Chris Curtis Web Site

This was the last Saturday event before the summer break and I was keen to do as well as I could. The weather was perfect, though perhaps a little warm. Temperature was around 23C in bright sunshine with a pleasant breeze coming in from the very blue sea, perhaps a mile away.

Buckingham Park is a classic urban park: a rectangle of land, most of which is close-cut grass for football and cricket, with children’s playgrounds, tennis courts and some very mature shrubberies which were almost “micro-woodlands” dotting the top end of the area. The course made good use of this terrain and, for the first couple of controls, the small buildings to one side. Inevitably in such a small area there was a lot of zigzagging from one side to the other, and re-visiting areas from different angles. With the terrain, there was a lot of running on a straight line – often to a control you could see from 400m away!

I felt fairly good. I was running along reasonably well, feeling fairly comfortable and enjoying the navigation. This was mostly fairly simple, but did require attention to avoid going wrong and required a wide view of the position of controls in the park, rather than detailed close navigation. In the end I had a smooth run with no great time lost. Position was purely down to running speed – which is not my strongest skill at the best of times and I am still being bothered by some heel and hip pain. Even so, I was round in 28 minutes at 7 1/2 minutes per km which is my fastest ever for the distance and I beat a few of the “usual suspects” too. Not a bad end to the season – even if the thing was won in about 17 minutes!

This event was very local to me, so I was there early to help with car parking and instead of my usual practice of setting off in the early part of the field, I went out in the middle. This, and the small size of a park compared with a normal venue, meant that I could always see other orienteers – quite an unusual experience.

I enjoyed this run. Goffs Park in Crawley is a pleasant mixture of grass, trees and paths with enough complexity to be interesting. With the use of St Wilfrid’s school grounds today, it was ideal for a sprint event.

I set off steadily, aiming to run the whole way rather than “bomb out” towards the end. It went well until I lost a minute on the way to control 9: going the shorter way through trees rather than the faster way around on the grass. I went to 10 easily enough then lost over 5 minutes on the way to 11. I did not trust the obvious path and went along the edge of the trees – but did not see them turn. I ended up as far from the control as where I started and confused to boot. After that, it was hard to keep pushing and later analysis shows the error cost me ten places!

Still, I felt good. The injury still nags, but was better than last week and I felt fitter.

It was already 25C when I left home to drive to Hove. Although it was a little hazy over the sea the sky was clear and the sun intense, so by the time I was ready to run it was at least 28C – too hot by any reasonable standard.

This was a sprint event round Hove Park. About 3.5km with 22 controls, so many controls were very close. Even tiny mistakes in navigation were going to make a big difference. I made a mistake at control 2 (going right instead of left for a few seconds – d’Oh!) and came round the wrong side of a hedge at control 15 but otherwise the navigation was slick and smooth. It was the running that was not up to scratch. I am horrified how much the fitness goes after a few weeks of inactivity, though thankfully there were no real problems with the injury sites. The heat did not help either. I felt as if my brain was boiling at times and I could not sustain any real pace.

I finished well down the field, but confidently enough. Now begins the process of becoming fit again.