The 2011 Sussex Park Series of orienteering events has now started.

The first event was at Withdean Park on Saturday 2nd July.

The venues for the other events in the series are: Preston Park; Warden Park School; The Hawth; Hove Park; Horsham Park; Tilgate Park; and East Court (dates and details for these available from the Events pages of the SO website).

It’s interesting to compare experiences and participants and the organising/planning team alike can all learn valuable lessons from constructive feedback.

Let everyone know how you got on at the events in this forum thread.

My thoughts on Withdean (to get the ball rolling......)

Withdean Park 2nd July

A nice sunny day. Parking on the streets didn’t prove to be too difficult (although we arrived fairly early).
The excellent 1:4000 sprint map from the previous event was suitably updated and I thought that it included a good level of detail for this style of event.

Sprint Course: Route choice from the off (had to decide which gate to use to enter the central fenced area)! I was happy with my choice, but once in the central area was running too fast and lost contact with the map – thus ending up almost at the bottom of the area before realising that I’d overshot. After that I took a bit more care and settled into the task at a more appropriate speed. It was a bit of a chore opening and closing the dilapidated gates, but I did as I had been instructed! Good variety of vegetation types and features for the sprint course (most definitely proving that “urban” isn’t the only way to do it). The only real thing missing from the area is some finer contour detail (there are enough contours alright, but they generally describe a continuous smooth slope). Planning was good and the controls were positioned fairly.

Yellow Course: I took Ben (M2) out on the yellow course after my competitive run. Although it was a physical area in terms of climb, there was enough to keep him motivated (racing Daddy down the hill; looking out for dogs, tunnelling through some of the less dense thickets; butterflies to chase; good sticks in the woods; various birds and the odd rabbit; rolling down the hill to the finish flag) until the penultimate control, where, flagging somewhat, a bit more parental encouragement was needed. The relatively open nature of the area providing long distance visibility of many of the yellow course controls was good for Ben’s needs and kept him going forward. I was very pleased to see that Ben walked/ran/rolled round over 95% of the 1.2km course under his own steam – a long way for little legs! He may not have done any of the map navigation, but he was very capable of control spotting and using the dibber. Possibly one of the slowest yellow courses that I’ve been round (over 60 minutes, 50 minutes/km!), but quite a satisfying one. Ben would get more out of a string or white course at the moment, but that’s not what the Sussex Park series events aim to provide, so I have absolutely no problems with these type of short Yellow courses.

If there would be any more takers for a white course, we could very easily do a ‘one off’ at the Hawth (via a 1km subset of Jack’s yellow course - strictly it would have two decision points that ought probably to have extra controls at them but the next control would be visible from each of them...). If anyone is interested let me know and I’ll raise it at the club meeting on Friday.
Karen

Preston Park 9th July

Good weather for the second week running. Good parking provision within the park at Preston Park, though you have to be relatively early as Saturday mornings are also busy with people using the cycle track, junior football practice and at least two groups of British Military Fitness participants. We did well and managed to park just opposite where Rob Lines was setting up the start lanes (making it look like a proper race). The standard style of 1:4000 sprint map made a good go of representing all the detail of the park (Preston Park is more urban in feel and has more potentially more map-able detail than Withdean). Some areas could benefit from an even larger scale (we’ve had this discussion before!) to show the intricacies – alternatively perhaps I just need to carry a magnifying glass!

Sprint course: Quite busy at the start with a long queue, though we were being let go at 30s intervals. If the sprint course continues to get more popular, perhaps we should consider course designs with butterfly loops to permit even closer start intervals? Lost a bit of time at the start trying to only pick up one map (and having to put others back in the box to stop them blowing away), probably only 4-5s but felt longer. The first few controls were more forgiving than the start at Withdean and I could ease myself into the map. Not completely sure about the control on the fence behind the impenetrable hedge – wasn’t easy to see how to get in (I ran back and forth a couple of times), and could tempt people into the adjacent OOB area on the other side of the fence. All ok for me after this until I got to the (in)famous rose garden, where I ended up in a dead end of rose borders. It took a good degree of self discipline not to be tempted to pop over the very narrow strips of borders (which had obviously already been regularly crossed by foot traffic previous to the orienteering event) to short cut to the control. I resisted the temptation, but resolved to look into options for that magnifying glass before next summer! I flowed round the rest of the course quite well with only a few minimal deviations from the optimum route due to sloppy bearings. The less physical (though, arguably more technical in places) terrain was 10% quicker than Withdean, but the courses still produced 19/20 min fastest finish times, so good consistency of appropriate course lengths from the respective planners.

