Chris Curtis Web Site

This was the last “SOG” (Southdowns Orienteers’ Local event league) of the autumn/winter season and after a fantastic training run (the best for many years) mid-week I was hoping for a speedy run, and fearing that it might all fall apart.

Hesworth and Fittleworth Commons are two areas of common land, one each side of a village. It is quite a good test of my fitness to see how well I handle the 400m straight run from one to the other!

Things did not start well. I had worked out a route to contour round the big hill between the start and control 1, rather than go up and over, and use up so much energy early. Instead I found myself heading straight for the hill and did what I had not wanted to do, ran up the steep slope and down the other side. Things were not too bad for the next few controls, except for making a few mistakes deciding to go straight and discovering that the dead bracken that was everywhere slowed you down. I had a major disaster heading for control 5. I lost count of paths I was crossing and spent ages looking around a path junction that was similar in lay-out to where the control was before realising I was on the wrong path. In my effort to catch up lost time, I ran straight past the control and had to back-track. A couple of controls later, I spent ages looking for what turned out to be not very distinctive trees in a rather dry marsh – Had I realised the features would be so indistinct, I would have used other features to navigate by, but it was too late by then.

I did enjoy being out in the sunshine, and in a couple of places running cross-slope with a dusting of snow on the dead bracken – exhilarating.

The run down the long path was fine – my fitness has definitely improved since the last time I tried it. I made a classic mistake coming off the end of the path which had two route lines marked – one going into the common and one coming out towards the finish. My glasses were misted up so my view of the map was vague and I sprinted for the wrong control – again time, and motivation, lost.

I plodded round the last bit, pausing only to be confused by a flurry of pits on top of a hill.

I was very disappointed, feeling I should have done so much better. I never felt I connected with the map – it did not “read” naturally” for me – but this may have been lack of concentration rather than any fault of the map. I ran well, and hard, but much further than I should have done and with that crushing feeling of trying to catch up rather than feeling I was doing well.

The results suggested I did a little better than I thought, or rather, others found it confusing too. I was 23rd, with some good orienteers having much longer times than me.

This meant that I finished 18th in the SOG series (out of over 100 competitors in all). Not quite as high as I had hoped, but a mighty improvement over the 31st I managed in the last series. Reflecting on the series, I had a few genuinely good runs. I had only one or two complete disasters. I had some mediocre runs too. Where I went wrong was mostly about poor navigation, and it seemed to go with a state of mind. When things went well, it seemed simple, even in very complex terrain. I was not thinking that hard, just “seeing” where to go next. Where things went less well, it felt like I was working harder – arguing with myself over route choice and nitpicking over details of small features instead of flowing through the landscape. Fitness is gradually becoming less of an obstacle – or at least, it is no longer the major reason for poor performance. There is still some way to go to be able to run fast through terrain for an hour or so, but I am wasting much more time due to mistakes now, than I am because I am having to slow or take a breather.
A new series beckons soon. Onwards and upwards.

In response to a recent question, the wp-shoutcast plug-in I wrote is compatible with WordPress version 2 (it did not need any changes). This site runs WP 2.0 and you can see the plug-in running in the right hand side-bar.

More about the plug-in here and you can download it here.

It was snowing heavily and settling as I left home for the event at Southwater Country Park. As I passed Horsham the snow became sleet and when I arrived it was clear that only rain had fallen at Southwater. It was cold though.

I had been looking forward to this event. I was last here to plan an event, and wanted to run on this terrain which I know very well now. Despite this, I struggled to wake up, and felt under the weather. I debated whether to go or not.  I felt much better once I started and was moving fast over the paths and open areas and, not surprisingly, was navigating confidently.

The park is an old clay pit, with two lakes in its base and very steep sides – particularly to the West. The area is covered with established scrub rather than mature forest, so it can be quite physical and hard to get through. Underfoot, it is very slippery everywhere if there is even a little rain, and there had been quite a lot. The area is tiny, so there was quite a lot of going from one side of the area to another, including several runs directly up the steeper slopes.
Once more, this was an event where the first two-thirds went well for me so that I was well up with the field, then I was just going slower and slower. Nothing changed with the course, but not only did my feeling ill come back with a vengeance, but my concentration went too. My chest was tight, my nose was running and I felt miserable. I just could not maintain the pace. I was determined to finish though and was pleased to get back inside my “target” hour. This sort of experience has happened to me a few times recently. I think my fitness is improving enough to let me go faster for the bulk of the race, but is not yet good enough to sustain me to the finish: more work needed.
I did not stay around for the usual banter – but headed home quickly for a hot shower. It turns out I missed some birthday cake. Ali was celebrating her birthday by planning her first course!

I thought the course was well planned. From control 10 to 15 particularly, forced you to choose routes carefully, where the choices were likely to make a big difference, and in an area like this, to be forced off paths was very well done – and there were no controls in pits!