Chris Curtis Web Site

It was bitterly cold this morning with a strong easterly wind, so as soon as I parked at Parham Woods near Storrington I was off through registration, map copying and at the start. I wanted to run to warm up, and I later found I was the fastest in the field to control 1, so this seemed to work.

I had never been to Parham before.  The land is rolling, quite sandy in some places, with clay in others, covered by a varied open woodland including some beautiful stands of Beech. At this time of year, everything is a grey-brown with dusty leaves underfoot. The foresters had been busy, with lots of brashings in some areas, though very few brambles.

I liked the course. It had long legs, with no simple or obvious path runs, and some much shorter technical legs all of which constantly required you to change your approach.

I liked the look of the leg to control 3 and would have been proud to plan it. It was quite long, and was going to require some running on a bearing, in order to pick up some strong handrails nearer to the control, with a plunge back into the forest at the end. I set out quite happily but must have been way off on my bearing. I only realised when I spotted the start through the trees – a long way away from where I should have been. Although the navigation from there to the control was actually easier than the route I had planned, the distance added was more than half a km, so I lost 5 minutes. I dropped from 6th in the field to 40th and felt very embarassed and demoralised.

I have been trying not to let that sort of disaster ruin the whole race, so I gritted my teeth and moved on. I made up quite a lot of time, despite a couple of slow legs, and was pleased to finish in 53 minutes and 17th overall. Without the disaster I might have made the top ten.

I am very pleased with the spring series of races (of which today’s was the third). I have finished each green in an hour or less, and though my placings have not always reflected my increase in speed, I am scoring well in the league. More importantly, I am going out with more confidence, running with a much better state of concentration and cleaner approach to navigation. Much more to do, but if I can sustain this  I will actually feel like a “proper” orienteer.

Having had a week of pain, illness and antibiotics with yet another abscess on my jaw (thankfully with an operation now booked for mid-March that should solve the problem) I was very unsure how things would go, but decided that as I had not run on the North Ashdown area before and as it was fairly close to home, I would give it a try.

The start and finish were at the top of a broad and deep downslope looking over typical Ashdown Forest terrain – patches of woodland with a lot of heather, gorse and tussock “rough open”, with mown “rides” and cleared, sandy paths criss-crossing too. A lovely place for a walk in the summer, yesterday’s weather was cold and damp, with thick fog hanging on the low land – very beautiful but rather dark and dull as the photo shows.

I went off very gingerly but did not feel too bad. I applied my recent strategy – going steadily rather than run and stop, and keeping the map orientated and “thumbed” at all times – and quite happily found the first few controls. Beginning to head up-slope, the physical impact began to take its toll. Although the ground was very runnable, the tussocks and other vegetation were wearing, and the slopes were a major factor – I began to navigate using contours to avoid the worst of the steep parts. Even so, I soon began to feel pretty rough. A major mistake where I came off a control 90 degrees to the right, giving me a massive climb to get back on track, added to the feeling of gloom. The worst was that I knew it was wrong while I was doing it, but was in this strange mental state of oxygen deprivation and feeling sorry for myself, so it did not register.
After an internal debate about whether to give up or not, I decided that I would grit my teeth and get round. Above all, I wanted to try to take each leg on its merits, rather than go to pieces because of one big error. I managed that fairly well, making reasonable progress and feeling poorly but manageably so.

It was only over the last couple of controls – which were a long cross-slope, then up-slope slog – that I really felt wretched and slowed a great deal.

I was amazed and pleased to find that I had been faster than it felt. Another race where I was under my target of one hour and although I was 28th (in a very large field) I was in touch (within 10 minutes or so) with some good orienteers and even beat one or two of the people who usually beat me.

Another race with only one big mistake – costing me ten minutes and maybe 15 places though. One of these days it will all come together!

It is a long drive to Hailsham from home, and after two very late nights from being involved in a school show, I wondered about staying in bed. I felt very tired by the time I got there, but decided I would practice my new and reasonably successful strategy, which has several “ingredients”:

• Try to maintain steady pace (as opposed to “run and stop”)
• thumb the map very closely, so as always to be in close contact
• keep the map orientated at all times
• try to choose routes that simplify navigation
• Do not give up if there is a problem – try harder!

Very obvious really, but it is surprising how often I come back realising that I have ignored one of those.

Park Wood was in outstanding condition. It is often very wet and muddy there, but weeks of drought meant that the surface was just right, with a cushioning carpet of leaves. The lack of brambles and general open nature made for perfect orienteering.

I went off well. I was 4th at the first control and 6th overall at the second. My big mistake was on the way to control 3: I allowed earth walls to lead me astray. Subconsciously I stayed with them, rather than following my bearing. I soon realised but was not entirely sure where I was. I decided to keep going and soon spotted control 12 from where I could run round easily to 3. This was a fairly slick recovery but I lost 4 minutes overall – enough to move me to 17th overall.

I clawed my way back to 13th, thanks mainly to nailing control 5 (I was 3rd on that leg) but then was slow finding 7, kept on pace thereafter until messing up 13 where I started quite well then drifted northwards until I allowed a vegetation boundary to lead me round the paths I could have followed anyway.

I finished 19th in an hour. Given how I was feeling, a fairly good result, but could have been so much better. I was faster than the eventual winner on several legs – so I have the skills and even some of the fitness – but it is about becoming consistent, with every leg being a good leg.

The new strategy works and I will keep to it. Apart from anything else it keeps me in a better state of mind, thinking about the whole course, not getting led astray or carried away by one or two legs.

I spent a couple of extremely pleasant hours this afternoon out in the Tilgate Woods (near Crawley) checking out some queries on “armchair planned” courses for a forthcoming event. The terrain is much more interesting than it looked on the map and there is a real pleasure in moving fairly slowly, seeing just how accurate the map is by spotting every feature. Carlos and I made some changes to our courses, which should make them much better.

What was a little frightening was that we managed to misplace ourselves slightly a couple of times while walking around. I think the issue was really about having two of us there – you concentrate much better on navigation when you are on your own and have to take full responsibility.

One worry about the area was the undergrowth – brambles and such. It is thick enough in several “open woodland” areas to consider changing the map – and would certainly change route choices if we did so. We will take some advice before deciding what to do.

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