Yellow: Buoyed with the success of getting Ben to go round the Withdean yellow, we embarked on the challenge of the Preston Park yellow course. Bad start – Ben tripped over a tree root and fell on his face before we even got to the start flag. I sensed that more carrying would be needed this week than at Withdean (and, unfortunately, had already made the decision at home that we wouldn’t take Ben’s pushchair to the event!). Oh well, an important lesson learnt by an M2 to look where he’s going and lift his. feet. The first couple of controls were gently downhill and this was great for Ben to regain his confidence, though he opted for the through the terrain route (long grass) to get away from the lumpy path with the nasty roots. Next obstacle was to get Ben to go past the entrance to the rather excellent play area: promises of returning with the bucket and spade and giving into his requests to be carried were necessary. We proceeded round the rest of the course fairly uneventfully, though it definitely became a carrying exercise for Daddy once we started to make our way back up the hill to the finish. After the course Ben was delighted to add another sea-life themed sticker to his record card – the stickers are a definite hit. We then had some unfinished business to conduct with a bucket and spade back in the sand pit of the play area.

Warden Park School 16th July.

Persistent rain greeted the day for this event – at least it wasn’t too cold. Speculation at the club meeting (evening before) was that the forecast precipitation would knock back the numbers, but this was not significant and 73 people took part. The school and grounds are a small area, but the detail round the buildings is quite intricate in places. I (naively, and perhaps a bit arrogantly) had pre-judged this event to be of lesser technicality to the previous two, but came very unstuck during my first traverse of the school buildings. In the sprint discipline: one significant error on a control can send you tumbling down the results – and that’s just what it did. Perhaps I need to look for that magnifier before next years sprint series! Another fine map on the essential waterproof paper and good organisation and planning with some welcome facilities (toilets and tarmac car parking) made the weather more of an irritation than a major issue.

Sprint Course: The start queue was unwelcome in the rain, but diminished quite quickly with the 30s start intervals (quite reasonable with the several changes of direction early in the course). First couple of controls were straight forward enough to be able to run as hard as I could. No. 3 then lost me 40s as I mis-read a vital path junction under a canopy in the school buildings and sailed straight past to total confusion whilst I relocated – damn – game over on looking for a good result (in the known absence of current leader Neil C). It was quite slippery on the concrete paths with my soft studded “Swoops” and I had to consciously hold back on the speed to avoid mishap round the buildings – good on the grassy slopes of the playing fields however. I must find out what footwear other people find good for these semi-urban sprint events. A few more lesser misses on other controls (e.g. 15s on No. 18) confirmed that I had not had my greatest performance of the series. The variation in technical challenge over the course (a result of Steve Jarvis’s fine planning) showed that the area was well suited to this type of event.

Yellow: Cagoule and wellies were the kit of choice for Ben at this event. The physicality of the grassy slopes that I’d found whilst participating on the sprint course gave me a feeling that this would be another event which involved lots of carrying. Ben had been a bit under the weather for the couple of weeks following the Withdean Park event, and the general wetness was another potentially detrimental factor to dull his enthusiasm. Lots of puddles early on and the steps round the school buildings proved popular with Ben, but the inevitable carrying was our sole locomotion by half way round. On the plus side, it was still a good opportunity for father and son to do something together for 40 minutes, and Ben didn’t seem to mind getting wet, so a spot of character building for Ben and a spot of weight training for his Dad (as if I needed it!).