Really great event at Burrington yesterday. Sunny weather helped, but a good orienteering venue with a lot of features and variety.
My own race went well, started in a busy period so lots of other competitors everywhere which might have helped me go straight to no 1. A bit of trouble at no2 where I joined a crowd searching too low. Either we all failed to traverse without descending or the control was higher up the contours than the map suggested. Ok after that until 8 when I didn’t trust my own reading of the ground and again followed the crowd far too low. Lucky to find 12 in a cluster of depressions. Went smoothly after that, wasn’t convinced by 21 but got it quickly anyway.
Nice sitting around at the sunny finish.
Am writing a website article about this race. Several have told me they are missing the event write-ups we used to have so it would be good to reintroduce those. If you have anything to say about this race please comment and I’ll add it in.
15 Quantock members took the short trip over the Mendips to BOK’s Saturday event at Burrington Ham. The wet winter was a distant memory, as blue skies and mild temperatures prevailed. Over 150 competitors enjoyed one of the last rural orienteering opportunities of the season. The runners were nicely spread over the 7 courses - all of which had at least 10 finishers.
Burrington is a very mixed area, roughly half woodland and half rough open. Scattered trees blended into woodland with few distinct boundaries. What was obviously a large iron-age fort was one of the few clear features.
The open was fairly brambly but remained crossable without too much trouble. And there were lots and lots of paths. On my course the planner did well to keep us off obvious path routes. The planner also did well to fit in courses within a 1km square, good use of a limited area. The courses avoided the famous Burrington Combe, so we were saved from scary 45 degree slopes. But there was fair amount of climb, probably much the same amount as one of our own events.
Quite a few mispunched on every course. It was a tricky area, with lots going on, and at times there seemed to be more features on the ground than on the map. It was good orienteering on a physically and technically challenging area.
Anyway onto the results:
Top QO result was Jacob who came 2nd out of 13 starters on light green. Well done.
JOG regular Pheonix had a decent run on Orange, fairly consistent, and coming 10th - very close to the colour standard.
Sue had one epic leg on Short Green but successfully got round, a quarter of the starters on her course didn’t.
A QO trio on Green all made the colour standard: Ray just ahead of Rosie, and Graham had a fairly steady round, just behind former member Robert G.
Most of the QO were on the blue course. Out of 53 starters, I (Richard) had a really good day coming in 6th, just ahead of Pete in 9th. Finlay came 13th closely ahead of Jeff, Andy, Brian & Angela. Mark would have been next but unfortunately mispunched by accidentally omitting one control. Robert F had a variable run, frustratingly losing time on just the last couple of controls, and Steve had a consistent run to come in within the colour standard.
Great write up Richard, I had a very quick first half of the course (thanks to you leading me into no.8) but got a bit overconfident and didn’t think about my attack plan enough. Big mistakes on: 13 being far too low and subsequently over-shooting it. 18 by ignoring the paths and trying to hit it on a bearing taking me to the right and too far again, and 21 & 22 again by rushing and not paying attention to details enough. I found some of the controls hard to spot even when almost stood on them! as some were entangled in trees and not very bright orange. Definitely a lot to work on but good fun none the less!