JK Sprint 2009 - the ones that got away.................

So the planning of courses 1 to 3 at the JK Sprint 2009 in Newcastle City didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked! During the 'last minute' planning process for courses 1 to 3, various 'options' were created. The decision as to the option which was eventually to be used was only made at 8.30am on the Tuesday before the Friday!!


Option B above was in the frame right up to the last minute - I particularly liked leg 2-3 (at least 5 alternative routes), but leg 6-7 was thought to contain too much dead running.

Aside is the first part of Course 1 we 'lost' one week before the event - after the maps had been printed!

And below is the first part of the 'lost' Course 2, which has a slightly different start.

In the event's final details, I advised competitors not to expect another 'Guildford' race - the area was never going to be as technical - but did it make for a good sprint race?

After looking at other recent events on websites and in 'Orienteering Today', I do still think that it was quite good (despite the 'disappointing' comments from some!!)

Local events

Some thoughts from over here.

Perhaps the days of the Colour Coded/District event as an 'all things to all men' are numbered. Having more local events, with a smaller target audience (perhaps even a niche market), might be the way forward, and could provide the progression (particularly for juniors) that we currently try and offer within one event type - the standard white-to-brown CC/District event.

So for instance, we have the schools events and park based sprint races catering for the youngsters and inexperienced, the terrain based sprint races and permanent course summer series events for the next level, the terrain based summer series events for the next level etc (the series of middle distance races followed by 'junior squad'-type junior training could be the next level after that).

I like the idea of a variety of people each taking 'ownership' over a 'series' of similar events for which they have a particular affinity, drawing in like minded individuals to assist them eg me with the bike-O events, Paul and I with the sprint races/possible urban races, Will and Martin with the Summer Series, Paul and Rob with night events, Mike H and Phill with the schools events etc etc

If people are encouraged to focus on what they particularly enjoy doing and the event organisational side of things is simplified to facilitate this, I am sure a 'quality' orienteering experience can be offered to those who participate - but everyone needs to recognise that not everyone will want to do all these different types of local events - turnout will, by definition, be lower - but is a turnout of 30 or 40 per event every week or every two weeks such a bad thing compared to 100 -120 at a full blown CC/District event? Certain organisational headaches such as parking would certainly be eased!

As you are all no doubt aware, I am a great fan of variety and some of the more 'novel' formats for O events - New Year Relays, O-Cross etc (I also really would like a series of score events - EBOR used to run a brilliant spring series a few years ago). Speaking personally, after 35 years of colour coded events, I really look to these 'different' types of events to keep my enthusiasm going - sprint races/urban races/Bike-O/Blodslitet etc - even something as simple as the butterfly loops offered at Wallington recently got that event the nod over the more traditional CC event at Swinsty and Beecroft. Am I alone in feeling like this? My impression is that, if you look at the age profile of competitors, the future is different to your standard CC event!

Is the CLOK going to stay young at heart (if not in body) by embracing change, or are we going to see orienteering dying of old age?

JK 2009 in Northumbria - what else to do when you are there

I do like the fact that the JK moves around the country each Easter - it takes you to parts of the country you may not normally travel to for a holiday.

I like to make the most of the non-orienteering time by visiting places. With only a short time available each day, it's not worth paying lots of money for a fleeting visit to somewhere which deserves a full day.

Being members of both English Heritage and the National Trust, we can drop into places for a quick taster, without feeling the need to get 'value for money'. I look out for free attractions too - visitor centres, churches, that sort of thing - but I do have a tendancy to blow the cheap visit with a visit to the tea room for a coffee and a cake!!

If I was travelling to the North East for JK2009, my list of 'to dos' would be rather long!!

Starting on Friday, I would certainly divert off the A1 to go and
stand at the foot of the 'Angel of the North',
to marvel at this immense sculpture.

