Newstrack December 2000

Editor: Graham Johnson, Telephone: (01773) 824754 e-mail: Gmjandfam@aol.com

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Thomas Wright (M10) at the British Schools Champs

I enjoyed the British School Champs 2000. I did course B5. The best bit was when I went to 4 to 5, 6 and 7 because it was runnable, for me any way. I also liked it when I had a bowl of chilli and pitta bread with cheese. I also liked it when I finished. I ran with Fritchley C of E Primary School. The people I ran with were Jake Keen, Simon Humphris, Danny Elliot and Simon Wright. We ran with printed numbers on our shirts, I had 493 and Simon W had 492. I met Jamie Stevenson and he signed a poster for me and Simon W. Everyone got a medal when they finished. Fritchley came 4th in B5. The place where we ran was Storthes Hall, Huddersfield.

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Fritchley Primary School came 11th overall and a very creditable (and just out of the medals) fourth in the Year 5 boys (Thomas, Simon and Simon Humphris) competition. In addition to Fritchley, DVO was indirectly represented at the BSOA Champs by Matthew Dickinson running for Loughborough Grammar School who came 7th in the individual B11(Boys Year 11) competition and by Thomas Kempton. Thomas, running for Nottingham High School, came 18th in the individual B11 competition and was a scorer in his school's fifth place in the competition for senior schools with over 600 pupils.

The British Schools Orienteering Championships 2001 will be hosted by the East Midlands OA. The championships will be held at Sherwood Pines (Clipstone to seasoned orienteers).

(Thanks to Paul Wright)

Glenmore 2000 - Matthew Dickinson

There I was, in the car, coming back from France when there was a phone call on our mobile, for me! I thought that now it was the Thursday and Glenmore started on the Saturday, I could never get on the tour in a million years. However, the call was to say that I had been selected just two days before the start of the tour.

At the station, I walked onto the train excited, nervous (thinking…what will the coaches think of me?). By the end of the journey, I was bored, bored being the operative word. Do you know how long train journeys to north Scotland are???? Tom Billam (NOC) and I arrived at Glenmore Lodge to find two wooden villas where we were to be sleeping for the next seven nights. We thought that it was going to be a peaceful evening, but NO, we had to run around a dark, dismal, wet forest for about half an hour to get "warmed up" for the weeks training. Then we all went inside, had dinner and opted to have showers and watch TV. The next day was wet. Well it was Scotland! The day went well, lots of things learnt and lots of fun had, brilliant!

The next few days passed like a flash with exercises like bearings, pacing, visualisation and all the things that an orienteer needs to use when out on a course. It started to brighten up. On the Wednesday the three other tour groups came round to have a lecture on 'injury' by a doctor at Glenmore Lodge. It was very interesting and we learnt about how we must report an injury straight away and not ignore it. Then we all ate our separate dinners and played Football/Frisbee (even though Glenmore members did not play Frisbee). The football match was Glenmore and Grantown girls against Lagganlia and Grantown Lads. Yes, we won!

During our spare time we went to the canoeing indoor pool and played water polo, went in the sauna, watched TV or played games together.

At the end of the day we had to go to a 'team talk' session where we discussed the days activities and how to become better orienteers. These were really good because we all shared ideas and learnt about nutrition, training and skills.

Since then I have shown improvement as my results at the Welsh 5-Day event showed. Up until the last day, I held off all other British competitors and was in 5th position. However, I made a bit of a mess on the last day and finished in 6th overall with David West, the only British competitor ahead of me. The Swedes and Belgians, as usual, took the first few places. A pretty good result after a hard week's training in Scotland. I also finished third at the White Rose weekend. I feel that I learnt a lot from my experiences at Glenmore and it has given me the courage to train harder so that next year I am hopeful of a place on the Halden tour in Sweden.

A Month of Sundays

It's not just the weather that's been biblical of late, so has the orienteering. After three months of famine, when the competition was about as beguiling as a plague of boils, we have just enjoyed a feast of badge events, four in a row, flowing like milk and honey.

