Chris Curtis Web Site

My home connection is now running at 10Mb – for the same price as I was paying for 2Mb – thank you blueyonder.

I can remember being excited when the “Dartford BASIC” programmes I wrote could be typed into a 96baud (that is 96 bits per second or roughly 0.0000096 Mb!) teletype instead of having to create punch cards, post them to the mainframe and wait for them to post back the results. How the world changes.

It was a perfect day for the first club event of the autumn “season”. I drove down to Goodwood through a calm, slightly misty but sunny morning, enjoying the autumn colours beginning to show on the trees and in the land. There were lots of people there, including quite a few newcomers, but I was soon sorted out and going.

The forest was good. There was almost no undergrowth, and there is a great deal of variety from tall beech to mixed saplings. There are lots of paths and some significant slopes on the chalk downs. The good weather made the forest look great, with dappled sunlight cutting through the trees.

I liked the course too. There was a mixture of long and short legs, some with very simple navigation and others that were more tricky. I went off well, struggled a little about a third of the way through, but was determined to keep moving as fast as possible. I seemed to get a second wind and felt very good for the second half of the course. I really enjoyed myself and I do not think there was a moment where I was standing still or moving slowly, though I did walk briskly up some of the hills!

I was delighted with my result, which is definitely a “PB” for a green course. I finished 17th, higher than ever before, taking around 48 minutes, well within my “target” for doing greens consistently in under an hour I averaged about 12 minutes per km – again my fastest ever for green. Even while out on the course, I realised I was “with the pack” as I regularly caught up with and was caught by other runners. It felt fantastic – like I was a real orienteer! I want to feel that again and will continue the training and determination to try to get better still. One definite pay-off from the training over the summer was the absence of pain. My legs are still very “tight” despite lots of stretching, but although I was very tired by the time I finished, I have had no more than minor “niggles” since.

A good location, a good course, wonderful weather and a good result. Who could ask for more?

I was in two minds whether to go down to the Park O today. I missed last week’s because I had to drive my son to Edinburgh and it is the end of the first week back at school. I have been extremely stiff in my back and hips and not feeling well generally, so I was not bursting with life or energy, but finally I thought I would treat it as a training exercise, and would not worry about it. The drive down was pleasant, though I was a little surprised to hit a patch of thick fog on the south side of the High Weald Hills, though as it lifted quickly into mist, it had the effect of making the South Downs even more beautiful than usual.

I like Hove Park. It is an urban park, well kept but relaxed. It was full of people jogging, dog-walking and the like, with soccer schools taking up huge areas in the middle of the park – small cones and goalposts, as well as lots of boys running around, made additional un-mapped hazards.

I opted for the 3.7km “sprint” course, though I knew that “determined plod” might be more accurate in my case. The navigation was very easy, though a few controls in clearings in shrub beds needed to be approached in the right direction, or you ended up running round the bed looking for a way in. I lost my control descriptions after control 1, but found there was no need to look for any features – just a quick check on the map where there were two controls in roughly the same area. I was running tolerably well for the first 1.5km or so, then really began to feel bad – no particular problem, just “ropy” and vaguely unwell. I had to keep slowing to walk for a bit but decided I might as well finish. Lots of people came past, though I began to feel a bit better after a while and then could keep pace with a few folks.

I finished after 40 minutes or so – I suspect about twice as long as the better runners – but after a big dip in the middle I quite enjoyed myself. Nice park, sociable people and warm but not too hot weather. Perfect early autumn orienteering really.

When I reached home there was a programme celebrating 25 years of the “great north run”. Seeing so many people who are in very much worse shape than me tell stories of how they completed it and seeing how committed they were was very motivational. I simply must get some serious training in, and keep at it.