Well done over 100 runners. Thanks to the Spencer for hosting us, and Don McKerrow for organising and planning.
Lost property – SIAC card # 8641547 . Get in touch if you picked it up in the pub by mistake
View routes, and please add yours: Routegadget
Series results coming soon
Here are the results of this year’s Box Hill Fell Race.
Many thanks to Harold Wyber for leading on the organisation and the several members of SLOW who provided the volunteer help.
And thanks to the Stepping Stones Pub for hosting us.
Note on Heading Photo: Sorry the SLOW photographer didn’t make the prizegiving. This photo has Box Hill in the background and runners in the foreground (two of whom are also orienteers). It was taken at the Surrey Cross-Country Championships earlier this month.
Ally @photogirlruns (who is a professional photographer) ran and tweeted some shots (click on each image.)
Well done 70 runners. Thanks to the Hand In Hand for hosting us. And thanks to club captain Peter Huzan for organizing and planning.
I hope you enjoyed a lovely evening. It stayed dry when it needed to. Lots of runners this time. Please come along to the other events in the series. Thank you to the helpers Gordon, Sue, Heikki, Ed, Tom C and Steve.
View routes, and please add yours: Routegadget
Here are the results for the OK Nuts Trophy races on Hankley Common on Sunday November 24th 2019. These was also the 2019 South-East Long Distance Championships. We were also pleased to be hosting the Royal Logistics Corps Championships.
My principal aim when planning is to make the courses fun and Hankley with its wonderful fast terrain is not difficult to plan for fun. I tried my best to keep you in the forest and out of the rough open heather and off the paths for the technical courses as much as possible. I hope you felt I succeeded.
I was helped by Dave Peel’s largely resurveyed map. It was the first time that the area used the LIDAR data so it enabled me to use some sites as the data allows the ground to be mapped more accurately and brings out some of the nuances of the area that weren’t previously shown.
It’s always difficult to thank everyone involved but from my perspective, I’d like to thank Clive Caffall my controller for his help and advice. Andy and Karen Jones, Ian Moran, Paul Couldridge and Dorte Torpe Hanson who helped put out all the controls were fantastic, as were the collectors who are too many to mention. SLOW is very lucky to have so many keen, reliable and capable members
Congratulations to this year’s Senior OK Nuts Trophy winners:
Alistair Masson (Interlopers), and
Laura Robertson (Edinburgh Southern).
The junior OK Nuts winners were:
Troy Southall (Southdowns, M16) and
Imogen Pieters (South Yorkshire, W14)
(Courses in alphabetical order. Arranged by classes and by courses.)
Please add your route!
Routegadget A3 Courses (Black, Brown, Short Brown, Blue)
Routegadget A4 Courses (Short Blue, Green, Short Green, Very Short Green, Light Green, Orange, Yellow, White.)
Monday morning – Planner’s Comments added
Monday afternoon – Route upload enabled, OK Nuts winners paragraph
Monday evening – results – 1) Sheralee Bailey moved from Blue-Other to Blue-W40, 2) South-East Champs Medallists list added
Tuesday evening – minor layout changes
Friday – small change to SE Medallists after club notification
Thanks to The Albert for hosting our race in Richmond Park this evening. And thanks to Sue Carter for planning and organizing.
Planner’s Comments
Thanks to everyone who came out to run in the first Night-O of the
season. I hope you enjoyed your runs.
It can be tricky planning on an area we use quite often. I managed to
find a few control sites we’ve not used before and put in as many legs as I could with some route choice. I hope it provided a good challenge for you.
The deer had been quite frisky in the weeks leading up to the event. One stag in particular was guarding a site I wanted to put a control on. Bellowing at me, each time I went near it. I decided to give that site a miss and put that control somewhere else. Although the deer do seem to calm down as the nights close in more quickly. I hope the deer didn’t give anyone any trouble.
And big thanks to the people who helped me with the event. Gordon,
Steve, Sarah, Paul S, Paul C and Lulu. Their help made the event run smoothly.
See you at an orienteering event again soon.
Please add your route (and view others): Routegadget
Splitsbrowser link to follow
Results from the 12th London City Race which took place in the City of London on Saturday 21 September 2019, have now been published.
Update 1 (Sunday evening): The results were first published on Saturday evening and have been updated/finalised on Sunday evening. Note that Routegadget lists the preliminary results.
Update 2 (Tuesday lunchtime): The Men’s Ultravets course and results are now correctly shown on Routegadget.
Amendments to results
Unfortunately a number of courses were affected by the unexpected blocking of a road for part of the morning. The legs which were impacted by this have been removed from the results:
Course 1 Leg 24-25, Course 2 Leg 17-18, Course 3 Leg 25-26, Course 4 Leg 13-14, Course 5 Leg 23-24, Course 7 Legs 2-3 and 3-4, Course 11 Legs 7-8 and 8-9. We hope that this didn’t affect your run too badly. We are also aware that the Women’s Elite map had part of the control descriptions obscuring a possible route choice – our apologies for this. Alan Rosen (Controller)
For result queries please contact the organiser, Alan Leakey, at 
Results from the Friday campus sprint that kicked off the London City Race Weekend at Middlesex University, are published by organisers London Orienteering Klubb here. Results from the Greenwich Park and Urban Race which closed the weekend are on the DFOK website.
My plan for this event was to provide a mix of running through some iconic/historic locations coupled with a degree of technical challenge en route and especially to test interpretive skills and route choice towards the end of the courses in the Barbican. To start, I hope I offered an early but simple introduction to the Barbican, before unleashing you in the City and then returning you to the Barbican for some complex multi-level orienteering.
Despite regularly visiting the area, almost daily in the final stages, and updating the map several times prior to the Start, the road closure which affected travel to and from #255 was significantly disruptive and did not appear to have commenced until after final course checks had been completed. Voiding the leg was the obvious outcome to be fair to all.
