British Championships
Posted on 10 May, 2010 by Lynne Walker | Filed under Blog • Orienteering
April and May 2010 see the main races this year. The JK was at the start of April, followed by the British Middle Distance Championships on 17th April and then the British Individual and Relays over the weekend of 1st and 2nd May. The Scottish Championships are at the end of May.
Middle Distance
We went to the Middle Distance Champs which were held in the southern Lake District. It was lovely to have the freedom to travel and go to a warm-up event on the Friday. The warm-up was held in a compact area of woodland (Thwaite Head) near to Graythwaite, south of Hawkshead. The set up was informal and the weather was sunny – what more do you want for a training event? Oh yes, a quality area with courses and we had this as well. It was a fast area but I decided to go fairly slowly as the Saturday race was more important. 
Carol had offered us accommodation at ‘her’ house north of Penrith and her directions were accurate so we arrived just after 6pm. It was good to see the house as we are staying there for the ‘Lakes 5’. Must remember to bring a large casserole dish, large plates/bowls and our coffee equipment.
We had relatively early starts on the Saturday and car-shared to the event at Haverthwaite near the south end of Windermere. It was a stunning sunny day with little breeze. We had the chance of using a warm-up map before the start and this was a disaster as I failed to find the first control. The slope was steep with lots of rock underfoot. Once the race started things were a lot better. Loads of contour features in amongst the folded landscape; the bracken was dead and so only impeded progress a little; the trees did not have their leaves on so visibility was good. I made a couple of mistakes, the first one at #8 when I was too low and this cost me about three minutes and then the large mistake at #10 when I was not careful enough with my compass direction. I lost over five minutes here but otherwise the run was quite good and my result was 6th out of a field of 24. View course 8 on RouteGadget.
A visit to Wilf’s Café in Staveley on the way home followed by a meal in the local pub rounded off a pleasant day. On the Sunday Carol had to head home in the early afternoon while Paul & I were staying in the Lakes as I had a meeting on the Monday. We picked a local fell to walk up – easy route with a good track and then the return cross-country. The day was grey and cool but the rain held off.
British Individual and Relays
The British Individual Championships and Relays were on the weekend of 1st and 2nd May at Cannock Chase near to Stafford. Carol & Alan were booked into a B&B nearby at Rugeley while Paul & I had a late booking at a Premier Inn at Stafford. Andy made an even later booking at a B&B in Walsall.
The M6 was not good on the Friday due to Bank holiday traffic and accidents. We came off and explored Warrington – not a good place to find a coffee shop. Then past the salt mines of north Cheshire which was interesting. We met at the event on the Saturday and had loads of time as the start times were well spread out. My run was not very good. I was sloppy leaving #2 but quite quickly got back on track. To find #3 I had to go into a piece of forest with dark green trees; no problem there but the forest floor was covered with ‘self seeded’ small trees some of which were shoulder height. I was looking for a dot knoll and thought I would see a change in the ground but I emerged out the other side of the trees. Relocate on the track and in from the edge of a clearing. Find the control this time But it was on a pile of sticks like a wig-wam. I was not best pleased! Most of the rest of the course was OK except for another compass error at #8, again in shoulder high trees (birch this time) which were marked as rough open on the map. There was then a lot of running on the course and I was slow. I was not pleased with the result of 26th out of 52 competitors (W55L, course 19). Could do a lot better. View the map/courses on RouteGadget.
Sunday was again cloudy with a bitter wind this time. I was first leg of a relay team made up with Carol and Pauline McAdam from STAG. The run was more or less mistake free this time but just not fast enough. Mind you, it should have been mistake-free as most of the legs were TD3 and a couple were TD4. I would have liked some more technical orienteering. However I nearly caught Carol out by return a bit faster than anticipated (but well after the rest of the pack).
The journey home on Sunday afternoon/evening was uneventful as most people were away for a long weekend and so we missed all the traffic.
Forward plan
Must do some more training to be fitter and be sharper with the navigation!
I am a level 4 orienteering coach and a qualified Assessor & Coach Educator. I have been orienteering for xx years and have coached on many foreign tours.