Chris Curtis Web Site

Stoughton is one of my favourite pieces of woodland. It is far from any village or even house, lined out along part of the South Downs Hills which gives it a great deal of interest. It has a very varied ecology, making a feature of old yew trees scattered among beech and all sorts of other species. The area is dotted with ancient sites (4,000 year old burial mounds and the like) and in a few places has stunning views out across Chichester Harbour or across the Downs. From an orienteering point of view, all this makes it hilly and physically demanding, with a few confusing areas, though with too many paths to be able to become completely lost. The rain overnight and recent work in the woodlands meant that there was a lot of slippery “brashings” (cut branches etc) underfoot and wet chalk paths were particularly well lubricated, but overall the woods are “runnable” – open enough to run through.

I had wondered about whether I should go along today. I have (yet another) nasty abcess in my upper jaw and have been feeling quite ill generally. I thought I could always treat it as a walk in the woods if I felt too bad so I decided to risk it.

The first control was navigationally extremely easy, just a run along a path, but there was 80 metres of climb in the first 300m or so. I found the control easily, but thought I was going to die. I could hardly breathe despite having had to walk the worst parts of the climb. I was covered in sweat and shaky. Even when it levelled out, I still felt awful, much less fit than I have for many weeks. The infection was having a big impact. I was drifting along to control 2, working out what was the easiest route to walk out and give up. When I got to 2, I saw that the next leg was downhill and I reminded myself that I could do with navigation practice and could walk round even if I did not feel good. Once I had another couple of controls under my belt, I began to feel better and was running along fairly well, with one or two decent legs. With the slower speeds, my navigation was tight, apart from one control where I picked up an unmarked path instead of the one I wanted, and lost quite a lot of time cutting uphill through brambles to get back on track.

I finished a few seconds faster than the last time I was out, on a longer course this time, so the tighter navigation was important – a lesson for when I am feeling better. I was surprised and quite pleased to be 19th overall – feeling so bad, I thought I was going to be much further back than that.

So, overall, I felt really bad, but performed better than I felt. Being out in the open air and the exercise also seemed to help and I felt generally a bit better by the time I got home too.

After a wet and windy night I wondered what the morning would bring, but it was a lovely day to drive into the “High Weald” – the area of sandstone hills that runs east-west between the South and North Downs. It was calm and not raining, and gentle sun broke through just as we were preparing to run. It was mild but not warm and perfect for late October.

I enjoyed this course. Rivers Wood is compact and has a “proper” river (The Sussex Ouse) bounding its north and east edges. Inside the wood there are lots of parallel rides, and paths that are almost as wide as the rides, so there is plenty of opportunity for parallel errors or simply becoming very confused. The woodland itself has almost everything from mature plantations very easy to run in one direction, to very dense conifers and a great deal of scratchy brambly undergrowth in places. As the name suggests, there are quite a number of water features, but despite the rain, it was not too wet underfoot.

Vince Joyce had planned an interesting course, with lots of route choice, a great shape so you were having to make significant changes of direction at many controls, good variety of long and short legs and forcing you to use a whole range of navigation techniques.

I was reasonably pleased with my run. I navigated pretty well but not very accurately overall. I went past one control and often found the circle quickly but then took a little while to pin down the flag. On one long leg I made what should have been a sensible route choice, but came unstuck. I realised that I had drifted a little to the right of an indistinct path, but as I knew the control was on the other side of a pasture that stretched wide in front of me, but not yet in sight, I figured I should take a rough bearing and go straight, knowing I could not miss the field. That was true, but I ran into undergrowth and denser forest that slowed me right down, and made me doubt where I was, which slowed me down even more.

From this one big error, and just being a little inaccurate elsewhere, I lost 10 or 12 minutes finishing on 70 minutes in all. I would have been pleased with any time under an hour! Fitness wise, things were again better than they have been. I ran pretty well continuously – only walking up one hill and not stopping at all – but I was very slow and tired on the second half of the course and my legs were like lead over the last couple of controls, where my navigation was spot-on.

I have very mixed feelings about my performance in the second “SOG” event of the season.

Park Wood is just north of Hailsham in East Sussex, which meant a long but pleasant drive across Ashdown Forest (home of “Whinnie the Pooh”!). We had the luxury of pre-printed maps today, and with the club’s new scheme for fast registration if you have your own electronic timing “dibber” I was quickly at the start, where we were given maps. Although I like pre-printed maps, I also like the few minutes to “visualise” the terrain while copying the course. I think this made me fairly slow to control one, but I was soon making good progress.

I hit the first problem approaching control 4, which was marked as a ditch bend, with the ditch between two earth banks. I had decided to go straight, reading the contours. I was delighted when the first ditch appeared, followed by a path crossing in front of me. I soon found a ditch between two earth banks, with a clear ditch bend, but no control. Thinking that I might have gone off line, I ran along the ditch for a good way in each direction. No control. It was only when I was heading back from the second of these when I spotted the control, about 70m further ahead of where I had stopped, on a parallel ditch! There was a ditch marked where I had stopped, but marked as a dry gully – I had assumed that the ditch was dry due to weather. This was a case where pacing would have helped, but the 1:7500 scale kept fooling my distance estimation.

I was determined not to let the time loss depress me, and I was back moving well to the next control, then I made a 90 degree error coming out of it, but ran like mad and did not lose too much time. I was doing pretty well by half-way round.

I then ran into very confusing terrain. I had to keep re-locating. I found myself looking at a large building which was not marked on the map (it was just out of bounds but not marked at all). This threw me but a distinctive turn of path saved me. This sort of thing happened several times. I could not really locate myself securely, then had a choice of a very long way round or just one or two not very clear paths to cross a swathe of green (thick) forest and plantation. I set off on what I thought was a path and ended stuck in ghastly tight and bramble filled plantation, giving myself a spectacular 15cm long gash/scratch on the front of my thigh, in the process. By the time I worked out where I was, I was past and a long way to the west of where I wanted to be. Total time loss over 20 minutes, though I did eventually lead a whole crowd of lost people into the control (9) when I finally got there.

What followed was a very fast run, because I could “see” the terrain and knew exactly where I was. I was second on one leg, third on the next and moving really well. I had to head back into the very confusing area, but although I slowed I did not become lost this time.

I finished in just over 90 minutes, to my huge disappointment, but others had struggled too and I was 22nd overall – not too bad and useful points for the club league. What was really pleasing was that I had run pretty hard and felt great. The fact that I was among the very fastest in the field over a few controls – and I knew at the time I was really moving – was very encouraging. My fitness was about the best it has ever been on an event. I ended mildly “lactic” but otherwise feeling super. There are good things to take away from this event, though I would have loved to be nearer to the hour than 90 minutes!