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A successful event at Bradfield Moor - despite the rain
When push comes to shove!
BRADFIELD MOOR, 1 December 2002, Badge Event
WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN US ON A COACHING WEEKEND IN THE LAKE
DISTRICT?
Training
SYO CHRISTMAS MEAL, 13 December 2002
I'll be back (Clumber Park 22.12.02)
My Dream Comes True
Armchair Orienteering-Relocation
Fixtures
South Yorkshire Orienteers Summer Races in the Park
CompassSport Cup
The whole event at Bradfield Moor could have been a disaster because of the parking problems. Despite laying tons of hardcore on the farmer's track prior to the event, the relentless rain was determined to make the parking as difficult as possible. Even the first few cars seemed to get easily bogged down. However, the sterling work of Guy Seaman's team of SHUOC helpers saved the day.
Once out into the forest and on the moor everybody seemed to enjoy the new area (mapped by Dave Peel) and their courses which had been planned by Tim Tett. Neither were there any gremlins to make mischief with the e-punching. We now look forward to a successful British Champs.
With Colin still not running, we saw this event from the Enquiries Tent.
We had been to the area the day before to lend a hand putting up the new SYO tent. It is not difficult to put up but does seem to benefit from lots of pairs of hands. And the gale force wind did not help. Nor the rain. Nor the cold. There was lots of threading involved, and the big decision was "Do I keep my gloves on to keep my hands warm but fumble with the poles?" or "Do I take my gloves off to make threading easier, but risk getting cold hands, and still fumble with the poles?" Everyone agreed it had been easier to erect in Robin's barn! However, we managed it and it was still standing on Sunday morning which must say something for the design of the thing.
We then tried putting up the old purple tent. Straightforward square design, been put up hundreds of times before. But not by us. The weather on Sunday morning had not abated so again were struggling with wind and squalling rain. It seemed that keeping the canvas on the poles while at the same time trying to keep ancient poles together in the right places and at the right angles, was going to be impossible. At one time we even thought we might have to have our enquiries "tent" in the car!
Putting up tents was interesting enough, but we were constantly being distracted by the small army of SHUOC members who were parking the cars. I mean literally parking the cars. Although a layer of hardcore had been spread up the track and into the field, the deep mud and continual rain of the previous few days meant that cars were churning through the layer into the mud and getting into all sorts of trouble. Consequently they required pushing into the field. The noise of over-revving cars from the safe haven of our tent sounded most alarming, but was nearly always followed by a cheer from the SHUOC team as the skidding car was pushed round the muddy bend and through the field gates.
They all looked pretty wet and muddy after a while and some I know abandoned their run to continue to push cars -I wasn't sure if they had got too tired to get psyched up to run, or that they were simply enjoying a new challenge so much!
Bet it'll be a long time before they offer to do car parking again!
We weren't sure how busy we were going to be for entries on the day. We wondered if the weather might have put some long distance travellers off. In the end we had a lot of EOD runners, both for badge and the colour courses. Despite the horrible weather at the beginning of the event, we did end up with some blue sky and a break from the rain.
When things quietened down in the tent, Colin and I braved the mud and walked up to the finish. Runners were pouring into the finish from all over the moor, and all seemed to have positive comments to make.
With the improving weather and a downhill slope, getting the cars out of the car park field was no problem at all!
Doreen Best
You don't have to be a junior to benefit from training.
Why not join us in the Lake District on the weekend of March 29th/30th?
The idea would be to drive up to the Lakes early on the Saturday morning and to
do some training in Grizedale Forest and Tarn Hows.
We would then stay in Hawkshead Youth Hostel overnight.
On the Sunday we would run in the Simpson Ground Badge event.
If you are interested contact Colin Best (0114 2302621)
The following training has been organised for SYO juniors:-
Feb 1st 2003 Contours (Burbage Quarries)
March 15th Relocation (Ecclesall Woods)
March 29th / 30th Traffic light orienteering (in the Lake District)
April 12th Entry and exit at Controls (Ecclesall Woods)
So far the SYO juniors involved have been:-
John Berry
David Hakes
Tom Holmes
Luke Smythe
(all from Bradfield School)
James Sabin
Chris Bliss
(from Wales High School)
If you would like to join the group and do some training please contact Colin Best on 0114 2302621.
The sessions last two hours at the most, from 10.30 to 12.30 and concentrate on particular skills. So far we have had sessions focusing on using the compass and attack points.
For the weekend of March 29th/30th we plan something more ambitious-to drive up to the Lake District on Saturday morning, do some training on two areas on the Saturday; stay in a Youth Hostel on the Saturday night and then run in the Badge event at Simpson Ground on the Sunday.
Fourteen SYO stalwarts braved the thick mist, cold and rain and made it to the Grouse Inn, up on the moors above Carver.
The pub was especially welcoming on such a wintry night, with a log fire roaring up the chimney, and plenty of Christmas cheer. The food was excellent with mountains of vegetables to sate even the largest appetites, and very competitively priced.
A pleasant and merry evening was had by all.
Thanks to Brian Shaw for organising it, and we hope to see even more members next year.
Colin "Arnie" Best
I've just come back from doing my first orienteering run since breaking my hip nine months ago. I did the Light Green (4.15k) in 50 mins. It was hard work and I could only really trot round. Nevertheless just to be able to do a jog felt so good.
I can remember back to April when just being able to get from my bed in the Northern General to the washroom on crutches was so difficult that I cried buckets of self-pity, wondering how I was ever going to recover.
