The weekend of 22nd/23rd March saw five BL members heading to the Moray Coast for a challenging weekend of orienteering on former World Champs areas.
On Saturday, the Scottish Middle Distance Champs were at Dallaschyle, the area used for the WOC Middle in 1999 when Yvette Hague won Britain’s first gold medal.Then on Sunday there was a National Event at Culbin, venue of the World Champs Relay in 1976.
Dallaschyle was described in the final details as having “varied runnability”, a phrase that raises suspicions, but as long as you avoided the (mapped) green and felled areas it was actually very nice, though hard work.
The best result came from Jeff, 7th in Men’s Vets, 7 minutes behind the winner. Karen and Dan made things hard for themselves by running Men’s Open (as it was only 4.5km) and both achieved their aim of not being last.
Unfortunately four courses were affected by a misplaced control and had legs removed in the final results. Julie was particularly disappointed as she lost her best split time!
Culbin, as many people will remember from the Scottish 5 Day in 2023, is a beautiful and very challenging area. An event official was overheard at the start saying the courses were TD6 (the official maximum being 5). The planner did a good job of introducing variety into the courses with most having a leg of 2 to 2.5 km, and although there were tracks and rides if you wanted a break from intense map reading, they didn’t go in helpful directions.
John had the best result, coming 15th on Short Blue, despite a big mistake on the first control. Most of us had, and needed, 1:7500 maps – it’s amazing to think that back in 1976 they were using 1:15,000 maps (see here)
Results and Route Gadget can be seen here (Saturday) and here (Sunday)
Thanks to Julie for the photos
Border Liners Orienteering Club 