The Gateshead Quayside would be another certainty - there's The Sage, a fantastic music centre, but the building is worth a wander around on it's own - I think it is absolutely fabulous. Next to it is The Baltic (contemporary art), located in a former grain warehouse, and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (known as the 'winking eye' because of the way it tilts on it's axis to allow ships underneath) spans the Tyne at this point. Upstream you can see the Tyne Bridge (the model for the Sydney Harbour Bridge), the Swing Bridge, the High Level Bridge and the new Redheaugh Bridge. In the city centre, there is the Laing Art Gallery with the Blue Carpet artwork in the square outside.

If the weather is good, there will be views across to Lindisfarne (or Holy Island) from one of the individual days' car parks. Lindisfarne is an island linked to the mailand by a causeway, which is covered by the tide twice a day. Tides permitting, a drive across to this smashing island is a must!

When you are there, park up near the village and walk around. There is the Priory (EH) and the Castle (NT) and the Lindisfarne Mead factory shop and the upturned boats used as sheds and little St Cuthbert's Island and the dunes and....... Whatever you do, watch the tide tables!! The best thing to do is to leave it quite late, then park up on the mainland and watch the tide rush over the sands and up and over the causeway. Then watch the people who have left it just too late, and see them drive through the sea!

One walk worth doing is along the shore to Dunstanborough Castle - parking is a couple of miles away - followed by fish and chips in Seahouses! Or get down onto the vast empty beaches by Bamburgh Castle. Or go to Berwick-Upon-Tweed and explore the vast fortifications.

Heading south for the relays near Hexham, and you are in Hadrian's Wall country. A walk along the wall is a must - try and find the 'gap' with the tree, which featured heavily in 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves' starring Kevin Costner.

The more I think about it, the less time there would be for the orienteering!!

Park racing in Yorkshire

In the last month we have been to two contrasting Park Race (or Urban-O) events in North Yorkshire.

The first, on Whit Bank Holiday Monday, was the world famous York Park Race. This has been running for a few years now, and being on the East Coast mainline, quite a few people seem to travel in by train.

This year, planner Steve Whitehead introduced a brand new twist to the event - a Trail-O (or Precision-O if you like) around the National Railway Museum to start everyone off. To make it safe in such a busy place, there was no running (or even fast walking) allowed.

Control 1 was a 'taster' control, and didn't count. Control 2, after passing through the back gates into the museum, was in the gardens by the miniature railway. Just as we were leaving this control, the train driver, pulling empty carriages, called over to my 3 daughters to ask if they wanted a ride! Trail-O forgotten, they all piled on (after the driver had reversed the train back to the station!) I said my goodbye's and continued on into the indoor part of the museum to control 3.

Control 3 was on the back side of a railway carriage, but was unfortunately quite dark, so I had to keep going over to a light to look at my map before returning to make my choice.

Control 4 was on a balcony guard rail overlooking the workshops,

whilst control 5 was in a maze of display cabinets. Control 6 was down the stairs of an inspection pit underneath an engine, whilst the final control was amongst a reconstructed station waiting area.

There was a 10 second penalty for each incorrect answer. One of the controls actually had no kites in the right place - but I managed to find one for every control! Luckily, the rest must have been correct, as I only incurred the one penalty.

In order to cope with the penalty system, runners were being set off every minute-plus-penalty, so quite a big queue developed, waiting to start. I could have done with a bit of a warm up and leg stretch, having done the Raby Castle 10k the day before. At least I had to have a steady start, before the legs got working.

Steve threw the usual delights at us again, including a couple of long route choice legs, an intricate loop round the Yorkshire Museum Gardens (with a tricky control in an undercroft of the ruined abbey) and a spectator 'run through' past the finish, before the last little loop which included the control half way up a flight of stairs!










All in all, great fun - and I managed to avoid running into any of the hundreds of tourists and shoppers thronging the streets (it was close at times!).

A few weeks later, and we took a trip to the small market town of Knaresborough near Harrogate, with it's steep sided gorge running through the town. Another touristy town, though most people go to see Old Mother Shipton's Cave, which is on the other side of the river from the old town.


The courses started beside the old castle, looped round the old town, church and gardens before the long course headed out to a large housing estate, which is cut through by several footpaths. After a control in a nettle bed in a patch of wasteland, the long course looped back through the gardens and castle to the final control on the corner of the town museum, before finishing in front of the castle keep.

