Owls Count

Boxing Day saw my orienteering club’s annual Boxing Day Canter. I had not attended last year, due to illness, but was healthy for it this year. The format is an hour long score event – collect as many control sites as you can in the time. This is a very good way to run off the extra calories consumed the day before!

My Garmin route shows my run – including the rather fast start. The route also has the thirty or so minutes of me standing around after the finish. I decided not to do a full hour long run and instead I intended to pick up all the controls to the east of the central ditch. I did this in about forty-five minutes, except for not noticing that I had missed one of the controls near the start and finish.

I found two of the three bonus controls – Father Christmas was near the first control I visited – and I was lucky to notice the Christmas Tree off to one side as I ran between two other control sites – many people seemed to miss it by cutting higher through the forest. Sadly the fairy eluded me!