Category: Notes

My race itinerary for the next fortnight:

26 July, 12:58 – M21A, Velika Planina North, Slovenia.
27 July, 12:38 – M21A, Velika Planina South, Slovenia.
28 July, 13:56 – M21A, Letus, Slovenia.
29 July, 12:48 – M21A, Zavodice, Slovenia.
30 July, 10:24 – M21A, Ticjak, Slovenia.
1 Aug, 19:15 – Clued-O, Sheen Common, London.
5 Aug, 12:45 – M21S, Alvie, Scotland.
6 Aug, 13:20 – M21S, Balavil, Scotland.
7 Aug, 10:05 – M21S, Inshriach West, Scotland.
8 Aug, 16:00 – Open, Kingussie Sprint Race, Scotland.
9 Aug, 10:54 – M21S, Culbin, Scotland.
10 Aug, 11:35 – M21S, Camerory, Scotland.
11 Aug, 12:13 – M21S, Anagach West, Scotland.

I hope it cools down in Slovenia sometime before I get there a week from now. It’s going to be tough racing in these kinds of temperatures:

I passed the 1000km mark on my bike today, 77 days after buying it. The figure is based on my cycle computer’s odometer which I don’t always have clipped in, so I’ve probably gone a bit further than that. I was pretty pleased to be averaging 13km a day, until I realized my basic weekday commute is 10.5km there and back. Looking at my training logs, it looks like the commute accounts for around 1/3rd of my time in the saddle.

Looking forward to the next 1000km, hopefully some of this will come from a cross-England bike ride across northern England I’d like to do once the weather gets a bit more stable and summer deigns to arrive…

I’m planning on going to up to 21 22 events in the next six weeks. Probably don’t need to bother with doing my own training if doing this kind of volume…

14 June – BAOC Worthy Down, Winchester
16 June – BPTT
17 June – SAX Knole Park
19 June pm – SLOW Richmond trail challenge 10K
20 June pm – TVOC Park Wood, Bradenham
21 June pm – LOK Hampstead Heath
23 June – BPTT or HAVOC Langdon Hills
24 June – DFOK Shooters Hill
26 June pm – MVOC Hogsmill
27 June pm – TVOC Bloom Wood, Marlow
30 June – BPTT or SAX Mote Park
1 July – SLOW Ham Riverside Frolic
3 July pm – SLOW Reigate Priory
7 July – BPTT
8 July – Bedfords CP Frolic or Tottenham 5M or see TdF
10 July pm – TVOC Hughenden, High Wycombe
11 July pm – Reigate Priory 10K
14 July – BPTT
15 July – Great Capital Run 10K
17 July pm – SLOW Wimbledon Common East “Mobile-O”
18 July pm – TVOC Hill End, Oxford (poss)
19 July pm – Great City Race 5K
21 July – BPTT 5K
22 July – MVOC Epsom & Ashtead Commons

…then off to Slovenia and Scotland to do 12 more in the next three weeks.

I’ve updated my VM results table with this year’s results, from the races last weekend. (I incidentally wasn’t there this time, having been to the last 7.)

Roger (JOK & TVOC) is running his 1000th orienteering event tomorrow.

I haven’t been keeping quite such a close track – I think I started 13 years ago, back in 1994 (a Yellow course at Archerfield was my first competitive race) and I’ve raced on around 240 areas altogether, based on the maps I’ve got sitting around in my binders. That’s on average 18 areas per year. So it’ll be 2049 before I pass this total. I’ll be happy if I’m able to run at all then, aged 69!

I ran in 48 races last year though, and I’m planning to be similarly ambitious this year, so maybe it won’t be that long.

Here’s how I’m getting GPS tracks for my recent orienteering races.

I’m using a Navi GPS (£80) bought from Storage Depot, with an SD memory card (£15) to log the route.

I download the data as NMEA sentences via a memory card reader and then convert it to GPX with GPS Babel, and then upload it to RouteGadget. I can also convert it to KML for displaying on Google Earth, or use GPS Visualizer to create altitude-coloured images with dots showing each log point.

I’ve also bought a Holox (£35) off eBay; which, when it arrives, and when Nokia fix a bug in Python S60, I’ll be able to use with my mobile phone recording the data that it sends via Bluetooth. Unlike the Navi GPS, the Holox is ultra-sensitive and very fast at acquiring fixes. I have a Nokia N73 phone, I plan to use NMEA Info to record the data, which a friend has written. I’ve learnt a bit of Python so I’ll be able to hopefully add some orienteering-specific features, e.g. a minimalistic “Sports race” mode, or a “Race start/end” button, to the application.

Just got back from Switzerland after a superb week orienteering around Zermatt. Pics/results to follow once I get some sleep/work done – for now, take a look at the great pictures & writeup at Wadd Squad.

48 hours from now (1022 CET on Sunday) I’ll be leaving the start line on Day 1 of Swiss O Week – six days of orienteering in the mountains high above Zermatt in southern Swizterland. I’m really looking forward to what should be a great week in the Alps.

Days 1-3 and 6 are middle-distance races (which is good as this is my best discipline at the moment.) Day 4 is a long-distance race, and Day 5 is a sprint through Zermatt village. We thankfully get a rest day after the first three days. The best five day’s results, each day being normalised, count for the overall leaderboard. Unfortuantely I entered the competition back in January, when I was feeling a bit lazy, so I entered HAM (Men’s A Medium race) rather than HAL which most of my peers are doing. I probably would change to HAL if I could, but also I’m quite glad not to be running the extra 2km or so each day - namely because every day will be at an altitude above 1600m. 

Day 1 (Gornergrat) will be a challenge in its own right – after a spectacular ride up a funicular railway, the start will be at 3100m (10000ft) altitude. I’ve never run at this kind of altitude before. I have previously done some walking at this height – in 1996 I was in the Italian Dolomites, via-ferrata-ing for two brilliant weeks – and even at a slow hill-walking pace, I really felt the thinness of the air and had to take breaks from walking every half an hour. The key will be taking it very easy at the start – as a friend of mine mentioned, you don’t win a six day competition at the first control on the first day, but if you aren’t careful, you can certainly lose it by then.

Swiss O Week website.