Cornwall Orienteering Club Race - Idless, Truro - 11th December

With the night event fresh in my legs I should have thought more carefully before tackling the monster 8.9km 285m with 30 controls, but hey I am always up for the challenge.  Roger Hargreaves was the planner and a new formula to base his course planning on.  Anyway I won't bore you with a control by control account but I had a ding dong battle with Steve B  from control 9 onwards, often when this happens I go to pot so was happy to generally keep it together for most of the course this is how it happened.

Part 1 Controls 1 - 17

#9 got very close but talked myself out of it, relocated and Steve appeared and punched just after me.

#11 Steve just behind me on the track kept in front punched a few seconds in front.

#12 Pace too high for me let Steve past.

#16 Saw Steve coming out of 15, heading for eastern track, I came out west and tried to contour around the hill to 16

#18 Steve went further west to main track, I ran through start and took small track option and punched 5 seconds after him.

#19 Confused by numbering on the change of map I headed to 25 (8) before realising I had it wrong, lost a couple of minutes and sight of Steve. 

#21To my relief saw Steve coming out of 4 couple of minutes ahead

#22 punched the control just as Steve jumped the wall from the west and turned north, I followed going to #23, Steve got to the junction before heading back.

#23 Just tried to run but really tired.

#25 Saw Steve coming down the track to #24 as I crossing the track to# 25

#29 Nearly mis-punched luckily I checked my control descriptions, and my control was visable

#30 Could hardly run but knew it was going to be a close call as I didn’t know how long after me Steve started.

Finish Happy to finish a mentally and physically challenging course

Part 2 controls 18 - 30

Devon Orienteering Club - Night Orienteering Race - 10th December

Devon Orienteering Club - Night Event 10th December - Five Tors

4.4km  135m - 45min 38secs

Always enjoy a night event on the moors.  It was a cold evening but unusually still so a base layer and cag were the order of the day.  A nice uphill start as a warm up and a very safe route choice meant I was slow but sure.  Across the hill to #2 no issues then the long leg around the hill to #3 looking for the earth bank or hut circles to come in from, but saw none of them, managed to drop in bang on.  A run straight down the hill and dropped into #4 nicely.  Over to #5 big hole in the ground visible from the whole hillside in the daylight, tried to get away from my 2 followers but messed up to high and missed the paths, used little staple tor as guide to get me back on track.  Nice run down the hill to #6 hit it clean but then messed up again to #7 going to far right, others now in front slightly.  Turned out of 7 and my light gave up.  Got my spare handheld out and used that to get me to #8 whilst trying to get my headlight working.  Got my head torch working and ran hard to #9 to make up time, missed the first path and so got confused, the other two must have punched without me seeing.  Eventually found it and ran hard to #10 which I found clean and that allowed me to home in on the other two who were below me heading to #11, they were to far left and I managed to follow their lights going into the control so allowing me to descend hard.  Didn't quite manage to catch them but it did allow me to finish strongly.

Results

Orienteering 4th December 2011

Devon Orienteering Club hosted this event at Princetown and I decided to run the Brown Course which was 7.5km 190m Climb.  This section of the moor is pretty heavy going so I set about trying keep a stead pace that I could maintain over a large amount of the course.  On the whole this worked and I was happy with my time of 65:13.  Overall I had a very clean run hitting most of the controls bang on, although possibly a little under confident on #4 and #11. The early starters had the bonus of some low cloud to add to the challenge, I was disappointed to miss out on this extra challenge.  

   

Results

7.520km

Pos	Name	Club	Age Class	Time
1st	Ben Chesters	SARUM	M21	45:08
2nd	Will Hancock	KERNO	M21	53:53
3rd	Chris Moncaster	KERNO	M55	56:38
4th	Steve Edmonds	DEVON	M50	57:57
5th	Phil Newall	KERNO	M45	59:37
6th	Matthew Atkins	DEVON	M40	60:08
7th	Mark Lockett	KERNO	M35	65:13
8th	Adele Newall	KERNO	W50	68:18
9th	Ian Bowles	DEVON	M55	70:29
10th	Andy Rimes	QO	M45	71:03
11th	Robert Naylor	DEVON	M40	72:51
12th	Stephen Eastley	KERNO	M55	83:47
13th	Arthur Vince	KERNO	M70	103:29
14th	Alan Knight	DEVON	M50	131:46

GPS Track