Blyth Sands Orienteering with the Little People

With Cutie needing just one more completion to make up her 4 scores in the Winter LOP series, we headed up to Blyth. It is not an area that I know and I was pleasantly surprised to find a lovely sea front with play areas, beach huts and a cafe. 

Today we chose the age-appropriate yellow course, oriented the map at an unusual angle, as North was not shown as vertically up, and headed off towards the dunes! 

Control 1 was easily found on the signpost but 2 was slightly more tricky. In finding it, I realised which map lines referred to which paths and we were then able to race around the route to the exciting sounding 'cave' at 3. The hardest one for the girls was 4 as I took the direct route choice across the sand! We quickly found 5 and Cutie was revved up for a run along the path to 6! We let the Popstar catch up before I send Cutie from the last control at 7, along the footpath to the car park finish. The registration car had had to move slightly which made her slow down enough that I managed to catch her back up and watch her cross the car park and finish. Phew! I went back to collect up the other one who was almost at the car park by now, too. Another great route and super speedy running by the smallest member of the family!! It was agreed that the play areas and ice creams needed investigating! 

Lovely to find a new area - we might return for another ice cream!

Cutie awaits the series results....

Tricky Times at Hutton Woods Orienteering Event

I was undecided what to do this weekend as I had a throat lurgy which was trying to attack the rest of my body and the weather was looking iffy in parts. I almost opted for the Eden Epic Sportive as I need to get out on my bike, but I just don't have cold weather cycling kit and thought 60 miles would be too much too soon! Instead I opted for orienteering which I thought would get me some fresh air at a more leisurely pace! The Hutton Woods course was more challenging than I, and it seems a few others, had bargained for! Not that I find orienteering in any way easy, it's just a more leisurely pace than a training run for me as I'm always stopping and starting.

To score points in my age category, I had to do the blue course which is technically difficult and was described as challenging underfoot. It was definitely both of these!! 

Mother's Day Treats !

The start in the wood set the tone for much of the course. The navigation required was tricky as there were lots of paths and the controls were more hidden than I have previously encountered and also were difficult to physically get to and from. I somehow found 1 and then knew whereabouts 2 was but it was sneakily hidden. Control 3 I struggled with as I didn't know how to tell which part of the bank it was on, but a kind guy pointed me in the correct direction! The controls were hidden so you couldn't very often get a glimpse of them until you were basically at them. Surprisingly I found 4 & 5 easily but 6 threw up a similar challenge to 3. I knew whereabouts it was and what I was looking for but I didn't know how to pin-point it's exact location. After much wandering around in heather, I found it, mainly because other people were looking for it too! In doing so, I had noticed a rather large mound in the distance which was soon confirmed as Little Roseberry as 7, 8 and 9 took me to a familiar place from fell running but not on the same tracks. Control 8 wasn't where I was expecting but 7 & 9 were fine. The long distance back to 10 was something new too and although I don't mind distance, I actually had no clue of the best route to take so I went back up to the gate I came in by and turned left. I thought if I stuck to the path then I would be fine, but no! I still don't know how I ended up so far away. I think I just took a higher path and ended up on the wrong side of some 'fight' and couldn't get back across, so had to run round on the forest road. I must have confused the paths, but even now I don't know which path I missed as they are huge on the map. maybe there were more paths on the ground than on the map?! I struggled with that a couple of times if I got confused as I didn't know which was a defined path on the map and which was not mapped. 

Once I found the little wooded area where 10 was, it was still tricky for me to find. Again I didn't know how to pinpoint it, but got it finally. Loads of time wasted but at least I had dibbed! Control 11 I expected to be hidden and it didn't disappoint! Nor did 12! The underfoot conditions were tiring as you were unable to move quickly in the undergrowth and regularly found briars wrapped round your feet. I came back to the road and found 13 quickly ( it actually wasn't hidden from view!) but 14 had me contemplating giving in! Again I knew whereabouts it was but not exactly enough and although I scrambled along the ground where it was, this was hard work, annoying ( more briars and branches !) and not that likely to be successful as I knew the control would be hidden! Luckily as I ran back along the track, I spotted an opening and found it, but it was really hard to get to on a steep slippery bank entangled in roots and branches. Control 15 I found immediately and it was easy to see. Same again with 16, I knew where it was but ended up on the lower path, turned around to run back on the higher path and saw a small brick ruin, amongst the briars of course! Patience was running thin by now. I knew 17 was a well as they had said at registration. Stupidly, I thought this would be a nice big wishing well! I saw a guy on a different course who had a control at the stream junction and had taken a bearing and we bashed through the the branches together and found the moss covered stone that was the well! We agreed that it had been a very hard course as we scrambled on all fours up from the well to the road side and the penultimate control! Even I couldn't miss the finish from there! 

Well my nice bit of fresh air had been 2 hours 45 of frustration, but that aside, I am quite pleased with myself having finished. I got all of the controls, ok I made mistakes but that seems to be the way in orienteering, and although I took a long time, I finished what was by far the hardest orienteering course that I have ever done. I'm annoyed with 10 as I just don't understand which path I was on but the lesson learned from that is that I should have gone around the other side ( clockwise) as there was no 'fight' so I could have rectified my mistakes more easily and seen the paths around me. I shall have to ask my orienteering friends how to pin point the controls so that I can do that better in future and save thrashing about in the undergrowth!! You learn something new everyday with this orienteering lark! 

Dales Trails Trip Out - what's not to love on Valentine's Day ?!

Seized a 'window of opportunity' between the wind, rain and snow and child care, to have a run around the Dales trails, starting from Reeth on a cool but mostly bright day. I'm thinking of doing some races around here this season, so we used the DT20 route as a starting point for our run. It was nice to run along some interesting new trails, test out my map reading skills and have a natter with Jane. A breath of fresh air that we both needed followed by egg and muffins at a lovely cafe in Reeth village square! 