There will be a recurrent theme running (ha, ha) through these reports. Much has been written in the last few months about the advent of electronic punching but an equally far-reaching innovation has been the influence of the Net. I was able to enter the family for both Hope Woodlands and Maer Hills, sitting in front of my computer screen. No more filling in envelopes or cheques, just a click of a few keys and a press of a button. Actually it was a bit faffier than this. Like many others I suppose, at the beginning of each year, I complete an SEF complete with five sets of age classes, BOF numbers and e-punch numbers, and photocopy this for repeated use, saving hours of tedious and repetitive form filling. The forms on the net automatically provide the BOF number for the first name, ie me, but the rest has to be entered manually, which is a bit of a pain. No doubt in the future someone will devise a system (please) so that typing any name will instantly fill out that person's particulars.

Entry by Net incurs a 50p fee, presumably to cover the cost of sending out details by post, but if the site is organised correctly, there's no need for this. Hope and Maer printed in advance not only final details and start lists but also complete control descriptions. The former meant that you not only knew when you set off but also who was just behind you - and it's always useful to know how long it could take before John Hopper is breathing down the back of your neck. The latter is potentially the most revolutionary improvement, because it means literally the end of all on-the-day control copying. Think back to all the times you've crouched on a freezing cold day, in the pouring rain, trying to squeeze between crowds of orienteers to catch a glimpse of some flimsy piece of paper twisting infuriatingly in the gale. I hope that within 12 months downloading control descriptions this way will become the norm.

Gone are the days too of waiting for weeks for results from some long forgotten event to fall on the doormat - unless you go to Clent Hills of course. I've become used now to logging on some time during Sunday evening and being able to read not only where I came but also being able to compare everyone's splits. A neat touch is putting officials' comments on too, obviously not on the day but some time later, during the week. Too often, online results are all you get, so the substitution for the hard copy that comes through the post is not complete.

Hope Woodlands - 12th November

This is one of my favourite areas. Some areas you feel a natural affinity for, those you can rely on for a good run no matter how many times you come. Hagg Side is another one, on the other side of the valley, but sadly not used for nearly ten years now. Then there are the areas which are the antithesis of this, where you're doomed forever to fail, no matter how hard or how many times you try. Penhale Sands and Craig a Barns (in fact anything more complicated than Blidworth) would fall into this category for me.

I like the sheer runnability of Hope so that, although 75% of the course is spent contouring along a slope steeper than the decline in value of dot.com shares, it's never a struggle to maintain a decent momentum. I like the variety of the terrain too, and in particular that beautiful bit of runnable woodland at the top of the slope about halfway down the map, which is a joy to run on.

This event was advertised as subject to a limit of 400 and likely to be the last for some time so I was particularly determined to go. Last time we went (bunking off from a Matlock West C4 as I recall) we had to walk about two miles from Edale, up the sides of two valleys, to reach the Start. We were again parking at Edale but this time with the luxury of a minibus to take us to a point only 15 minutes away. This event was at the height of the floods, and whilst the danger of inundation from a site not unadjacent to the top of Win Hill was slight, the blast of an icy wind made conditions at the Start uncomfortable to say the least.

The Johnson family was out in maximum force, which was just as well really since the back seat of our car provided 100% of the W18A and 50% of the W16A Classes. Without the Johnson contribution, these classes would have looked very sad indeed, W18A non-existent. This was not an unusual phenomenon either; the following week at Maer Hills, there were 4 on W18A, and at Postensplain, we were back to Ruth and Hilary again. This is the first time that I can recall noticing the much-reported decline in juniors. Up to now there has always been reasonable competition in the girl's classes, but what is the value of winning a two person race? By Burbage, the National event, numbers were back up to 20, so the question is where did the missing 18 go at Hope.

