A chance comment by Mark Garside reminded me on Saturday night that on Sunday there was a novel event involving a Sprint and a Middle race on the same area, organised by Adrian Bailey. Having enjoyed the sprint action in Taunton I informed Cath at midnight when she got back from her Coldplay concert that we would all be up early to travel down to Wombourne, just south of Wolverhampton, she was mightily impressed !
The organiser was back from his antics on the empty plynth in Trafalger Sqaure and put on a great days orienteering. First was a sprint, well short race really but it was fun tearing round the parkland surrounding Himley Hall. I ran clean except for #13 which had an interesting control description of copse inside ! Everybody lost 
time
(me about 2.5 mins) so not a huge problem but not a control site I would have used. A quick drink and a muffin from the cafe onsite and we were ready for the 2km walk over to Baggeridge Country Park where the middle race was being held. This rough sort of country park is exactly the sort of thing I generally avoid in West Midland foot Orienteering but it was fine for a middle race. The planner packed 24 controls into the 6.0km and other than bashing my leg at one point I had a really good run only losing time on #12 after checking to see if blood was pouring from the place on my leg that hurt so much ( should be a nice bruise there in the morning) put me off. So Cath and Holly are Black Country Champions (W10 and W35) and we had a great morning out on a simply organised local event, exactly what we need lots more of, its just a shame it was not as well attended as it should have been.
Taunton Parks and Streets #1
When the chap who got me into the sport I love nearly 30 years ago, Roger Craddock m
y old Physics teacher, gave me a ring asking a favour I was delighted to say yes and help out Quantock Orienteers. As a junior QO didn’t really exist and I was a member of Devon OC growing up. QO are now thriving and have an awards for all grant which they have spent on Sportident kit and promotion via a series of town/street/park races this autumn.
Staying with my parents I first spent Friday evening teaching all the QO committee and a Devon member all about Sportident use and in particular AutoDownload the event software. It went very well and I think gave them the confidence to move forward into bigger events with it now.
The sunny Saturday afternoon saw my second duty , playing the celebrity with GB squad top on posing for the camera with QOs grant check for the local paper. I also helped them with any issues they had with there first use of AutoDownload.
I blasted round the Vivary park map courses which all took approx 2-4 mins each before, after much chatting with another old teacher (John Fisher who taught me to canoe and introduced me to AutoCAD, now part of my job, in 1989) and several oreinteers I’d not seen for ages, I thought i’d better have a go at the main ‘sprint’ course.
I knew someone had done 22 mins so I decided I would like to try and break 20. I stormed off only to lo
se perhaps 30 secs on #1 as the flag had been nicked, I was about to comeback and report it and then start again when I found the SI unit still on its wire. On the way to #7 I realised I had gone out a bit too hard and eased back a little but ran the rest clean and drew a few strange looks from the locals as I flew around the residential area and thoroughly enjoyed the race. I love this sort of simple orienteering, but you do need to be going fast to make it a real challenge. I downloaded to fi
nd I’d done 19.18 so was very chuffed winning by a couple of mins.
I supervised the saftey check in Autodownload, shook lots of hands and headed back up the M5, luckily getting a phonecall from Cath advising me to divert through Bristol to avoid the Avonmouth part of the motorway as it was a car park. Im sure in my 20 years of driving that bridge that they have been digging it up for about 15.
Well done QO for a great event and good luck with the rest of the series, its a good template and I will think about something similar up here in Stafford.
West Midlands Relay Championships – Long Mynd
With the MTBO I was going to do canceled I was quickly swept up into the Walton Chasers men’s open team for the West Midlands Champs held on the same day. I didn’t get too much sleep, arriving home gone midnight after flying in from France the previous evening, but a coffee in the services at the end of the M54 soon sorted me out. The road up to the top of the Long Mynd where we were parking just goes up and up and the views from the top are breath taking, far out over the Shropshire Plains of farmland right over towards the Peak District.
The mass start on Leg 1 was not so much of the mass, with only two teams on Men’s open, ourselves and POTOC, disappointingly no teams from HOC or OD. Im not sure if it was the time of year or the distance to travel to the event which kept numbers low.
I went off fast trying to drop the POTOC runner but immediately regretted the cocky decision of diving into the heather with no proper attack point. I slowed up and perhaps lost 20 secs or so locating the shallow re-entrant. Punching at the same time I pulled ahead again on #2 and #3 but again made the same mistake on #4 not picking a good enough attackpoint and fluffed it letting him catch me again as I went too low. Planning ahead to #7 I thought if I attacked up the hill from 4 to 5 I could finally drop him on the decent to #8 and it 
worked. Over the next few controls I slowly pulled out a lead of 2 or 3 controls and other than a wobble on some unmarked crags I finished the rest of my 1st leg with no more mistakes about 6 mins clear handing over to Adam Bushnell who kept our lead before handing over to Iain Stamp who extended the lead with a great run.
From the map you may notice that the control descriptions are ripped off. I have done this on relays since the advent of waterproof maps as it negates the need to keep unfording the map to check the codes.
For a novice planner it was well planned and the area even with the long energy sapping bracken was great with amazing views ready to distract you from the task in hand in all directions. Well done Wrekin Orienteers for organising a good event at short notice.
Full results at http://www.wrekinorienteers.co.uk/results.html
Malham Show Trailquest
We arrived in Malham on Friday afternoon where I stayed in the youth hostel so I could get an early start as we were
flying out to France on holiday from Liverpool Airport on Saturday early evening. After a nice walk up Gordale Scar we ran for the car as a huge thunderstorm cascaded water everywhere and nicely wetted the ground for the Trailquest the following day, organised as part of the Malham Show. The show is a traditional country show with everything from punch and judy to livestock competitions, classic tractors to cake weight guessing.
