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Interlopers at the British Middle Distance Champs weekend (15th - 16th March)
A few hardy Interlopers headed to southern England for the British Middle Distance Champs weekend. Read all about it in Claire Ward's report ...
Lucy, Laurence and I travelled south for the British Middle Distance Orienteering Championship weekend which incorporated British Orienteering junior selection races. The Scottish participants were almost entirely made up of aspiring juniors and their parents, the terrain not being hugely inspiring and it being a bit early in the year for such distant jaunts.
We were met with a very cold wind in the assembly field at Holmbury and Buchan Country Park on the Saturday the day of the champs, and it quickly became clear than no Scottish club had managed to bring a tent. We had the excitement of watching the early-starting juniors to keep us warm though, with European Youth Orienteering Championships places up for grabs for the M/W16/18s and Junior World Orienteering Championships for M/W/18/20. Lucy had a good run in W16, winning by over 2 minutes. Laurence’s M18 is more competitive and he came 4th, 7th overall junior. I just about had time to see him finish before setting off to the start myself. The terrain could be separated into two part, an area of heathland interspersed with tracks, and an area of rhododendrons interspersed with marshes and mud. Mmmm.
The biggest issue with the whole event became apparent on the way to number 1. Run through an open bit – check, bearing through white forest – check, cross track into more white forest – whoa! Hit some forest that probably was at one stage white but now was possibly 30% mature rhododendrons, interspersed randomly. I tried to roughly stick to my bearing for the 250m needed to get to the control but it was so incredibly odd to see significant areas of mature greenery that had not been mapped at all. The heathland area was pleasant enough, though I tripped and pulled my hamstring going 3-4, limiting my speed for the rest of the course. Then we got into the rhododendron / marsh section which was interesting navigationally but less fun physically. It was one of those areas where the map gets caked in mud and you have nothing left clean to wipe it on, so you just start guessing where you might be going. I finished 3rd, 6 mins down on Sarah Rollins which is the best I could have hoped for. While I appreciated the volunteers’ efforts, the whole race seemed to have been pulled together at the last minute. For instance there only 8 badly-placed loos, and there was a barbed wire fence just before the last control with no stile or carpet covering the barbed wire to help crossing it. Apparently watching people trying to cross was excellent entertainment for the juniors though!
An early start the next day for a junior sprint selection race in a Crawley suburb. Parents weren’t allowed to leave the car park but luckily 2 hours in a cold wind in a car park in Crawley early on a Sunday morning is my idea of a good time. Soon enough the juniors coming in provided some entertainment. Lucy managed to run even better than the day before, finishing first W16 by a minute and 6th junior girl (I heard someone exclaim in sorrow behind me “oh god Lucy Ward has beaten me, I’ll never live this down!”). Laurence had a much cleaner run and managed 1st M18, 3rd overall junior despite tweaking his ankle on the course.
And he used this ankle-tweak excuse to avoid running the UKOL long race that we scurried to post-sprint. I put my sore hamstring to similar effect and Laurence and I spent the late morning lounging in the assembly field sunshine, chatting to friends, drinking cups of tea and providing the local junior squad cake stall with a thorough evaluation. Everyone returning declared the area (Worthlodge Forest) ‘not as horrid as the map made out’ which was a real compliment as the map looked really quite grim. Lucy’s legs finally ran out of steam on the way to number 1 of a short blue course, but she hung on to the bitter end, and then we started out on the long journey home.
Only one other Interloper made the journey south, with Ben Stevens finishing 11th at the middle championships and running the Black on the Sunday. Summing up of the weekend was it was ‘fine’, and you didn’t miss much in not going.
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