Chris Curtis Web Site

I have discovered podcasting after reading an article at BBC news. Basically, podcasting is a system of providing mp3 files, usually containing a “home made radio” programme, so that they will download to your PC and appear in your media player. If you have an ipod you can automate so that the files are automatically transferred too, but with my muvo I do that last step manually.

Like everything on the internet, there is an awful lot of rubbish out there, but I have found a a few channels I enjoy listening to and even the BBC seem to be experimenting – it will give me another option to audiobooks for my muvo mp3 player when I am at the gym.

There is a good introductory article on podcasting at engadget

The next version of wordpress (which runs this site) promises to handle podcasts – who knows, I might give it a go sometime.

I have been playing with “Photo Art Master” – software that lets you do interesting things to digital photos. The first experiments, which I am quite pleased with, are in the photo gallery on this site.

I was out early as I had agreed to do the “second shift” car parking.

It was a perfect late December day. The sky was clear blue, with low, clean sunshine and there was not a breath of wind. All the puddles had thick ice, and even the leaves scrunched underfoot. The forest was very good, I thought, with a light, mostly open feel and a wide variety of trees. The terrain was interesting too, with some good streams, varied contour features and some real complexity in places, interspersed with pleasant open plantations and good rides. I particularly liked the spindly pines on the way to the start (picture left).

This was my first score event and I learnt a lot. Before I ran, I had the strategy of heading towards the west of the course, where I knew there was a fenced road that I imagined running parallel to, but I also wanted to hit some high scoring controls too. I more or less followed this scheme, though looking at the map later, I would have been better going on an extended loop instead. It was not helped by making a 180 degree error at one point. I realised quickly and carried on to nail a high scoring control, but then had to come back on myself to the high scorer I had been aiming for really. I would have been better spending a minute or two studying the map and planning the whole course, rather than heading out hopefully.

Without the discipline of a course to finish (there being no hope of getting round all the controls in an hour) my lack of fitness really showed. I did push hard, and finished gasping for breath and covered in sweat, but I felt like I had covered hardly any ground – though probably just under 4km in all.

Final position was 152 out of around 180. I was pleased to time my run well – coming in 1:30 inside the hour and so avoiding penalties.

The green course was almost “butterflied” – you went out around one common, coming back past the start, then a 400m run along a public footpath and across two roads to go around the next common. The blue course was a “proper” butterfly which kept returning to a common control.

I liked this course. The woodlands were open and runnable and the landscape was interesting and technical, though there was lots of “rough open” with waist high, rotting bracken as well as some heather and still-vicious brambles in a few places. Each common is a high spot in the local landscape, with sharply defined sand hills, so lots of steep slopes and a few banks. It was physically quite demanding if you went straight, as I tended to do. Seeing just how many paths there were, and being warned that they were not all shown on the map, I had decided not to rely on paths if I could help it.

I was fairly pleased with my performance, going faster than recently and making no big mistakes, though the precision of navigation could have been better. At several points I was getting well ahead of others on the same leg, only to see them catch up or pass me because they went slightly more directly and tightly into the control. It was as if I had a “feel” for the landscape and knew very quickly what direction to go and roughly where the control was, but lost out on the approach – often having to relocate slightly close to the control. At one point (control 6) I found the control easily enough, but I came down on the right of the earth bank when I was expecting to come down on its left end – quite good but lacking precision.

The last control of all was the only one I messed up significantly. I concentrated on contours and paths, missing some very obvious clues from buildings and fences that were further away but easily visible, which would have been good handrails, so I came off the path too early and contoured along the hillside, going very slowly looking for the control long before I was near it. I then twisted my hip which hurt a lot and almost stopped me. Fortunately, it “walked off” fairly quickly, and I was able to run in to the finish, but I think I lost at least five minutes. I was 26th, but probably lost five or six places on the last control.
I appreciated the mulled punch and a mince pie in the village hall afterwards.

The day began with our first real air-frost. I had to scrape hard ice off the car then drive gently through thick fog past Crawley and across the Ashdown forest.

There was a long walk from the field edge where we parked to registration and the start. By the time I arrived there, the fog had lifted to leave a blue sky and sunshine. There was no wind, so it did not feel too cold. Today we had the luxury of pre-printed maps so it was a very quick preparation and I was off. The green course started fairly steeply uphill with an obvious route up a muddy ride and I spotted the control as soon as I left the ride and went into the woods. I was determined to stay focused and avoid big mistakes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this course. The woods had lots of water features, with many streams and ponds. The water had carved sharp contours, with quite a few controls in well defined “re-entrants” and there was plenty of variety of vegetation and landscape. In a few places there were signs of ancient iron-working – wide obviously hand dug areas with many pits and a few points where the streams and ponds were rust stained. Controls were mostly close together, but some were really quite technical to find, though the routes all seemed fairly obvious to me.

I made one big mistake when I came off a control at the wrong angle and went up the wrong stream for a while. This cost me time, but gave me a very good view of a large herd of deer who fled gracefully when they realised I was there. In a couple of places I was not confident enough, slowing down because I feared I might go past a control, only to find I could not have missed it. At one point, my left leg disappeared almost up to my hip in a large hole, which I suspect was a fox earth. The weather improved further while I was out on the course. Bright sun and lingering mist created glorious views with “sunrays” radiating around trees and through the canopy.

I felt I was in contact with the map and terrain throughout. I found I was reading contours a lot, and simplifying quite well too, though I suspect enjoying the map and terrain slowed me down. I just needed to move across the ground quicker, but having spent almost every minute of the last fortnight sitting at a desk does not help fitness. This showed right at the end, in the run from control 14 through to the finish, after 17. I had a perfectly clear mental picture of the ground from the map – I could have dropped the map and still found the controls – but I could not press this home. I had too little left to push hard and sustain a full run.

There were over 100 runners out on this SOG, which is becoming common. A great achievement for Southdowns Orienteers – reflecting the quality of the events.