I got first start, and taking note of the very strong prevailing wind decided to head out west first. I wobbled on the first checkpoint as it was marked in the wrong place on the map but the control description, ‘ford’, picked me up and I perhaps only lost 30 secs. There was then that inevitable gruelling climb out of Malham village up onto the high moor that characterises this picturesque area.
Now time for my rant…..
I never found #14, a 30 pointer on a non existent track junction but on an obvious bend. According to my GPS I spent 12 mins cycling, then running up and down the track hunting for it, navigating using the farm, contours, tracks etc to no avail. I eventually gave it up as a lost cause when 3 further people turned up and couldn’t find it either. Apparently it was hidden on a wall some 50 metres from the track when a few eventually found it.
Fighting the headwind I carried on very annoyed. #18 was a little hidden #10 was ok but even using an ultra-safe approach to #12 climbing from the north I spent 10 mins hunting around trying to find it. By this time I was really really angry. Id spent the best part of £100 to get to and enter the event and had dragged the family up to a very soggy show to take part in for me a very important decider round of a national trailquest series which I was at that point leading. To lose 22 mins in a 4 hour race is annoying if everyone is in the same boat but many competitors headed East first and due to the blowy wet conditions never made it round to the two dodgy controls.
I nearly chucked in the towel and headed back but the scenery and riding was good so I carried on. My original route round #26 ,#19 and back through #22 or #50 was now going to be very tight so I decided to just hoover up everything I could get to on the way back in a very inefficient manner and finished 13 mins early.
I ended up 11th, way off the pace but splits show only Liam Corner 6th was the only other in the top placings to suffer the dodgy controls. Bryan Singleton did very well on the vets to get round my intended loop in the time available after having similar problems to me, but his fitness on the hills is just awesome.
So should I put it down to experience and just think bad luck, No ! It is a national series, controls should be fair for all competitors. There is no explanation or apology on the website – a week later just a set of skewed results that will be used in a national league that for me has just lost all credibility. It might sound like sour grapes because of my result, but I would be having a major moan even if I had won the event in fact packing the car up later I saw many people searching round Malham trying to find #1 which was marked incorrectly on the map all looking very frustrated.
Trailquesting in general has always had a bad press from Orienteers due to inaccurate maps and poorly placed controls but it is possible to put on consistant fair events using the quality of mapping available from the OS with some corrections if needed, which Dark and White, NYMBO, XCC and Open 5, manage to do most of the time.
There is a golden rule in adventure racing and trailquest organising which is only plan and put out controls using the race map and don’t hide them.
If I’m available I will goto this years AGM and support the TCA chairman who I know has been trying to get the quality of controls placement better for several years and see if a consensus can be reached on a way forward in reducing the number of mistakes to a minimum. We also need a consistent approach when mistakes do happen so that competitors do not feel so angry which I know from chatting to others I’m not the only one on this occasion.
Rant over
By the way Malham is a beautiful place to visit and I gather that the Malham show is well worth a visit if you are in the dales over the bank holiday weekend next year.
results available at http://www.malhamdale.com/Malham09.txt
International Orienteering Federation Advisors Course – Israel
With the rest of the team off site seeing in Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea on the rest day at the World MTBO Champs I was booked by the TCA and British Orienteering onto the IOF advisers course. This 4 hour course together with the reams of rules, guidelines and appendixes I will receive when I get home qualifies me to become an advisor / controller on major international events. The course covered all the current mapping and planning guidelines plus all the out of forest stuff from accommodation to medal ceremonies. The course was useful for several reasons. One is that someone in the UK is now fully up to date with international rules and guidelines which is paramount to the development of the domestic sport. Two I will possibly get invited to advise on a future World Ranking Event which means foreign travel and the chance to absorb other countries ways of running events, again valuable for UK MTBO development.
Full IOF rules and guidelines are available at http://www.orienteering.org
World MTBO Championships 2009 Israel – Videos
There was a cameraman present throughout the whole week of the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Champs and a DVD is currently being produced that the British Team should get in a couple of weeks. Here are some YouTube movies published during the event by
Long Distance Qualifier
Middle Distance Final
Relay
Sprint Final
WOC MTBO – Long Race
The event was held at Eshtaol Forest a 20 min drive from the event centre. The area was steeper, and even drier than the other days, with a less dense track network of larger tracks and paths. All were extremely dusty and gravelly causing the trees to have a grey almost silver appearance and were very dangerous particularly on the corners with many riders having ‘moments’ and even falls.
Unfortunately as I had not qualified for the long final I watched Andy and the girls compete in their finals before getting kitted up in the 36 degree heat to head out for my B final race which was to be over the same course that the Women had used earlier. It had been decided if Bryan or myself were beaten by any British girls we were to receive a face full of hummus, and I secretly wanted to see if I could beat the time of Christine Schaffner (91.11) the recently crowned World Champion.
I started strongly picking a very fast loose decent down to #1 and then rode cleanly for most of the course only making one error and a suspect route choice where I rode through an olive grove and got scratched to pieces.
I caught Bryan about half way round and gave it everything trying to pull away, but he managed to stay in touch.
I crossed the line in a right state of exhaustion and dehydration after about 91 mins very pleased but what about the seconds. Well my 91.21 just wasn’t quite enough to beat Christine but I’m happy there is just one women in the world who can beat me !
After a quick trip back to the event centre to pack away the bikes ready for the trip home we were back to the swimming pool which formed the finish for the long race for the event banquet and prize giving, culminating in a midnight swim and various alcholol induced antics.
WOC MTBO 2009 Photo Gallery
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| MTBO WOC 2009 |
My Gallery of photos taken at the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships, Israel 2009