Chris Curtis Web Site

Interesting navigation before even reaching the event today. We were parked at a College fairly near the town centre in Haywards’ Heath and had a walk across a road into the College sports field, which adjoined “Millennium Wood” which was a mixture of mostly open and rough open areas, with some complex woodlands, further complicated by being frequently visited by the townsfolk, so there was rubbish in a few places, broken trees and branches and lots of paths. The area also has some fast-running streams with deep valleys.

I enjoyed this course. It made sense to me, so I always knew were I was, even if I could not keep up the high speed that some long, very simple legs deserved. The weather was great – with hazy sunshine and a cooling breeze. Seeing the very first bluebell in one of the woods, along with lots of white anemones and a few hedges where the leaves had burst also added to the sense that spring is arriving.

I had my cleanest run for a long time – with no real variation across controls – but was not fast enough across the ground so quite a few people came past me. Seventeenth overall in 52 minutes is a little more respectable than some recent results, so I was happy enough.

There was a definite feel of spring today. At the beginning of the event there was hazy sunshine, though it was never warm, but on the way to the start at Parham Woods, near Storrington, the daffodils and primroses made a yellow carpet on the last of the old leaves.

Parham is an interesting small area, with a great deal of variety. There is a working sawmill in the woods – the company specialises in building wooden barns – so there are quite large areas of young trees to replace what has been felled and many areas have “brashings” (trimmings and thinnings from the trees, left on the ground to catch the unwary ankle). Thankfully, there is little bracken or brambles. The ground is alternately sandy and clay – surprisingly wet in places.

I had a reasonable, but not great, run. I only made one error that cost me significant time, on the way to control 7.  I decided to cut across the compartment before the one I needed, then for some bizarre reason forgot that so when the ground looked like the map near the control, with very similar contour detail, I started trying to home in on it, when all I should have been trying to do was get out of the compartment and into the next one! I was also fairly vague coming out of that control too – though without huge time loss. I did manage to avoid a disastrous last or last but one control. I kept telling myself “concentrate!”.

I was back in 54 minutes – much better than the last couple of runs – but the field was very tightly bunched. The loss of five minutes meant a loss of at least ten places, so I was 27th, out of a huge turn out of 50+ on my course. Not too bad really, especially as I felt fairly ill most of the way round – I think I have a cold coming.

It was a perfect day for orienteering today. The sun was shining , it has not rained for a few days and it was pleasantly warm but there was a pleasant breeze. Oldhouse Warren, near Crawley, has an area of unstructured ancient woodland, with amazing old oak trees, and a compartmentalised area of younger, mostly conifer, forest with occasional ancient oaks. The whole area is run through with lovely streams, often at the bottom of very steep sided valleys.

The course I ran used this terrain very well. This first control was in a re-entrant off a stream valley then a run down the valley to find a stream junction then into featureless forest looking for a very subtle ruined fence that led me into a depression before crossing through the middle of lots of compartments and finally lots of controls in very complex terrain along two streams.

My run was reasonable, without any complete disasters, but lots of minor errors. I was slow to get going, taking 18 minutes to get to control three. I sped up through the compartments, then slowed down towards the end. I made a big parallel error at 12 going up the wrong stream – how often do you get two steep-sided depressions each with a stream on its left? I probably lost four minutes there. I also continued my very bad habit of making a mess of one of the last controls – this time the penultimate one. I convinced myself that I had gone too far, spent time looking around, decided to go a bit further and found the control! Another four minutes lost. Fitness was a problem again – I felt leaden and was very slow over the ground.

I was back in 76 minutes for 4.7km on M45S – not a great time by any stretch of the imagination – about 143% of the winning time. There are times I wonder why I do this sport. I did enjoy this though: the course was just the right mix of physical challenge and mental puzzle and it was a fantastic early spring day to be out in the wild.

UPDATE: The results are in. I was not surprised to be last in M45S but analysing the results was interesting to say the least. Everything good and bad about the run was about navigation. When I was accurate, I was well up with the field for speed across the ground, at least up until the last control or two. I could have been third or fourth except for the mistakes I made at controls 3, 12 and 15, where I knew I was going wrong. The reality was different to what I thought. I was blaming fitness (which is an issue) but this was not the deciding factor – on several controls I was faster than most of the field (I was third on four controls) but I lost time in four to seven minute “chunks” where I went awry on the navigation. If I want to be a better orienteer I need to navigate better – the basic speed over the ground really has improved, even if there is more to do here too.

This Sheffield Forest is near Nutley in the Ashdown Forest, nothing to do with the large industrial city in the north of England!

It was very wet and muddy today. It has rained a great deal recently and rained almost all night too. People were worried about cars becoming stuck on the forest road where we parked – though I did not see this happen. Paths were very difficult indeed, especially the final “run in” to the finish which was at least six inches deep! All this made what is usually a physical area (with 160m of climb on the green course today) even harder. It was very tough out there, but I really enjoyed being back in “real forest” as opposed to some of the more open and park-like areas I have run in recently. Sheffield Forest has some fairly wild areas by Southern standards, including a very technical area with rock outcrops, boulders and very detailed relief that needs careful reading.

I had a mixed run. Generally, I was covering the ground well despite the mud and my new glasses meant I could easily read the fine detail on the map. This has not always been true recently and the new specs made a huge difference. With a few controls though, I found myself worrying too much about the fine detail instead of simplifying and getting to the control – this lost me a few minutes. On the other hand, being able to read the fine detail meant that I felt very good through the intricate navigation in and around the rocks and was one of the fastest in the field through there. I made big errors on two controls, which cost me a lot of time. On 2 I was quickly into the broad area near the control. The map had the control on a distinctive tree by the only thicket in the compartment. From some distance, I spotted a stand of dark green yews, with a single oak and ran to it. I could not find the control and having spent ages I had to go off, relocate and try again, only to come back to the same place. Eventually I headed off to a clear linear feature nearby and began to follow it, only to spot a much smaller thicket but with a very obvious control flag. I must have lost nearly ten minutes here. The last control was similarly horrid. I ran on a bearing towards the path marked on the map, which I duly found and followed, only to realise after several minutes that this path was was not mapped as such and might even have been a deer path through some fairly open woodland. Fortunately, I realised where I was, but had a tough climb and had to run back to the control before heading to the finish.

I was back in 79 minutes – at 18 minutes per km the slowest for a long time. I was quite disappointed with myself, especially as I could account for losing at least 20 minutes by poor navigation. The results cheered me a little. I beat several people who usually beat me (and some who I usually beat, beat me!) and came 20th overall. Without the big errors I could have been in the top ten.

It was a bit too physically challenging to be completely enjoyable, but I loved being back in “real” forest, especially as there was very little path running and lots of following streams and valleys through the landscape.

Well, I took a deep breath and bought a new camera – A Canon 400D. I used SLR 35mm cameras for many years, but when I went digital I could not afford a digital SLR but was frustrated by the two “point and shoots” I had even though these were fairly high up the range with manual controls and so on.

The new camera (with an additional telephoto zoom lens) cost a lot of money, but I love it already. There is something natural and instinctive about using an SLR – it was how I learnt photography and it still feels right.

Photos soon when I have had a chance to make some.