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A common complaint or comment from runners after the short race at Himley last month was that there was something amiss with #42 (south part of copse):
Certainly quite a few people lost time on it, some claiming that it was in the wrong place or that the map was wrong. But I was happy with it, and so was Alison, who mapped it and checked it, and Richard, who controlled it. John Embrey went and had a look afterwards and confirmed that the control was in the right place 
but something doesn’t seem quite right – I wonder if we’ll ever get to the bottom of it?
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.
Himley and Baggeridge are nextdoor to one another so I thought it’d be a good idea to have an event with two races, a sprint around the parkland and woods of Himley Hall followed by a normal (or “Middle”) race around Baggeridge Country Park. Thus next weekend’s Black Country Championships were born. It’s clearly a bit more complicated to organise than a single competition, but in effect it’s only about an hour longer than a normal event would be. The Sprint starts are between 10 and 11, and the Middle ones between 12 and 1.30. The event details are here. For the sake of the championships aspect, the courses are organised according to age class, but people can treat it just like a normal colour-coded event if they like.
Paul Basher is planning the Middle race on Baggeridge, and Alison Sloman, as well as doing an excellent job updating the maps, has been out for us checking the controls. Updating the Himley map is a continuous process – trees keep disappearing!
I’ve been over there a couple of times this week and one of these mild days we’ve been having of sunshine and showers would be perfect. Poster
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.
It was a bit difficult justifying the expense of a solo trip to Loughborough tonight – a total non-elite like me can hardly claim the need to practise before the JK sprint on Friday – but the fact that it was a chasing sprint swung it. In fact, the organisation was mind-blowing for what was an “informal” event. Kudos to Peter Hornsby for the lovely map – a fantastic resource for the club and the university.
The prologue was a gaffled (or butterfly?) mass-start. Ah, jargon! What that meant was that we were all escorted to the start, and when the starter gave the word we all started together. But so that we didn’t just follow each other, our maps had the controls in different orders. There were a few people who had the same order as me, so I got used to seeing them as I dashed around. I did okay: 12:05 for the 1.7 km (winning time 8:51) losing a bit of time (like most people) going up a dead end to #8, and by forgetting at the last punch that there was also a finish control to go to!
When it came to the chasing start, I discovered from my place in the queue that not that many runners had been quicker than me. Unfortunately quite a few of them overtook me over the 3.2 km, which took me 26:01. My legs are still feeling heavy – over the next few days I need plenty of sleep, plenty of liquids, and to get rid of this cold. Still, it was weird: I was running virtually on my own for most of the race, with most of the overhauling taking place towards the end.
Results (I thought my 17 seconds for leg 14 was good, but now I see that the best time for it was 1 second!)
About chasing sprints: why not send the runners out in reverse, with the slowest first? I suppose there’d be a lot more following, but it’d be fun!
One negative about the event: all the SI boxes were held in place with cable ties. This meant that sometimes they were dangling awkwardly and/or hard to get the dibber into. Something that needs to be worked on, but a small price to pay for an excellent show.
Thanks first to George Chambers, who helped me so much with the planning and organising, and Sue Cook, without whom the event wouldn’t have happened at all, though there are a couple of things she’s going to be teased about for some time to come! Thanks next to all the people who came: the helpers, the competitors and to Matt and Alan Halliday, whom it was a great pleasure to meet. Thanks finally to God for the weather!
Things didn’t turn out quite as expected, but children came from 12 different schools, they had fun in the sun, and they were given the kind of attention that we think will have them coming back for more.
24 hours to go till my event in West Park and I’m still working hard… I don’t want to put anyone off, but there’s a lot to this organising lark, and one has to do it completely “in the dark”, in that I’ve got no idea how many punters there are going to be. I’m still emailing people, and a web search I’ve just done has revealed the extent of Wolverhampton’s O funding: they received £76,363 of lottery money for what they dubbed the “Outdoor Challenge Project“. You’ll see some of that money on Saturday. (I won’t.) :-)
Apart from the white and yellow courses, which we’ve tried so assiduously to keep away from the edge of the lake, there’s a nice 2.3k sprint course (a.k.a. orange) for you old-timers to have a hare around, which you can beef up to a 4.3k red course if you like. Hasta manana, map runners…
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.
Two sprints in less than a week! Well, at 4.3 km I’m not sure it fits most people’s definition of a sprint, but I’m glad it wasn’t any shorter. Stoneleigh is a great area for sprinting, so kudos to those Droobers who got the permissions and did the mapping. Dead flat, with a grid pattern of roads and some interesting detail among the buildings. Apparently I ran 4.3 km in 22:33, which must be some sort of record for me! And I could’ve been quicker if a few of the flat controls hadn’t been obscured by grass cuttings.
The flat controls are one of OD’s kinks, and another is Emit punching. I’m beginning to like Emit. When you punch, the control box doesn’t beep like the SI ones do, but it does flash, and the display on the brick shows you your time and that your punch has registered. The only drawback is given away by the nicknames: SI’s dibber is rather less bulky than Emit’s brick.
Results (includes od(d) rant)
I’ve finally done my first sprint event! Of course it’s just a glorified night street event–glorified in the sense that there’s a proper map and SI punching–but it was fun. I combined the event with visiting some friends in the city, and their excellent food was sitting rather heavily in my stomach as I attacked this course.
The reaction of the locals was interesting. Soon after I started a guy shouted out of his car window at me to ask what was going on, and towards the end of the race a police car drove slowly past me. The local kids by controls 209 and 214 were good natured, and I think altotgether we created some interest among the inhabitants of Darwin Park.
My run was okay; the only mistake I made, apart from a few questionable route choices, was running a little way back up the red line towards #6 after dibbing #7. The area, being a new housing estate, was suitable for the event, but perhaps a bit on the easy side, there being few shortcuts between the roads. Most of the difficulty, really, is introduced by having to interpret a very detailed map.
The map’s an interesting fish. There’s no BOF number, no mention of the OS or other base survey, and no mention of mapping software. I have an image of the Barnbys putting their theodolite in the car after work every evening!
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