Orienteering is about precision and there were a few instances where my course design and control descriptions led to a 50/50 chance that your decision was correct, and which I hope to discuss below.
Some of you will have visited an alternative location for #234, which had been correctly placed out but moved by me to a nearby stair foot. This had been my original planned location but which was adjusted following description discussions with the Controller. On learning that my re-siting was incorrect, I returned and returned it to its proper location.
Some comment was received about whether #205 was a guess as to whether it sat in the lower corridor or above. The location of the circle centre placed it outside the lower corridor and because the map showed that the W-E and N-S corridors were runnable, I think that the control could only be considered to be above.
#243 however turned out to be coin toss as well as a mapping issue, given the level of detail shown in the circle. I started my plans in earnest with the junior courses which were placed in simple and obvious locations to minimise route choice decisions and, for tired runners returning to the Barbican, I used some of these to challenge whether they were above or below. As there was no logic which could point to the control being above, some runners will have gone to the lower location which was a valid location.
A final lack of precision led to the control description on the W Elite course covering a potentially valid route choice albeit via an unknown open or closed gate into the Temple. Having covered the gateway, runners selecting that route were taking a chance that the gate would be open and unfortunately some found this not to be the case.
Thank you to everyone who volunteered on the day, especially those who relieved my burden putting out and bringing back controls and to Alan Rosen, Controller, for his counsel, challenge and persistence in encouraging me to improve my plans.
I hope some of you had the opportunity to look up and enjoy your surroundings and the late Summer sunshine.
Well, we got there in the end. Many of you will be aware of the challenges that we had hosting this year’s event, but hopefully they were forgotten on the day as our replacement venue shone in the sun. We were fortunate once again in the weather with near perfect conditions and only slightly hindered by the unknown booking of the grass quadrangle for another event. But on the day gave us access to the large lecture theatre to provide more space – and extra toilets.
We hope you enjoyed the courses
The Planner, Andy Johnson, has referred to the road closure that affected some courses on the day. It is an illustration that that there are always some things out of the event teams’ control. In this case it was an emergency replacement to a damaged large glass skylight set in the pavement; which meant that the road was closed after the first start and then reopened before the last start! And as the road is part of St Bart’s hospital grounds the road closure was not listed on the City of London website and we obviously not aware of it in advance. Ironically the attempt at replacement failed and the workmen will have to come back on another day! What disappointed me more than the closure itself was the attitude of a significant number of competitors after they finished, berating the Download team about a problem that we were already aware of and responding to. A much wiser orienteer than me once told me of his 10-Minute Rule… wait 10 minutes after you finish to calm down – and only then raise your concern in a reasonable manner. An approach that far too many orienteers would do well to adopt.
And, as is far too common, we had reports of a few people crossing out of bounds or sliding through ‘closed’ gates behind a member of the pubic. Whilst we don’t have enough evidence to be certain enough to disqualify particular individuals it can be pretty obvious to everyone on occasion from the amazing splits in results. Recognise that all you do is fool yourself – and lose the respect of your fellow competitors.
And unfortunately, I spent today responding to complaints about our usage of the Barbican. In particular, the number of inconsiderate competitors that rang the bell of the apartment block by the start, apparently expecting to use the toilets of private apartments. We accept we did not have adequate toilet provision early on at assembly and the public toilets were not clearly signed, however late starters are never penalised. We will do better on this in future years.
The planning for the 2019 London City Race went from first draft course to start line in 21 days so apologies if that showed in some respects but I hope everyone enjoyed running through both the historic and modern parts of the City. Understanding the Barbican is always a challenge and congratulations to the juniors in particular for coping so well with the unusual terrain.
Well done to Andy for setting some challenging courses and all the logistics on the day, ably assisted by SLOW members. Thank you both to Don McKerrow for being able to update the map at very short notice and to Rae and Nigel at BML for their help with map printing.
Unfortunately a number of courses were affected by the unexpected blocking of a road for part of the morning. The legs which were impacted by this have been removed from the results:
Course 1 Leg 24-25. Course 2 Leg 17-18. Course 3 Leg 25-26. Course 4 Leg 13-14. Course 5 Leg 23-24. Course 7 Legs 2-3 and 3-4. Course 11 Legs 7-8 and 8-9
We hope that this didn’t affect your runs too badly.
We are also aware that the Women’s Elite map had part of the control descriptions obscuring a possible route choice – our apologies for this.
Plans are already underway for next year, so make a note in your diaries:
Friday Evening, 11th September, Olympic Park Stratford
Saturday 12th September, Rotherhithe
Sunday 13th September, Kings Cross & St Pancras
Thanks to everyone who came to the final park race of the series.
The two areas used are maybe not the most challenging technically but with the bends of the river, and the depth after a bit of rain, the skill level required increases. Also a unique feature of both parks is how close you are to major transportation (M4 and Piccadilly Line) and yet in a navigational world of your own!
Boston Manor House is well worth a visit once renovation work is complete and we have to thank Linda Massey for her support in using the area.
Additional thanks from me go to our helpers on the night: Don McKerrow, Sue Carter, Steven Clelland and Ralph Dadswell, as well as Vicky Whaley, my neighbour Chris, Gordon Parker and John Owens for ensuring I was able to get the equipment to the right places at the rights times without a car. Of course Fiona Tam also put in a power of effort on the night making sure that the series results were correct and updated and of course managing to coordinate another successful park race series.
Park Race Series – Nine Summer Evening Orienteering Races
Look forward to seeing everyone either at the City Race of for the start of the night and street-o series.
You will see some bizarre numbers in the splits files, sorry. Some of the controls were out due to me synchronising them to the wrong master station.
