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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…)
This was a mass-start score event using the permanent orienteering course at Severn Valley Country Park. I was late for the start but the organisers kindly allowed me a full allowance of time. I have a slight dislike of score events but my brain seems to cope reasonably okay with the challenge of working out the running order… in this case I got round all the controls without any difficulty (apart from a bit of knee gyp) in 45 minutes.
I raved back in August about the sprint event I went to in Hungary, and this country park would make a good location for a Midlands Sprint Championships. The first round in the morning, the second (and the prizegiving) in the afternoon.
Andy and Marian White very kindly lent me a headlamp again (I’m hoping that Santa will bring me my own next month!) and I travelled down to Stourport with Andy Hemsted and Barry McGowan for the first night score event of the season. This was my first time on this area and it’s certainly very varied: grass, trees, bracken, heather, sand… The planner was Alison Sloman and she’d included some nice and simple controls so it wasn’t too hard for me to sweep up 13 altogether.
After 45 minutes (I was midway between the “18″ and the “20″ on the map) my lamp suddenly went out; I discovered that the wires had come adrift at the connector and I couldn’t reconnect them. So I had to navigate more than a kilometre in the dark to the finish… Luckily it was full moon, but I couldn’t really see the map so I was pleased with myself that I didn’t get lost!
These events are a lot of fun so don’t be scared (Halloween’s long gone!) – come and have a go in the Lickey Hills on December 4th.
I can’t make it to Redditch tomorrow so I got my fix in Northamptonshire at this OD event. I was glad to have an excuse to go – it’s an interesting place. A score event (not my favourite O activity), which probably made sense since even though the point features would also make for a good traditional event, the elephant tracks in the grass would be glaring, and it would also be easy to follow people.
Anyway, I didn’t take the time limit seriously and set out to collect all 25 controls in whatever time it would take me. In the end I missed out a couple I thought might take too long to find. I was almost 7 minutes over the time limit so I guess I scored 185. (22×10 – 7×5) Because of the siting of the start and finish I decided to go clockwise round the area, but it seems I was in the minority. Not knowing the area it took me a while to orient myself and work out what all those little dots and squares really looked like. Eventually I spiked the first control (#17) but didn’t spot the flat marker on the ground and wasted time hunting around before I worked out I must’ve been right the first time. Here’s the map and my route:
This is the second time I’ve taken part in OD’s Tony Haw Charity Score Event. I took Catherine and we ambled round the easy controls in about 50 minutes, including a sit-down to watch the ducks on the canal. The area’s on the small side so I think that if I’d been on my own I might’ve managed all 35 controls in the hour, but I’m probably deluding myself; looking at the results, only four runners managed that feat.
I used to be a fan of score events – the annual New Year’s Day event is great fun, and it’s a good format for the winter night league events – but I’ve gone off them a bit. I don’t know if others feel the same, but the turnout was pretty poor today. Perhaps that was just because of the venue: Pooley has to be one of OD’s most uninspiring areas. It’s a spoil heap, a field, and 5 hectares of wood, all under the shadow of the M42.
Having said that, a score event is a reasonable use to put it to, and I’m wondering what the best route through the first 23 controls would be. Here’s the map for you to have a go, and my suggestion is underneath.
So, wanting to get the hill out of the way first, my route would be 17-1-23-21-13-6-2-3-5-4-7-8-9-10-11-18-14-16-15-19-22-12-20.
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