I had a fairly dependable run (a triumph of experience over Hope?) with three mistakes, one entirely due loss of concentration during a pelt down a hillside, two due to the planner's inclination to hide controls so they were invisible unless you approached in one particular direction. It's not clever to stick them behind trees, you know.

As I was reading the officials' comments in the results afterwards, I tut-tutted as I read that certain irresponsible competitors had endangered the future use of the area through having jumped over a fence instead of using a designated crossing point. Then, as I read on, I realised that one of the miscreants must have been me! How could I have come to commit this calumny?

The start control was through a wall and over a stile. Route to control 1 entailed either ploughing through green forest or going back over the stile and running along a flat, vegetation-free path, hopping over a fence and homing in on the control. I never gave the legitimacy of hurdling the fence a second thought, never regarded my behaviour as remotely reprehensible. The fence stood in between me and the control, and jumping over it was simply the obvious way of removing the obstacle from the equation, one less thing to think about. Sure, there was a warning buried in the pre-event details to use only marked crossing points but who remembers such details when planning dictates the shortest and fastest route to a control is over an easily vaulted fence? (Not me, evidently). The nearest crossing point to control one involved running past the control and then doubling back to it. If the future of an event depends on strict use of marked crossing points, surely it should be a priority of the planning to ensure that use of any other method gives the competitor a disadvantage.

E-friendliness rating: *****

Maer Hills - 19th November

I was particularly looking forward to this event because I had convinced myself that it was, to me, a completely new area, and there aren't many in the Midlands that I can say that about. The route to the event from Derby has the added bonus of affording you a splendid view of Stoke City's magnificent Britannia Stadium, resplendent on the hillside and well worth the trip in itself. It was only as we passed over the M6 that the surroundings started to take on a worryingly familiar appearance. As we approached the car parking field, the penny dropped with a resounding thud (can pennies thud?) as I recalled the horrendous run from my only previous visit which my subconscious had successfully erased from my memory banks.

Fortunately we started in a completely different part of the map and I was able to approach my previous Bermuda Triangle from a completely different direction, thereby fooling myself, a surprisingly easy task, into believing that I was running on a different area (don't tell me the truth, I might never find out).

I quickly learnt the most important rule to success at Maer Hills - never stray from a path unless you have to. My first control was in a reentrant, shared with the W14As. True to the spirit of no-nonsense, head-down orienteering that I represent, I dived headlong into the undergrowth and started to wade. I was still drowning in a sea of brambles and tangles when I saw the W14 who'd started with me and who'd had the common sense to run down an adjacent path, tiptoe daintily into the control, and disappear, leaving me to flounder helplessly but a little wiser in her wake.

The course I did last time and this both had a long and boring path run from one side of the map to the other. On the previous occasion, this had been a necessity because we were using old-fashioned punches (remember them, eh?), and planning had to avoid giving the unscrupulous the opportunity to take controls out of turn. Now planners have to adopt what Kim Buckley would call a new mindset. There are still areas which lend themselves to long legs, which give genuine route choice and an advantage to those who exercise their discretion wisely. There are others (of which you will have guessed, Maer Hills is one) where long legs are simply a tedious and unimaginative way of using up kilometres. The danger is not so much of making a mistake along them, but of dropping off to sleep halfway. Within reason, e-punching mean you can plan the most testing courses without regard to how close one control might be to another visited earlier, and planners need to think about this (IMHO).

This event, and Hope, featured another innovative feature likely to become the norm in future - the completely unmanned finish. Hope's last control was in the middle of a field with no tent or official in sight. This may seem anti-climactic but an electronic finish punch means your course is over and locked inside your dobber. You can have a lazy saunter back to the assembly field before downloading at leisure at a point adjacent to the Results display. You can even get changed first if you want. End of frantic unpinning of control cards, stapling of raffle tickets, ferrying stubs from remote Starts and to equally remote Assembly fields.

