Last weekend (18th/19th) April saw around 900 competitors gathered at Brown Clee Hill near Ludlow in Shropshire for some excellent orienteering.
The prestigious British Middle Distance Championships was held on Saturday. Then on Sunday it was the the Midlands Championship on Sunday; although only orienteers from West Midlands, East Midlands and East Anglian clubs are eligible to be crowned Midland champions it still provided a high quality National event for everyone else.
Result of the weekend came from Stella who won her class on Saturday and is now the W70 British Middle Distance Champion – many congratulations to her.
As anyone who has been to Brown Clee Hill will remember 80% of the area is relatively straightforward – lovely runnable woodland and open moor without many tussocks. But the other 20% is very different – mining and quarrying over three centuries have left complex contours and hundreds of pits, all covered with rough grass and patches of gorse, hawthorn, birch and alder. Navigation through this area is very challenging and once you lose contact with the map, relocation can feel impossible. Naturally the Middle distance race planners made the most of complexity. The event details included a warning about local magnetic anomalies, but I’m not sure that’s really the reason so many people had tales of major mistakes.
Sunday’s courses were easier; although longer courses still had a few controls in the difficult bit, the majority were on the moor and in the runnable woodland.
The weather over the weekend was almost perfect, the sunny conditions marred only by some heavy showers on Saturday afternoon, most notably during the prize giving. Travelling down from Cumbria to Shropshire, it felt as though we had finally moved from late winter to spring.
So that’s almost it for the Championship season, just the British Sprint Championships (Individual and Relay) weekend still to come. It’s at the end of June in Bristol, with entries now open.
The weekends results and Routegadget are here
Border Liners Orienteering Club 