Half term holiday fun - contours, cake and clarts!

Another great little orienteering event on Sat morning, organised by the NATO team, and very local too - Prudhoe East. I helped the girls get round the yellow course in lovely muddy conditions! We managed to get the best of the weather as the sleet kindly stopped whilst where we were out with our map. Great excitement today as it was the punch-type controls which Cutie tried to work out what patterns the punches were making at every control!! Some ambitious navigating (!?!) saw us cut through the woods and off the path, following a straight line to control 4. The slight uphill was no surprise but the abrupt end to the rise and the rather too steep for tiny legs downhill meant that we had to side-step a bit to find a safer descent. So Joe was correct "contours are crucial"!

We successfully found all of our controls, brought home our fair share of mud and got some more points in the league.

http://www.newcastleorienteering.org.uk/evres/1516/Winter16/Prudhoe0213.pdf

 Following on from this, an uncharacteristic baking session resulted in a yummy banana loaf which should provide a bit of energy for more half term fun 😋

#supersaturday

Urban Orienteering at Cramlington

Really enjoying orienteering at the minute. It's a great way of getting out for a run without focussing purely on "how far, how fast" . I haven't got much enthusiasm for going out for long road runs and the weather out and about on the fells is still not much fun, so orienteering is ticking the boxes for me at the minute.

On Sunday, it was urban orienteering at Cramlington. I was slightly nervous of getting ridiculously 'lost' ( i.e. not finding the controls) as I had tried some street orienteering in Prudhoe before and found it rather challenging!! 

The scale of the map is such that the distances are tiny and the detail is incredible - you have all of the tiny paths between houses and individual trees marked on! 

My course had a whopping (for me! ) 25 controls in just over 5km. This is straight line distance, I believe, and the actual distance was said to be up to 50% more depending on route choice.

I was delighted to find all of the controls and had a fair idea where I was and where I was heading, most of the time! 

On analysing the results, it is clear that it takes me longer to get going than everyone else but I'm generally not too far off the pace for the majority of the controls. I had a tricky control where I knew what I was looking for but as I approached from the 'wrong' side, the kite was not obvious as it was tucked into a hedge around a corner and was obscured from my view. 

http://www.newcastleorienteering.org.uk/evres/1516/Cramlington0207/topindex.html

I learned some more symbols, met an old colleague and had a good fartlek-type training run! What's not to like?! I'm already looking forward to taking the girls to the next Saturday event at Prudhoe. 

Winning Wintery Weekend ❄️

The last race I 'ran' (battled!) was the Lakes Sky Ultra way back in Sept. A brutal 13 hours plus in all weathers. Today's race was, in stark contrast, around 13 minutes long! 

The Durham Relays are a popular local lung-buster and at the short end of my range, being only 3000 m long and on mainly flat grass. We made our annual pilgrimage from Tynedale, this time managing 3 ladies' and 1 men's team. 

I was looking forward to the social aspect and teaming up with Kirstie & Karen, once again, but this time in the older v45+ category. 

Kirstie had a strong run on the first leg and brought us in well up the field, hanging on to the youngsters as best she could! I took over on leg 2 and quickly got into my running. I was pleased to overtake a couple of runners and felt strong throughout, although I was worried that fatigue might set in on lap 2.

Karen was away at speed and zoomed round her two laps, as usual. Kirstie & I scrutinised the finishers carefully to check whether they look as old as us or not!! We concluded that we looked the oldest team so far and hoped that we had won the vets relays. 

As the results are complex, there's often a long wait so we've now found some lovely off-road cool down runs. Karen & I treated the Tynedale ladies to one of these - well I think they said it was a treat!!

Coffee and results time soon came around and we were delighted to be announced as NE Champions - yeah 👍

I also managed to sneak in some orienteering on Sat with Cutie who was super quick at spotting the controls on the yellow course. She was a 'winner', too ! Good practise for me and good fun for her. 

New Year, 'new' sport....

After a quiet few months, recovering from the many miles run ( in a small number of races!) , I have been thinking about trying some local orienteering races. I did a bit of orienteering a couple of years ago, which the girls and I all enjoyed for a while, but things get busy and there is never time to do everything that I would like to. 

A fellow Harrier drew my attention to a local event today, which spurred me on to get out in the mud with my compass and whistle! I chose to do the long orange course which, I think, is moderately technical navigation over a long distance which was approx 5.4km (straight line distance) today.

I always have a bit of a panic at the start and a crisis of confidence over finding the first control! Luckily, I headed in the correct direction and found the first 3 controls quite easily. There was a long run to 4 which had me hoping my strategy was correct but it all worked out fine and the control was where I had hoped it would be! The most tricky ones for me, were 6 & 8. I knew where I was going but there was a myriad of paths and lots of slippery mud to disturb your concentration. I was pleased that I found the sneakily placed 10, but wasn't sure about how to get to the finish. After a bit of indecision (should have just gone with my gut instinct) I dibbed out. Returning to registration at the Scout Hut, I handed back my dibber and was happy that it confirmed that I had visited all of the required controls! Phew, mission accomplished! 

Even better, I subsequently found out that I had been fastest over the long orange course 😃

There are lots of great things about orienteering :

* it involves running, but also thinking!

* sociable - great to see my Club members in a different environment

* you are always learning something. Today I learnt that this sign ^ means a ditch and I remembered that white is the area you can run through (would have got me to 6 quicker on a bearing) and that the olive green (RHS of map) is settlement. 

Can't wait for the next one!