This was a great little event, run by the Claro club, much more low key than York. The club ran the event as part of their SOSO (streets and open spaces) series - a great idea as far as I could tell, with many newcomers (particularly families) giving it a go.

Love it or hate it (personally I love it!), Urban-O is certainly one way of making orienteering accessible to a wider audience.

Running in the lands of the gentry

I have had the good fortune to run in a couple of 10km races in some pretty scenic locations in the last month.

Over Whit Bank Holiday, there was the Raby Castle 10km, which I have run for the last 3 or 4 years. The castle is on the outskirts of the village of Staindrop, 10 miles or so west of Darlington in the south of County Durham, and is the home to Lord Barnard. The parkland surrounding the castle is home to a large herd of deer.

The race is a two lapper, all within the grounds of the Estate surrounding the castle, and all but about 1km on beautifully smooth tarmac! Even the section of forest track is very well maintained!

Although much of the route is through farmland or the woodland, the start, finish and middle section are in the deer park. Just after 4k and 9k, the route crests a short, sharp climb to reveal the castle away to your right, guarded by it's moat, and then at the turn for the second lap, you get a great view across to the walled formal gardens.

The weather conditions this year were really quite good, without the gale force winds of a couple of years ago.

We got there early so that E (who is 11) could run the 5km fun run. She did really well, considering it was the furthest she had ever run (as most Orange/JW3 orienteering courses a shorter than this). This gave me plenty of time to warm up.

I started quite well, but then faltered a little, but didn't really get into my running until the second lap, when I started to pass a few people. I had a chap from the Quakers club in Darlington as a target, and worked hard to reel him in. Given the undulating nature of the course, I was pleased with 51st in 41.56.

A couple of weeks later, it was off to Castle Howard for their 10k trail race (and kids 1k dash for E). The home of Sir Simon Howard and family, and famous for the location for the filming of 'Brideshead Revisited', this palatial pile and it's grounds has just about everything - formal gardens with fountains, the walled rose garden, informal gardens, woodland and a great big lake.

Dotted around the estate are various monuments, follies and edifices, and the trail race passes quite a few of these in the two lap course, which starts and finishes by the lake on the lawns below the house.

The race is organised by the local school 'Parent and Teachers Association', and if only for that, it deserves support. The organisers have worked really hard to make it a family day out - the adventure playground and the lakeside tearoom were alive with runners and their families.

There were a few spots of rain on the day, but generally the weather was good for running. The course is mainly on gravel farm tracks, with about 1k on tarmac on an estate road, plus some grassland. There is a rather steep 'hump backed' ornamental bridge at the 4.5k/8.5k mark, just before a climb up a grass path to the Temple of the Four Winds - these two efforts are surprisingly effective in breaking your running rhythm!

I tried to get away well again, but seemed to be going backwards from then on. Had a bit of a battle with a chap from Thirsk & Sowerby Harriers, and was a bit disappoined when he went away from me in the last 1k.

I did manage a bit of a fast finish, to hold of someone who had crept up on me in that last 1k. My time of 42.30 for this slightly over distance race was fine, and 17 seconds faster than in 2007, though I dropped from 32nd to 35th.

JK 2009 - all Logo'd up and ready to go!

So JK 2009 is heading for the North East of England!

As the time approached when we would have to start distributing publicity, thoughts at Committee turned to an appropriate Logo.

The last time the JK was in the North East, the events were all in the south of the region, so the local landmark of Roseberry Topping was chosen to form the basis.

First thoughts by M featured that Newcastle landmark, so famous from the Great North Run if nothing else - the Tyne Bridge. The nearby Gateshead Millennium Bridge was also an early runner.

Eldest daughter is taking a GCSE in Art & Design, so I thought it would be a good little project for her to have a go at weaving 'JK 2009' into the struts of the bridges, which I could take back to the Committee for approval.

Instead, she came back with something completely different - The Angel of the North.

I ran the 3 possibilities past the the Committee at the next meeting, and The Angel won out!

