Thanks to Andrew Bell for his latest report.…
Borderliners orienteering club (BL) held an adventurous and different event last Saturday in Rickerby Park, Carlisle. City parks can never provide the same level of technical orienteering that can be found in forests, or even that of open fellsides. However, they do give a chance for experimental course planning, and BL’s Keith Tonkin rose to that challenge very well last Saturday.
Four courses were on offer, including a short novice course ideal for beginners and non-orienteers wanting to come-and-try-it and conventional Short and Very Short courses for older and younger orienteers. But interestingly the longest 4.8 km course was planned with two variants. Competitors could choose either to run a conventional timed start or in a mass start. Both of these courses had four butterfly loops meaning that all runners eventually ran the same course but that following wasn’t possible. The mass start course was somewhat similar to the first leg of a conventional orienteering relay race. In the event no competitors chose the Very Short option.
The 2.4 km Novice course was won by W21 Emma Camp in 20.33 mins, and the 3.3 km Short by WCOC M60 Howard Leslie in 27.30 mins with BLs M65 Paul Watson just five seconds behind. The majority of the 46 entrants competed on the two Long course variants with M65 Andy Lewsley and M40 Jeff Powell-Davies being the best placed Borderliners on Long and O-Cross respectively. Full results are available on the website.
Many thanks to all who helped and especially Keith Tonkin and Christine Kiddier for planning and organising respectively.
Borderliners next event will be on Saturday 7th December in Gelt Woods near Brampton. Enter via the BL website.
Border Liners Orienteering Club 