Chris Curtis Web Site

My club was running the Southern Night Orienteering Championship this year and as it was fairly near to home, I thought I would give this aspect of the sport a try. My plan to get out to an event beforehand came to nothing, so it was rather in at the deep end, running a championship M45S course as my first experience of orienteering at night.

The weather did not help. It was raining heavily, and has been for days, so even reaching the start meant paddling through muddy puddles. The ride that went away from the start was like something out of the Somme with ankle deep mud. In the torchlight it was very hard to see what was firm ground and what was muddy puddle, so I had the first shoe full of freezing water before I had gone twenty metres and this experience became tedious with repetition.

It is very different orienteering at night. I found it hard to have an overall sense of where I was and the world was reduced to a small window, 20-50m across, which I was aware of at any one time. As people had warned me, how useful landscape features were changed completely. Vegetation boundaries were very difficult to make out, but small streams, ditches and earthbanks were very useful as “handrails”. I kept playing it safe – going further but sticking to features I could be very confident of.

I was very slow to control 1 – I could not see the vegetation boundary it was on until I had found the control anyway! After a few controls, it made more sense. I found it easier to run than I expected, at least on rides and paths, though the forest was very wet and slippery and heavily covered in brashings, including whole trees, so I did not feel able to run much in the terrain. I enjoyed the atmosphere. Despite the rain, I was warm and comfortable. The forest was very quiet, though I found that hearing was keener so I could often run parallel to streams by listening rather than looking. There was an entirely different feeling of landscape in the dark. I was acutely aware of what was immediately around me, but only vaguely aware that the character of the land changed as I moved through it. At one point, I saw four pairs of eyes, but could not see what they belonged to: judging by their height, and the way they bounced away as I approached, I guessed they were deer. Once, a fox barked – very close. About halfway through the course, a thunderstorm came fairly close – the vivid flash and rumble was amazing, but it seemed somehow far away – what mattered was within a few metres of where I was.

I enjoyed it, and will do night orienteering again. I was pleased to complete the course and had a strong sense of achievement. My time was nothing to write home about, but not the slowest on my course and some much better orienteers did not go much faster. Second and last in my class was an unusual experience too.

The map and routes (including mine) are available on the SO routegadget.

Rather chilly this morning, but sunny and crisp too. There was a huge turnout with over 150 runners at Tilgate Forest, on the southern edge of Crawley.

The first couple of legs were through park land, across manicured lawns and ornamental lakes, but soon plunging in and out of genuine forest. The course had constantly changing demands and some places were tricky. I had a fairly good run – in 51:46 for 4.5km, but I had three bad legs. I completely messed up 2 to 3, coming out of the control in the wrong direction and being a long way off line before realising. I was quickly in the circle for control 9, but it took me ages to identify which pit the control was in. Things were even worse at 10, when instead of taking the safe and simple route, I ploughed through the forest, got the line wrong and had to run round, then could not quite pin down the control. In all I lost about seven or eight minutes, so it should have been a much faster run.

I was disappointed to find I had come 26th – my worst result in this series. It was a much better run than the place suggests. There was such a huge turnout that a couple of minutes’ difference made many places – making the loss of seven minutes even more irritating. I could easily have been in the top fifteen in a field of over 50, but have no-one to blame but me.

Alex Lines has posted a video which gives some flavour of this event and even has a half second shot of me – inevitably looking lost! The map and peoples’ routes are on the SO routegadget.

As I am on my own this weekend I decided to travel round the M25 to Gravesend in Kent to have a go at the Green course at this district event.

Things did not look very good at first. When I followed orienteering signs from the car park I ended up heading towards the start and had to ask someone where registration was. Once registered, I was able to start quickly but heading into what was marked as “white” (open) forest towards control 1, I was confused by an abundance of rhododendron bushes which made running almost impossible. I was relieved to find the control without becoming completely lost and with confidence restored I set off on the 750m path run to control 2. I had travelled about 100m when I turned my left ankle right over – very painful but it took my weight and after a few steps was easing off. I was soon running again, only to do the same thing – this time at least twice as painful but remarkably quickly easing so I was running again. The path was very uneven – with lumps of concrete and brick poking out at odd angles. I have to admit that this experience made me a little cautious, but I managed to get round without doing myself more injury.

I had a reasonable, but not great, run. There were some nice controls, requiring careful navigation using contours to read the ground and we were encouraged off the paths. I made two significant mistakes – missing the key path from 6 to 7 and running round a long way and then opting to follow a gully to control 12 instead of the obvious path. The gully was much smaller than it was marked on the map and I crossed it heading into a featureless area before heading back, then seeing from the control that it would have been obvious from the path. Oh well.

I finished in 69 minutes for 4.5km and was 20th out of 28 – beating one or two who are usually better than me and not too far behind the pack.

I was impressed with the “eco-friendly” visitors’ centre at the park, but not with the incredibly slow service from the cafe it contained. I must say the bacon baguette was very tasty when it finally arrived.

Writing now, the ankle feels a little bruised and tender, but is working fine and moving well, without the twinges or pain that would say I have injured anything. I think I may have got away with it.

Today’s event was in the fabulous countryside behind Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters – Chalk Downland at its best, with impressive green hills and at Friston Forest a sense of being far away from anywhere in a comfortable landscape.

The course looked reasonably straightforward on the map, but was trickier and more physical on the ground. I went smoothly and fast enough to control 5, mostly on small paths in beautiful open beech woodland. I made a bad route choice going to six by going straight instead of running round a forest road or, what would have been even better, going along a path and running downhill onto the control. The straight route was uphill and into some fairly dense undergrowth. What made it worse was having to stop and take off one of my shoes as I had collected some bramble somewhere earlier which had cut my foot. Fortunately, once the bramble was out, the scratches were comfortable enough to run on.

Things went well again until control 9, where I lost seven places and lots of time. I had seen from the map that there was no obvious attack point near the control, which was a hide in the middle of some “light green” forest. I took a bearing from a path junction and ploughed in, but the forest was dense enough to keep knocking me off the bearing and stopping me from seeing the control. More time lost. Another poor route choice to 10 where I deliberately went past and came back, when I could have cut straight across and had a simple path run.

I was just over the hour and came 22nd (out of 40+). That would have been typical during the last series of events, but I have been doing much better this series so I was a little disappointed. Some terrain suits me better than others. This forest was mostly open and runnable which tempted me to lose contact with the map and made navigation vague rather than precise.

The map and people’s routes are on the SO routegadget.