My brother-in-law is a graphic designer, so I passed the rough draft to him to 'tart up' and transform the concept into a logo for all occasions!

So there we have it - JK 2009 - Northumbrian Hills, featuring one of the most famous sculptures in Europe, if not the world!

'O' where shall we stay this weekend!

Staying away from home for a night or two for a multi-day orienteering weekend can be as much a part of the overall 'experience' as the orienteering itself - particularly for the kids!

For week long events like the Scottish 6-days, Croeso in Wales and the Lakes-5, we usually go for a cottage. Done the camping thing - too much like hard work if the weather is poor!- though I do still try and camp at the White Rose with the kids, and by myself at the Capricorn and Phoenix Long-O's.

Our usual first choice is now a Youth Hostel - since eldest was born 15 years ago they have really become much more family friendly, though sometimes booking a family room can be quite difficult, as demand can often exceed supply - particularly if it's an 'O' weekend!

Looking back over 2007, it was quite a vintage year for Youth Hostel stays!

The year started off well with a two nights at Pitlochry with the NE Junior Squad - training on the Saturday and an FCC race on the Sunday.

Perhaps the highlight of the year was eventually securing a room for the full Easter weekend at St Briavel's Castle, on the edge of the forest of Dean. What a fantastic building for a hostel, spiral staircases et al. The wardens also arranged various activities over the weekend, like the medieval banquet on the Saturday night and the egg throwing competition on the Sunday morning.



A few weeks later, the North East and Yorkshire and Humberside Junior Squads combined for a weekend in the Lake District, training at High Rigg on the Saturday and a badge event on the Sunday at Harrop Tarn, staying overnight at Keswick youth hostel. It was really nice to sit out on the balcony over the river, quite late into the evening, admiring the views.


If there is a hostel building to rival St Briaval's Castle, then Langdale comes quite close. A fantastic Victorian country house with extensive grounds, and in late May, the rhododendrons and magnolias were pretty special. We stayed over here between a short race at Stickle Pike and the national event on Caw.



One of the things about staying away for the one night, is that we do tend to take the hostel evening meals. When the chance came up to stay at Arnside on the edge of both the Lakes and Morcambe Bay, Di was most enthusiastic - the food is great! The orienteering was the Twin Peak weekend on High Dam, great orienteering (and I had a good result, winning M45L overall!). The weather was tremendous, so before tea at the hostel we went for a walk along the shore, and then after tea, we went up Arnside Knott to watch the sunset over the Bay - and still in T-shirts!

After the Scottish 6-days, we decided to do either Edinburgh Zoo or the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, depending on the weather. To that end, I managed to get a room at Crianlarich youth hostel, being as close to midway between the two cities as we could get. The hostel was self catering only, so we drove back up to Tyndrum to an award winning fish and chip shop for tea. It was chucking it down with rain, the shop was heaving, but they were pretty good F&C! Earlier, I had walked up to the station to watch the joining of the trains arriving from Mallaig and from Oban, for their combined journey to Glasgow.

In September, Di had a weekend away with her friends, so I took the girls to the Aire Dales weekend for the national on Attermire and a badge at Langstrothdale. Although driveable each day, I decided to try out a new hostel for me at Ingleton. A good night, helped by the chidren's playground in the park adjacent to the hostel!


There can sometimes be bad nights at hostels, and a year or so ago, we had trouble with a bunch of teenage lads in the room next door and a thin connecting door - bad language and noise in the night. We managed to get a room move for the next night, but Di was reluctant to stay there again for the night between the ShUOC chasing Sprint in Eccleshall and the national on Longshaw in December. I managed to speak to a warden, and got a room on the old main building (with thick walls). Despite the atrocious weather (sleet in Sheffield and floods on the access road in) we did have a good night.

And so, full circle, we have just spent a good weekend at Truleigh Hill hostel for JK2008. A great location, right on the top of the South Downs overlooking Worthing and Shoreham, it must be one of the most isolated spots in southern England, only accessible by a 3 mile single track road. There were snow flurries which made me wonder whether we would make it down each day, but we did!