Owls Count

On Sunday I ran the Southern Championships at Burnham Beeches and Egypt Woods. Since I am racing on four consecutive weekends I planned to treat this as a training run and not go full out. This would then allow me to run in a new pair of shoes – Inov-8 X-Talon 212. However, on starting I felt fairly fresh and so went much closer to full pace.

In the first section of the course I ran strongly and navigated well. I lost a little time on the first control while I checked exactly where I was going, which seemed sensible after the problems from the previous day. As can be seen from my route, I probably should have gone round the hill for six, but that did not cost me much time.

After the road crossing I struggled for concentration. (At this point the control numbers on the route map, linked to above, become one larger than they actually were – an extra control appears just after the road crossing.) I lost around 30 seconds at eight and was lucky that this was a fairly obvious control. Then on the long leg, to ten, I messed around rather than taking a rough bearing and charging to the fence. Two minutes lost. This made me a bit hesitant on the next leg and I lost about 30 seconds on eleven.

In the area around twelve there was a film set and I allowed this to throw me off track and I two minutes sorting out the problem. For thirteen I drifted to the control further down the hill and lost 20 seconds having to go back up again. On the way out of fifteen I got caught up in the thicker bit of forest and lost two minutes on being slow. By this point I was feeling tired and I lost four minutes over the next few controls struggling to concentrate and on not being able to keep a decent pace up.

I did have one fastest split on my course – the run in. A rather good, for me, 16s. The fastest on any course was 14s. Tim, and his long legs, managed 15s. Overall a good run and faster than intended or expected. The new shoes were good – much better than the old ones. Bring on some relays next week!

For the past two weeks I have been involved in the organisation for the British Schools Orienteering Championships. Last week it was preparing the equipment for use and this week it was drying it all and returning it. Today, finally, the house is looking like a home again, instead of a drying room.

On Saturday I spent part of the day taking photos of the selection race. Sadly, the light levels at the finish were poor and so there are less photos than I intended and some of the posted ones are a bit blurry.

Sunday morning (6am!) I packed a car up in the rain. Apart from a thirty minute spell, at around 2pm while we were collecting controls, it rained all day. For much of that time I was outside, or sheltering just inside an army tent. Apparently Dorset had the worst weather on that day – though those travelling back to , or through, the midlands did get snow later on in the day.

I’ll be glad to get out in the dry this weekend – even if it is cold!

I was able to make another of the fine BAOC events today. This time it was into the New Forest – to Red Shoot, which I do not think I had run at before. I chose to run the A course – 8.1km.

I started fast, too fast – the good open area inviting fast running. From controls two seven I ran at a more sensible pace, but my splits after that tail off. I could not maintain the fast pace and got slower as I neared the end. From half way to the end I lost about four minutes. The forest was quite vague in places, but I seemed to be quite lucky and picked up the controls much more easily than some others.

This weekend is the British Schools Orienteering Championships. With my father being the lead organiser and mother being one of the planners I am currently rather busy finalising the arrangements.

For several years now I have been keeping an orienteering/training log. This is something I programmed myself, as a project to learn php/mysql. I keep thinking about moving to a different system – Attackpoint or Nopesport for instance – but then remember how much info I have already and decide not to.

Over the last few days I was talking shoes (both orienteering and running) with a couple of people. This lead me to thinking about how many miles I had run in any of my current pairs. So I updated my training log code and added a way of recording the shoes run in for each race/training and an overall mileage count for each pair.

When north is not north!
Over the last few months I had been noticing that every time I ran on a compass bearing I seemed to be ending up off to one side of where I had expected to be. I had been thinking that I was not running particularly accurately on the bearing, but on Day 3 of Spey2007 a group of us went off from a control going to the same place and I was distinctly off to the left of everyone else. On returning to my accommodation I borrowed a new compass from someone else and tested it against mine. I found that mine was between 10 and 12 degrees off line. Needless to say, on arriving at Culbin I was straight off to Ultrasport for a new compass!

Should you need to check out your compass then do the following.

1. Find a flat surface away from any iron or anything else that will attract a compass.
2. Fix a piece of paper to the surface.
3. Use the old compass to draw a north line on the piece of paper.
4. Check the north line against the north from other compasses – ideally they will match!

The recommendation I was given is to replace your compass every two years. Certainly it is worth checking it every six months or so – particularly if it is looking bashed up. Now we wait to see if my orienteering improves.