Night Orienteering with Quantock Orienteers

Waiting for the sun to go down at the start.

Usual format for the Quantock night events, 1 hour score with two colours of controls.  Start on the colour of your choice, change when you want, but you cant go back.  So off I went picking up 5 blue controls without to many problems.  Came off the track junction, but couldn't get the wooded area to fit so eventually gave up and headed off to 112.  Out of 112 stayed to high and had to drop down the wall to 115, 29.15 gone so decided to head for home.  Thought about switching at 114 but left it and picked up 118 before switching.  Picked up all the reds on the way home but realised after 113 that I was going to be early back without anywhere to go.  So 5.9km in 50.23 on a stunning evening in the Quantocks.

Orienteering at Hound Tor - 10th February

Currently I am planning the Kerno Gallopen at Cookworthy for the 24th February and so last Friday after I finished off the last of my to do list and tagged the last control, I set off to run my Brown course.  Obviously I can't say too much, but what I can say is that it's hard going out there.  So come Sundays orienteering race at Hound Tor, Dartmoor I was wondering how my legs where going to hold up over the 7.9km 380m in soft conditions.  Off I went, quickly messing up the first control, confused about the earthbank that didn't appear on the map (later found lying under the control circle), and the control description of reentrant/boulder cluster, neither of which appeared on the map.  Finally relocated the crag off the ruined building.  Took a deep breath and off to #2, no issues.  #3 and #4 no real issues apart from a nasty climb down to the latter.  Path run to #5 with the benefit of having Rob Parkinson behind to close the gates.  A little high to #6, felt like more there than on the map.  Up and over to #7, legs feeling the pain on the climbs!  Dropped down to the road to avoid bashing back through the gorse, clean to #8 + 9.  Bashed through the gorse from #9 drifting west and was happy to see the gorse didn't cover the ground as mapped, waist high gorse at the control site not pleasant!  Then the disaster, misread the map to start with and thought the control was closer to the top of the tor, then realised and lost height, failed to make map fit at any point, again much more rock on the ground than mapped, eventually gave up looking for #11 and started on #12.  Just about to call it a day when stumbled on #12, so back up to #11, kept checking behind to ensure I had no problems on the way back.  Clean from there apart from slight miss to #21, ended up at the finish instead!  Not the greatest performance but a nice run on the moors never the less. 

Night and Day- 2nd + 3rd February

First up a Saturday evening at Duchy College for the last race of this seasons Devon and Cornwall Night League.  Not difficult nav around the college but it's always a lung buster, soft under foot and everyone going flat out, any small miss would be punished.  Made sure I was in control when we returned to campus for controls #17 and 18. Pretty happy with 30.27 for 4.0km 115m, and glad to finish the season 2nd overall.  Congratulations to Will Hancock who won the Green Course.

Quantock Orienteers - Wind Down

Sunday I managed to slope off for a run with Quantock Orienteers at Wind Down just north of Taunton.  You always know that you are in for a physical treat when you go to a Quantock event as their forests are normally steep sided and slightly rough.  So I was looking forward to a challenge.  Hesitant to #1 firstly due to getting confused at the track junction, then the change of scale from the night before.  Long climb to #2 and legs feeling heavy from previous night.  Clean until #8, which I ran right past then up to wall corner SW of my control site, stupid mistake.  Clean after that but climb to #13 killed last bit of energy in my legs.  All in all happy with my run, 5.0km 285m - 71.44.  Thank you Quantock Orienteers.