Chris Wright

Back in the Spring, I planned the courses for our club's annual Regional (Badge) event. The venue was Coate Moor, one of the Cleveland Hills which rise sharply up from the Tees Valley plain to over 1000ft. As the area includes grouse shooting moors, and lots of bracken, it is only available in February and March. I had done some scouting around the area whilst planning a sprint race, so had some basic ideas about the courses. The mapper was plugging away. Time constraints meant that my main planning visits were set for the Xmas/New Year period. But at the beginning of December, it snowed. And it continued to snow. And the snow stayed. Right through to the end of February - 3 weeks before the event! So the controller and I did all of our work in the last few weeks before the event - no time to test run courses, just get the sites tagged and agreed. Tagging was done with 6 inches of snow on much of the area, and two weeks before the event we had to hurriedly leave the area in a hails...

Whilst doing some sorting out at home, I came across some of my old training diaries. The spring of 1983 appears to have been the time for some serious mileage, with 3 weeks at 70 miles +. One week I appear to have been determined to break the 80 mile barrier. I was staying in Newcastle on study leave from work, so was able to get out twice a day (just to clear the mind, of course! ). This is how the week 21 to 27 March 1983 went: Monday - pm Jesmond, Heaton, Town Moor 6.75 miles Tuesday - am Town Moor, Jesmond Dene 6.5 miles - pm as above 6.75 miles - total for day 13.5 miles Wednesday - as Tuesday - total for day 13.5 miles Thursday - as Tuesday - total for day 13.5 miles Friday - am Town Moor, Jesmond Dene - 6.5 miles Saturday - Guisborough Woods, Codhill to Belmangate - 6.75 miles Sunday - am Orienteering race at Hovingham - 5 miles + warm up and down - 7 miles THEN Sunday pm - York Run (Half Marathon - 74.30!) - 13.1 miles + warm up - 14 miles - total for day - 21 m...

One thing I'll remember 2009 for were the lights. The years' highlight outdoor concert was Jools Holland at Ripley Castle near Harrogate - which ended with a great firework display over the lake. And then there was 'Odin's Glow' - an incredibly ambitious project based around Roseberry Topping and the village of Newton-under-Roseberry. But perhaps best of all was 'Lumiere' in Durham - a great evening out and about the old part of the city - including a very crowded Palace Green to watch a 'son et lumiere' production projected onto the face of the cathedral - amazing!

blog, I'm afraid. Too busy with other things! Planning short races, organising a 1ok race, organising and planning a series of Bike-O Lanequests, coaching juniors (and taking a coaching certificate course), club committee's (main and mapping), learning how to use OCAD and Purple Pen (and that's without work and operating Dad's Taxi Services Inc!) And now I've been pointed in the direction of Attackpoint! Follow my progress at: http://www.attackpoint.org/log.jsp/user_6450

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 ...

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 indiv...

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 Q...

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 goo...

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 con...

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 pas...

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. Perhap...

Last autumn, CLOK staged a district event on one of our traditional areas - Eston Nab. The post event comments on the club bulletin board included some rather scathing comments about the map. Now having remapped/redrawn the map for one day of the October Odyssey back in the 1980's, where I was required to use the scale of 1:15,000 (because it was a badge event), when most people thought 1:10,000 was more appropriate, I have personally been on the receiving end of rather sharp critiscm of the map. Nowadays, unless there is something major being held, it is usual for the event planner and controller to make small changes to the map, so no one person puts their name down as responsible. Instead, the 'club' gets the flack, or rather, the mapping committee. The thing about this area is that the minor paths and gorse patches are prone to frequent change - it only takes half a dozen youths on scramble bikes to create a new path, or some youths with matches to clear some gorse bush...

I know it was along time ago, but having just competed in the AIRE promoted Dales Weekend, where I managed a combined 12th place over the two days in M45L, my mind wandered back to the MDOC Twin Peak weekend in the Lakes back in June. Now there I managed to snatch the combined title in this class (much to my surprise!) with a 4th and a 3rd on the two days. For whatever reason, I appear to be getting slower through the terrain. But generally, I'm managing to keep it quite accurate. This 'steady away' approach really seemed to work in the Lakes, with most people running much faster than I was, but making big, big mistakes. Moving on to the Scottish 6 Days, I based my strategy on the Twin Peak result - steady away - keep it accurate. Except most people were keeping it accurate at twice my speed! So after the first two days, when I found myself languishing in the 80's in M45L, I tried to concentrate more on the running. An improvement thereafter, but the damage was done, an...

Now Paul Th and I both think that the JOK Chasing Sprint is a great event. However, it's not really a 'sprint' - more like a middle distance race. Looking for something for the Spring 2007 offering for the CLOK Juniors, Paul came up with the plan for a sprint distance chasing sprint! Ideal training for the JK Sprint and the British Sprint Championships in Scarborough! Stewart Park and Ormesby Hall are two oases of parkland in the suburbs of Middlesbrough, separated by the Middlesbrough-Whitby railway line, and both have been mapped. The pair have been combined before, some years ago, for an evening series event. Stewart Park is run by Middlesbrough Borough Council, and was formerly the site of a large mansion house. Although only about 10m of arcading are all that exist of the building, the grounds around, with the terraces, pathways and ornamental ponds still survive. Captain Cook, the famous explorer, was born in a cottage which used to stand near the site of the mansion ...

Think Institute of Modern Art, and I bet Middlesbrough wouldn't be the first place to spring to mind. But the town has recently acquired a fantastic new, award winning building to house and display it's art collection, the MIMA. Eldest daughter is taking Art and Design at college, so we made a special effort to get to see the first headline exhibition, DRAW, featuring Picasso (18 works), Matisse, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst. There was some pretty good stuff, and some interesting stuff, and, well, some other things! I almost think that the building overshadowed the exhibitions. Perhaps I'll get used to it on future visits. Having said that, I still think 'wow' whenever I see The Sage in Gateshead. Now if I had to name my favourite artists, then it would have to be Andy Goldsworthy. He has a major, year-long exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Barnsley. We made a special Saturday-long visit last Bank Holiday to see it, particularly as middle daughter has ...

I've just spent the last 9 months organising the British Elite Orienteering Championships at Middle Distance in Mulgrave Woods near Whitby, on Sunday 15 April 2007. I would say that 99.5% of the organisation was fine. Unfortunately, the event will be remembered for the 0.5% which wasn't - the awarding of the junior Elite prizes to the wrong people. To compound matters, I wasn't actually at the race site for most of the event - I was running the Gisborough Moors Race (or it's F&M year replacement) for the 30th consecutive year. And dear Chris P told everyone in Assembly, so no chance of sneaking out and back without anyone noticing that I wasn't there! And there were those BOF Committee individuals who lambasted me as soon as I reappeared - presumably they considered this a severe dereliction of duty and that I should be made to suffer - the organiser should have done this, the organiser should have done that, the organiser should have consulted here, the organis...