What a little gem of an area and of a course. I’d run through the area in the past whist the children were training at the athletics stadium but hadn’t appreciated the complexity of the detail within. Probably because I always ran it west to east where the dominating feature is a big hill. One of the great aspects of the Sprint Course was that I never really noticed this hill until very close to the end - very clever Tim. Based on my previous,oxygen-deprived, memory of the area I was concerned that it wouldn’t be good enough for an event but as we all saw it most certainly was.

Changing tack it is often rumoured that proper elite orienteers don’t actually race that often but use many of the events that they participate in to practice specific skills. Those that know me will know that I’m not one to take a competitive event lightly - however because of certain circumstances at this event I thought that I’d try something different. That was navigating around the course without once looking at my control descriptions. Straightforward in principle, you run to the centre of the circle and punch the control that is there. In reality of course it depends a lot of the quality of the map, the correct positioning of the control and the state of the competitors mind. Well I have to report that the first two aspects seemed spot on - but the third let me down. On finishing I was concerned about controls 7 and 9 - I was never completely in control in the flower beds and could have been 20-30m out had there been other controls nearby. As it was it was number 11 that let me down. My excuse is as follows: I entered the wood quite early (by the seat) and the wood was quite thick and so my speed dropped - consequently when I reached a (not the) flag it seemed that I had gone an appropriate distance. In fact I had punched 101 some 30m too soon. I then failed to realise that I was punching the same control again for control 20.

I would certainly recommend trying something like this - it made the course just that little bit harder and hopefully honed a few skills. OK I ended up at the bottom of the results list but was pleased with my sub 20 minute run and have been trying to convince myself that personal satisfaction should be more important than winning. I’m a hard one to convince though.

I concur with Neil about the area and course: much more variety than a cursory glance from the A23 would imply; and a course that engaged your concentration to the extent that the physical nature was only just noticeable.
Neil seemed to be running pretty well when I saw him – gradually gaining on me (after my 1 min slip at No.3….). He said that the quality of the map was one of the factors that made his particular exercise workable and I’d like to add that I also felt that Tim’s map was very good: a great example of how to interpret the terrain and decide what to include on the map (and more importantly, what to leave off for the sake of clarity). The best thing about the map was that this was the first O map of the area (no previous example to base it on) and that Tim is a relatively inexperienced mapper. For a first map (of the area and by the mapper): it was superb!

Peter