Fancying a change and not wanting to get up at $&%*£! o’clock for breakfast and parkrun I thought I would have a go at one of a Saturday series of orienteering events Thames Valley Orienteering Club were staging. The 11th January event was conveniently in University Parks and despite a lot of Oxford’s green bits being under water a post on facebook assured that the event was to go ahead.
So I turned up at the start wearing required leggings (you are not supposed to wear shorts for orienteering presumably due to scratchy terrain) not really sure which of the 5 course difficulties I should be attempting. The 2 harder ones were marked as for experienced orienteers which, with just one slow attempt at a Shotover permanent course to my name, I wasn’t. A bit of a chat with the organisers though and I registered myself for the hardest one, ‘dark green’, 4.8k as the crow flies, on the basis that I could hardly get lost in the wilderness of University Parks and the Science Area.
A look at my map, which I was told was not usually allowed before the clock started on competition events and didn’t really help anyway, then I dibbed my Emit card at the start and headed for my first control which was just behind the maintenance machinery shed area. Unlike the permanent course I’d done the 23 (there had been 24 but one was under water) controls had to be reached in the correct order.
My compass stayed in my pocket but some of the controls were tricky to find as they were hidden behind trees and suchlike, I didn’t understand the clues as to control relative position on the map, nor many of the other cryptic symbols. In some cases I reached what I thought was my control but checking the number it belonged to one of the other courses and mine was a few yards away somewhere out of sight. So I tried to keep my wits about me, missing a control means a DNF.
After almost dropping my Emit card a couple of times I realised the little strap was meant to go round my finger. Running fitness helped but what with all the stop/start and the mass of molehills it wasn’t as easy going as a flat grass park should be, sometimes it was best to go the slightly longer route on paths. I spotted Tony from work out jogging, a reminder that this really was home territory.
My Garmin track!
Circling and criss-crossing the park, through little walk-throughs into the Science Area I didn’t know existed, near enough to Mespot to see just how impassible it was with all the water. It was great fun!
They gave me a little printout with all my splits straight away at the finish. I thought I’d done ok with 46:46 time for about 6.5k, the 4.8k nominal being physically impossible without wings. Actual running time was about 39 minutes. I was 32nd of 40 starters (39 successful). There is another one up Shotover mid-February, I think I may well be there 🙂
