South London Orienteers and Wayfarers

NEW YEAR Trail Challenge

3rd January 2005

Wimbledon Common

Please report any errors in results to the webmaster.

2km Trail Challenge - the rush for the first control - Photo Nigel Clemmens

if you do not wish the photo above to appear on the SLOW website please contact the webmaster

Organiser/Planner Comments:

What a fantastic day! I’m still buzzing. Are you still up in the clouds with me? The weather was great. The number of runners was super. You all seemed to love the courses. What could be better? Well, the computer system, I suppose. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of that one, and if we ever do, it’s bound to be far too technical for me to understand, and so I’m not going to bore you with it. Let’s just say if you can’t find yourself in the results we’d like to hear from you.

A big thank you to all the marshals and other volunteers. For the first time we had every control manned and the “Naughty Numbers” seemed especially well staffed. Helen Winskill was our “Sporting Champion” for the day and also deserves all our thanks. “Sporting Champions” is a scheme where top athletes in a sport get paid to work at a competition within their sport. Besides paying Helen the scheme also provided all the freebies that went to the juniors; this is an idea that should be taken up more often.

As to the races the National Team members ran away with both races with none of the local runners having the pace to keep with them. With hindsight I now prefer my original idea of starting them 10 minutes after the rest of you – at least you’d get to see them that way; but I was out-voted.

So what next:

-         all mainstream orienteering can be found on the SLOW website (www.sloweb.org.uk) or associated links.

-         For those not wishing to engage brain (in fact you’ll find it unnecessary extra weight) there is the Box Hill Fell Race on 22 January, but hurry as the numbers limit is getting close.

-         The next Trail Challenges are a Spring series leading up to the World Cup:

o       19 March Bushy Park

o       3 April Box Hill

o       1 May Peaslake (this one is taking place on the same venue and day as the Long Race of the World Cup.)

Andy Robinson

 

Updated: 10th Jan 2005

For further information contact webmaster@sloweb.org.uk