E-friendliness rating: *****

Postensplain - 26th November

This was an awfully long way, beyond the wilder reaches of Kidderminster, but I had good memories of it from my previous visit on 25th May 1997, although this may have simply been the euphoric aftermath of the previous day's pilgrimage to Wembley to watch the Third Division Play-off Finals (don't snigger please).

Some people felt that the course planning left something to be desired but I had no complaints myself. The area features a holiday park in the middle and some Ministry of Defence installation in the south-west which all the long courses have to go round, but the area is very fast and undulating, and I thoroughly enjoyed it right up to the point when I returned home and logged on to the results in the evening to find myself completely absent, as if I'd never been there at all. I mean, what's the point of having a good run if nobody knows about it.

Anyone can make a mistake so I bunged off a quick reminder of my existence to the organiser, and then found an already delivered e-mail, telling me I'd forgotten to download. Well, excuse me, I may do some stupid things at times but even I know results are not transmitted by telepathy. What was curious was that of the four recipients of this e-mail, three were in DVO, Alex Ross and Ted Smith being the other two. Now at least one of these is a reasonably intelligent human being, so the chance of all three of us being struck by amnesia was remote.

It transpired that the organisers had set up a system which required you to download twice, once for your splits, once for the results, but didn't bother to tell anybody about this in advance. Thus, I, having downloaded once as at every previous e-event and obtained my splits, had wandered off in blissful ignorance back to the car. (I still don't know why it was necessary to do it twice).

All this took the shine off an enjoyable event - although to the credit of the organisers, they did accept that, in retrospect, people should have been asked to download first before getting their splits, and they did eventually put my result and splits up a week later after I'd sent them through to them.

E-friendliness rating: ** (loses one for the download cockup).

Burbage - 2nd December

This should have been the climax of the four week burst of badge events, a National event on DVO's doorstep, but somehow the words Burbage Moor and National, like Jim Davidson and comedy, do not sit together very well. Burbage is Burbage is Burbage, and no matter what label you attach to it, the pulse does not race any quicker. Don't get me wrong, Burbage is a perfectly acceptable badge event area, it's just that the 'National' label was once supposed to indicate some hallmark of quality. Fish and chips are still fish and chips even if you do wrap them in fancy paper. (I was rather amused by area being described as including 'Lady Canning's Plantation', which rather conjured up images of tea on the lawn during the last days of the Raj. You're more likely to meet Macbeth's witches on the blasted heath of Burbage Moor than Lady Canning I should think).

There were bonuses to this event. A new area to the north, full of complex little depressions and reentrants, placed right at the end of the course when the brain was starting to hurt as much as the lungs, did cause more than a few headless chicken impressions. A decent new car park field was available almost seconds from the Start too, so we didn't have to park along the road adjacent to Blackamoor as on previous occasions, and this no doubt introduced the delights of fresh areas of Burbage to competitors with shorter courses (you can tell I'm trying very hard to be positive here).

The problem with the medium to long courses is that many of the interesting areas of Burbage lie out of reach on the west of the area, and those which remain are separated by stretches of long, boring moorland about as exciting as a trip to Wath on Dearne. Ironically, the courses would have been more challenging had the weather maintained its atrocious standard of late, but the day was fine and clear so controls on the moor stood out like Crich Stand, and if you still didn't see them, there was always a stream of people coming away from or going into them to help you.

The 'National' label does work though. It attracts a field of the quality that you only see at such events. Perhaps this is just as well, the thought of competing (ha!) against the likes of Colin Dickson, winner of our M45L by a massive 8 minutes, every week is just soul-destroying. Over the previous three weeks, I'd been managing runs of a quality that I wasn't actually ashamed of, but despite a run spoiled only by a three-minute error near the end, I still found myself near the middle of the pack, reminded again of my true mediocrity. Ho hum.

E-friendliness Rating: * (no web site, no e-entry, no advance start list, descriptions sent through post, but results up pretty promptly. Maybe I'm spoilt).