Well I have recovered but slowly and even now the doctors don't like the idea of my running. Non-impact exercise - swimming and cycling - is what they say. When I said that I wanted to get back to 25 miles a week running the doctor went apoplectic! However I was able to say that I would be sensible; I would only run on soft surfaces e.g. grass and never on road and that I would run only once a week to start with.
I met John Palmer whilst at Clumber today. John is a member of NOC and he and I were of a similar standard until he had a problem with his hip some years ago and now he has an artificial hip. He tells me that he doesn't run at all now but cycles a lot and plays golf and that is sufficient to allow him to run greens and M55S. So I think that I'll keep to a mixed regime of swimming, cycling and running with orienteering at the weekends.
I certainly enjoyed my Light Green run and found it sufficiently challenging to keep me interested. If I can only run Greens and short courses in the future I think I'll be happy with that. Just to run through forest, sun lit preferably, and find those little red and white banners is a real pleasure which, nine months ago, I didn't think I'd experience again.
John Dyson
Yes - running into a near-finish line at the recent Bradfield Moor event and collecting my performance sheet a minute later fulfilled my dream of 1985. What dream you ask, from Squire Thurg, son of Dy, the infamous SYO News cartoon character penned by Rob Pearson about his club chairman twenty years ago?
Those of you orienteering in that period may remember my efforts - generally successful - to use micro-computers to provide results at larger orienteering and running events. They certainly speeded things up with fewer folk, but we still had punched cards to check and washing lines of small cards with sticky labels. Being fairly early into this application of micros, I soon saw that my systems would be overtaken by more sophisticated equipment such as IBM PCs and laptops.
But one particular vision that occurred to me, perhaps influenced by the success of bank cards for dispensing cash from holes in the wall. Why not give each orienteer a plastic card of their own, and each time they visited a control, put the card in a small box with a radio transmitter, wait for the green light, and off to the next control? If bank cards could be personalised, then so could these cards, and you could have them placed at the start and finish lines too.
Instead of rushing out to develop and patent such a system, I changed my job to a more demanding role, my children went to university and my orienteering became less frequent.
As we now know, the Scandinavians developed the system I had envisaged, using a "dibber" rather than a plastic card, and flashing a red light instead of a green one -perhaps better for use in the forest. And so production of results is now far simpler, quicker and more informative: a real improvement in all respects, and my dream of 1985 has come true.
The whole point of orienteering is to navigate at speed. Navigating slowly is easy-as I found out when I walked round the Light Green at Ecclesall Woods recently. All around me people were dashing around like headless chickens whilst I was carefully navigating from point to point picking up every little detail and finishing in front of some of the ones who I had seen running at speed but getting nowhere fast.
However/the challenge of orienteering is to travel as fast as you can navigate, balancing speed with navigation. Often you get the balance wrong and try to go faster than your navigation can cope with and finish up getting lost and not knowing where you are.
A strategy for relocation is needed!
1. As soon as you are not certain where you are SLOW DOWN and try to pick up features you see around you on the map.
2. If this doesn't work STOP. Find at least two distinct features which you would expect to find on the map. Try to match the pattern of those features with the map. If you can match map to ground there's only one place you can be.
3. If that does not work think back to your last control and try to remember the features you passed since then. Is there a chance that you made a 180° ERROR when you left your last control?
4. If after one or two minutes you haven't worked out where you are NAVIGATE TO THE NEAREST BIG LINE FEATURE e.g. a path , a fence, a ditch. Once you have found the big feature move towards a location on that big feature that will allow you to locate yourself precisely and then carry on.
5. If this fails and / or you are fed up you have a number of options-make your way to the finish, ask someone if you have to!
Relocation
If you are lost, don't waste time wandering about.
a. Identify the area of the map you know you are in
b. Look for the nearest distinct line feature
c. Using your compass head out for this as soon as you can.
d. Locate yourself precisely on this line feature (X).
e. Continue navigating carefully to the control
- see the Fixtures page.
Seven consecutive Thursdays for balmy summer evenings. This is a series of short races in the local parks of Sheffield and Rotherham, using maps at different scales to test the all round skills of the competitors.
Each event will consist of one course, orange/light green in standard with an estimated winning time of approximately 20 mins. Overprinted, bagged maps.
June 5 Valley Park, Rotherham 1:7500
June 12 Bingham Park, Sheffield 1:7500
June 19 Clifton Park, Rotherham 1:5000
June 26 Graves Park, Sheffield 1:7500
July 3 Concord Park, Sheffield 1:10000
July 10 Myers Grove, Sheffield 1:5000
July 17 Norfolk Park, Sheffield 1:5000
Classes
M/W18-, M/W18 to 40, M/W45+
PRIZES To the winners of each class based on the best four performances over the series.
Entry fees: £2 per race
For more information and to enter contact:- Colin Best email colinallanb@yahoo.co.uk
CompassSport Cup is an inter club competition. There are 7 teams within each club with particular age groups running colour coded equivalent courses.
Brown - Open
Short Brown - MW20-, MW35
Blue 1 - MW18-, W45/50
Blue 2 - W Open
Green - W45+, M60+
Lt Green - W18-, M16-
Orange - M/W14-
Unfortunately it isn't as easy as it once was for SYO to win as we have fewer juniors than ever - hence the priority to coach those we have got - and our M/W21s are ageing into WM35s and WM40s.
You simply run in your designated class and the fastest three on each course constitutes the team. So if you turn up and run in your designated class you could count as part of the SYO team.
The first important round is on March 16th.
The larger the SYO turnout the better.
So put the date in your diaries and get in training!
Last modified: July 25 2003 10:22.
