Chris Curtis Web Site

The temperature was hovering around freezing and the sky was leaden, but thankfully there was not much wind. We parked in the local school and had to jog about 1km to the start. I was nicely warmed up and ready to go.

Sullington Warren is a small but lovely area of heathland, on the sand which adjoins the South Downs. The forest is patchy and fairly thin, though there are some fearsome holly thickets. In between are areas of “rough open” with thick carpets of flowering heather or tussocky grassland. It has well-defined relief with some small but steep hills and deep re-entrants. Like everywhere near or enclosed by human occupation, there is a “complex path network”: that is, everywhere you look is a path, just that some are more obvious than others.

I played safe and followed paths to the first control. As I was heading away from it my foot landed on a mat of very slippery roots and I turned my left ankle. Thankfully, I saw it happening and managed to shift my weight to my other leg so not much damage was done, but I think it worried me. The small and complicated map (which did not fill A5 at 1:5000) reminded me of the Hawth where I became terribly confused, so that had worried me too. I finished with quite a lot in reserve. I do not think I went “all out” by any means, prefering to “play safe” and keep very close map contact. That did not stop me making a few costly mistakes. Mostly this was when I set off on fairly long bearings. I still tend to drift off parallel. On many legs, although I was slow, I was quite pleased with my navigation. I nailed a few very difficult to spot controls. I noticed I was using multiple clues to reach attack points and then controls. I was particularly pleased with the way I read contours today. Several controls were on contour features and I found myself using contours a lot to check routes and calculate my position. I was also pleased with my heather yomping technique – almost a sort of hurdling leading with my left leg to push forward and up on each step and covering ground fairly quickly. So not very competitive today, but I can feel my navigation improving – at least in the sense that I am noticing and thinking about things I did not even know existed a few weeks ago. If I can pull all this new knowledge together, apply it more reliably and quickly, and move much faster across the ground, I will be alright!

Despite the slow speed, I was still feeling very unfit. My nose was running and I became breathless quickly. I think my stamina is not too bad, but I probably need interval training – the “long slow burn” is fine. I can keep going at lowish intensity forever. It is the short burst that is the problem. I seem to get into deep oxygen debt from relatively little extra effort. This not only makes me slow down, I am sure it affects my thinking.

By the time I got back in, a very cold rain was falling. As I reached home, it was a very obvious sleet. with large snowflakes mixed in. I was quite chilled, but after a long, hot shower I felt fine and my cheeks were rosy!

My first event in three weeks – one of Southdowns Orienteers “SOG” series on the Hyde estate near Handcross in Sussex, on the High Weald’s rolling, sandy hills. The weather was amazing with perfectly clear skies and low sun, but only 4C and a keen wind. There was a very good turn-out which meant a queue to start and my arms and legs were numb and stiff in the cold. The first stretch from the start on the green course was a very steep track downhill which felt frightening when you were not loose yet.

I really enjoyed this course. The woods are excellent. They have everything. There are large areas of perfect runnable mature evergreen or beech, rough open with dead, chest-high bracken, lots of streams and some marshes, good views in a few places and plenty of thickets. The course forced you to use all the techniques – at one point it was just a 400m dash along an estate road, at others you had to micro-navigate using contours and in a few you were “thicket-hopping”, or pace-counting on a careful bearing. I was very pleased with my navigation on quite a few legs, but I made an elementary error looking for control 2. Instead of relying on contours, which were obvious on the ground, I went looking for a ride to use as a handrail. I never did find it. I then decided to use the stream as a handrail, but there was too much complex detail to be sure where you were along it. As soon as I had a careful look at the contours, I found the control in seconds.

I was certainly not great in terms of running. I have felt mildly “fluey” all week and it showed. I plodded around and was OK, but significantly slower than in recent events. I was very tired early on and could not get back into the groove. My nose and eyes were streaming. I guess it is a mild virus but I was much less than fit.

I ended up 31st in a field of more than 50. Without the mistake on 2 I would have been around 20th, which would have pleased me greatly.

The woods are looking late autumnal. There were lots of fungi, but these are already past their best. Most leaves are down, but still fresh enough to crunch through. The ground is carpeted in gold and brown. The soil is deeply damp and the streams are all running, though not swollen. The crisp, cold air and steam rising from breath and skin promised cold days ahead.