Stodge-Blog

There has been a flury of new events added to bmbo and other websites in the last month so I thought I’d give a quick update of whats on in late summer early Autumn. I should be going to most of these….

Of course there are lots of other Mountain Bike Navigation Event about. I will add a resource page above at some point but for the time being see list of links below for the calendars of various organisations in the UK…

 British Mountain Bike Orienteering (BMBO) www.bmbo.org.uk

Polaris Adventure www.polarischallenge.com

Midland Trailquests http://www.midlandtrailquests.co.uk/

Irish Events http://trailblazersmtbo.wordpress.com/

Surrey Hills http://www.peaslakemtbo.com/

Adventure Racing http://www.sleepmonsters.co.uk/calendar.php

The assembly for days 4 and 5 of OO Cup 2010 were at the top of an enormous climb from the car park, but this tough ascent was rewarded by an assembly and finish area in a gorgeous alpine meadow, with stunning views and complete with cows (bells and all).
Day 4 for me dawned as a bit of a nightmare. The internet connection at work back in the UK had failed the previous afternoon and I spent most of the morning on the phone, looking a bit of an idiot standing on the biggest rocks I could find trying to get a reliable  signal. I went straight from stressed IT support mode to the start of my race, and I was not really in the right frame of mind for a good performance. Although I only lost a few minutes to mistakes the combination of this and a lack of running speed put me well down the field in 13th. Still, running through sunny alpine meadows with stunning views takes some beating and eventually later that day I got everything back up and running in Manchester and I relaxed with a great meal out with old orienteering friends in a local restaurant specialising in local food.

Going into the last day I was lying 6^th overall but just 3 minutes down on 4^th. After the long climb back up to the alpine meadows I shadowed Holly round her final course of the week. For a W10 course it was pretty full on with lots of controls off tracks and I had to give a little more input than usual (including learning the basics of compass bearings!) but she got round OK, and finished top Brit in 5^th place. As some children on the M/W10 courses are shadowed to varying degrees and some not at all, the organisers don’t award prizes for the top 3 like they do for every other age category. Instead all the kids are called up to the podium at the prize giving which is a nice way to reward their efforts.

My start was in an idyllic position in yet another meadow with cracking views. I got a great start and seemed to really flow through the course. I coped well with the change in technicality from the fairly straight forward open meadows into the rocky steep kaarst forest and ran cleanly. I then got into a head to head race with an Austrian which was great fun. Other than a little wobble where he pulled back ahead just before the drinks control I lead us through the rest of the technical forest until, coming out, we picked up fellow Brit, Nigel Wright, and the race intensified. As we neared the final few controls we seemed to get faster and faster, swapping the lead between the 3 of us. I nailed the penultimate control dropping the Austrian but Nigel was tucked in behind as we punched the last. I gave it everything on the run in but he was just too fast for me on the line. I knew I had had a good run and was pleased with another 4^th position but this time only a minute and a half down on Roger Goddard, one of the UK’s best M35s at present. The winner, Akseli Ahtiainen from Finland, however, was a full 10 mins faster than me – an awesome run.

Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to bring me up to 4^th but I finish the week very happy with 5^th overall at one of the most technical orienteering 5 days in the European calendar, but that wee stop on day 3 cost me dear – I was only 17 seconds down on 4th place!!

Full results for all days and overall can be found at http://www.oocup.com/
Lots of photos are here http://picasaweb.google.com/mark.stodgell/OOCUP2010#

Friday seemed to be spent constantly drinking. It was so hot, even after 35 minutes spent jogging round the model event I was gagging for water! Saturday morning dawned about 10 degrees cooler and it even looked very ominous for rain as we drove the short distance, past a village name we cant pronounce but seems to us, much to Hollys amusement, to sound like ‘Lettuce’.

OOCup organisation is laid back but slick. Efficient enquires soon got me a hire SI card, mine still attached to my bike back in Stafford, while Holly went off round her course with Cath shadowing and I got stuck into my pre-event preparation before after Holly returned, happy!, as the heavens opened. It really chucked it down and soon, walking to the start, I felt like a drowned rat.

The route to the start passed beautiful meadows and dacha’s built into the hill sides with amazing views of forested valleys shrouded in wispy clouds.

After starting I made a mistake straight away on the way to number one, overshooting on the 1:7500 map. I only lost perhaps a minute though as I quickly realised the map wasn’t fitting the ground and got straight back out to a path junction to relocate rather than thrashing around, went back in and got it without further time lost. I made another small error on the way into 4, again overshooting as I tuned into the scale. After that I had a good clean run. I tried to not go too fast, saving my legs and ankles and making the navigation easier. I had a couple of other lucky legs finging controls just as I was starting to feel as though I was losing contact with the map. I took a good safe route choice to number 20 which I think saved some time before a very slippery run in to the finish where I backed right off after seeing someone in front go A over T.

Holly seemed to have enjoyed sitting in the car whilst the rain came down, rather than going into ‘kindergarden’ taking photos of various parts of the dashboard after we said she wasn’t allowed to take the camera out into the rain, but she got a great one of a chap wearing a chair. Results are not yet up, but I was after a clean run with no big mistakes, which I think I got. Preliminary results at the event had me about 5 minutes down on 2^nd place (the leader was 4 minutes clear). The overall cumulative time for the week decides the final result so consistency with no epics is important this week.

The OOCup, held each year in Slovenia is the connoisseurs orienteering holiday. Increasing in numbers each year with many of the same faces, orienteers from all over Europe descend on this little country for 5 days of some of the most complex, intense orienteering available with even top elites struggling to run 10 mins per km.

Cath, Holly and I have arrived to some fantastic accommodation at the Korosec wellness centre near the event centre in Nazarje and after a model event tomorrow start the event for real on Saturday. So do I try the headcam for foot O ?