Cornwall Orienteering Club Race - Mount Egdcumbe 26th Feb

Brown Course 7.2km 370m

Mount Edgcumbe always lulls you into a false sense of security. You go there thinking that your going to get an easy time of it, nice nav and a run around the park. But when your out there you start to remember previous encounters, the difficulty moving on the steep wooded areas to the North, memories of your lungs busting trying to make up time in the parkland, and the climb which seems to be a constant companion.

This race was to be no different! although the going underfoot was worse than ever before. After 12 controls I was gone and knew that control 14 was within 50 metres of the car, I nearly gave it up. I was caught at this point by Peter Morton who I knew had start a few minutes after me. I wondered if I could make that back and so that was my focus for the rest of the race. I tried a few different route choices, but we were together all the way swapping leads into the controls, and I just managed to get to the finish before Peter but the results showed me 3 minutes behind.

Happy to get around in 81mins, winning time 56mins!!

Cornwall OC - Lanhydrock Race 20th Feb 11

Picked up the map to find a blast around the parkland was in order straight off, no time to think. First 9 controls all done in just under 14 mins, even with a slight miss to 2.  Need to get back in control but miss the 10th and have to relocate off the path!!  Path option to 11 only way to go at Lanhydrock, fly down the hill to 12 but find myself having to come back up the hill a little, never a good thing.  Clean from there just slow especially up the hill to 18.  7.0km 235m in 74.32.  Pretty happy apart from the miss to 10 which was careless.  Look forward to seeing the results, graph and routegadget.

Dartmoor Runners - Hay Tor

Catch Up

23rd January 2011

Classic Devon OC event.  Brown 7.6km 360m, well that's what it said, but a mix up with scales produced a 50% error which meant it was 11.4km 360m. It felt a long time, but I was glad I didn't take my watch as I think I would have packed it in thinking I was the worse orienteer ever rather than just a slow orienteer which I can accept!!  Anyway a time of 1:56:14 wasn't to bad for what should have been a M35L course and after a busy couple of days.

 22nd January 2011
Another excellent night event from QO.  This was the second time on this format and it is a really good way of getting an hours event on to a relatively small area.  All you have to do is choose a colour to start on then figure out when to switch, once you change you can't go back.  Oh and make sure you get back in time!!  I managed 5.8km in 59:58 so a close shave.


21st January 2011
Out for a run on the moors see my Dartmoor tors blog

Endomondo Running Workout

Endomondo Running Workout: "was out running 7.20 km in 56m:02s using Endomondo."

First run back after some Southern Hemisphere warm weather training!! Well drinking and eating. Good to be back out on the moors, felt OK but lack a little endurance. Really looking forward to this year and getting back into the training and knock off the remaining Dartmoor Tors and Hilltops on my list.

Devon Orienteering Club - Smallhanger Waste 5th December 2010

A beautiful, bright winters day,and ideal running conditions for an Orienteering event.  I have run here at least once a year for the last 10 years so you know what your going to get, sets of controls in the complex area in the centre of the map and fast (not for me) runners controls to set those legs up.  Having said that I always enjoy running here.  It was nice to have controls on the features and not hidden which seems to becoming the norm, even if that does mean you can see some of them from a distance.  Now to my run, a clean if slow run apart from a slight wobble at 4 when I used the wrong attack point and dropped short and then a massive cock up to 16 when who knows what happened.  But I finished in 10 min K's so pretty happy. Still some what if's, but aren't there always!!  That was my last orienteering event of the year as I am off to NZ for some warm weather training, well OK a holiday!

Have a great christmas, hope to see you in the forest in 2011.

Devon and Cornwall Night League - Alder Lake 20th November 2010

First event of 2010/11 Devon and Cornwall Night League.  This was the first event at Alder Lake and it is ideally suited to night orienteering. Unfortuantly my head torch battery took the opportunity to pack up!!  So I had to go out with a small head torch and handheld bike light!!  Took a little while to get into the 1:5000 map, and apart from some time spent off the map and some stuck on a barbwire fence it was a pretty average run on my part,  still a really enjoyable event and a nice evening in the pub.

GPS Track