our eleven teams at the JK.
Congratulations to the following on their performances at the event last Sunday:
Yellow: 1st Ethan Tebbutt, 2nd Melanie & Mark James
Orange*: 1st Alex Roberts, 2nd Jacob Herbert, 3rd David Creber
Red: 1st Dominic & Suzi Robinson, 2nd John Lyden
Green: 1st Chris McCartney, 2nd Harrison McCartney
Blue: 1st Phil Clark, 2nd David Aldridge
Brown: 1st Miroslav Rypacek, 2nd Clive Richardson
I did take along some certificates and prizes, but there isn’t a culture of prizegiving and clearly I wasn’t going to create one just like that, so I came home with most of them. Never mind, I’ll take them along to the Lickey Hills event so you can pick them up then! (*Alex was running down.)
A question mark hangs over the future of RouteGadget, given the rumours going round that the OS are going to whack up their licence fees, but I have uploaded the Clent event so give it a go while ye may…
Believe it or not, the day before Clent I took Catherine down to Leamington to the OD event at Itchington Holt. It’s a small wood, but it’s always good to have a new orienteering area. C was up for it and we got round the Yellow in under 30 minutes.
Here we go… I did a planning course (which is where one learns course planning) many moons ago, and I have planned night-street and park-O courses, but Clent is my first “proper” cross-country event. (Yes, it is cross-country, despite what it says on the new-style BOF events list, the style of which may or may not be based on the excellent listings at Runners World.) The maps are printed, the stakes are in my boot, the Sportident boxes are ready to be collected… The big question now is: just how bad will the rain be? Tomorrow (Saturday) is allegedly going to be nice and sunny, but then the clouds are due to start gathering… But don’t let that put you off!
Approximate course lengths: Yellow 1.7k, Orange 2.5k, Red 5k, Green 3.8k, Blue 5.2k, Brown 7k.
Last weekend I went to UWOC’s v.g. campus event. I loved the campus parts but wasn’t so enamoured of the muddy bits beyond. And I annoyed myself by co’ing up a tiny leg in a bit of grotty wood – I think I must’ve got to within a few metres of the control before having doubts and spending several minutes wandering around. Interestingly my best leg was the one on which I encountered Richard Dearden who shouted “Run!” at me! Maybe I should wear an ipod during races, with Richard on a loop??
Harlequins won the Score Championships in Sutton Park this afternoon.
I had a reasonable (and mostly enjoyable) run but nothing special: 17 controls in the hour, minus 1 for being a minute late back. But who cares? We won!
btw, well done to OD for the excellent organisation. What with a couple of hundred mad runners (a very good turnout leading to (orderly) queues at most of the controls), another couple of hundred astonished dog-walkers, and a few military types showing off some vintage vehicles, the frost soon cracked under the collective weight!
Did I mention that we won?
(Since I was standing west of the start when we were released, I went with the smallish group heading towards #21. Then 16, 15, 18, 19… On reflection, I think I should’ve either started with #13, or omitted #16 and gone 21, 13, 15…)
I failed miserably in the radio-O yesterday. I arrived late, was in a rush, failed to read all the instructions (e.g. none of the controls are north of the railway) and spent the first half an hour north of the railway! Still, I got some practice and some exercise…
Meanwhile there was another event going on in the park… Congratulations to South Yorkshire and Forth Valley, the winners of the Compass Sport Cup and Trophy. Here’s Nick Barrable, preparing to present the Cup to himself! 
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