Last week (2nd to 7th August) saw the return of the quadrennial Lakes 5 Day event organised by NWOA.
As usual, Border Liners were responsible for the Day 1 event, held this year at Askham Common. It was a great start to the week with warm sunny weather, excellent courses and slick organisation. Paul, the planner, had to cope with vegetation that grew higher and thicker with every visit but with some judicious bracken-bashing there were no unfair controls. Ali, the organiser, had to coordinate around 60 helpers as well as battling with all the paperwork and sorting out a trailer load of equipment but still remained (outwardly) calm throughout. The atmosphere at the assembly area was great with orienteers from all over this country and abroad looking forward to a week of high quality orienteering.
Day 2, organised by WCOC, was held at a brand new area in Borrowdale. Longer courses were on the high fell around Bessyboot (including the Wainwright Rosthwaite Fell) while shorter ones were in the Combe, a hanging valley to the west of Bessyboot. There were long walks to the start, with a lot of ascent (300m for the long courses) but almost everyone agreed it was worth it for such superb terrain – it was technically challenging with lots of contour and rock detail while sheep-cropped grass, and virtually no bracken, made for fast running. The weather was sunny and for later starters verging on uncomfortably hot.
Day 3 at Yewdale, organised by LOC, will unfortunately we remember by a lot of people for the long queues (up to an hour) getting in and out of the car park. But once you eventually made it (late) to the start it was another excellent area of open fell with complex contours and almost no paths. Early in the day, when most BL members were out, the weather was wet and misty making the navigation extra challenging. There was great satisfaction in coping with such conditions, but it wasn’t the way to get a good result.
After a much-needed rest day, the event moved down to the south Lakes with Day 4 (DEE) held at Bigland. It was a middle distance event and although the courses were shorter there were plenty of people taking just as long as on the officially “Long” days. It’s an extremely challenging area: the pre-event information described it as a “wonderful, rocky technical challenge” and said “the forest is open and offers fast running … if you’re not going uphill!”. A lot of people will query the “fast running” bit but nevertheless courses were very enjoyable.
The final day (SROC) was at Hampsfell and Eggerslack Woods. Courses gave plenty of variety. They started in scrubby woodland with bracken, spiky bushes and overgrown limestone pavement to contend with. Then followed open fell with exposed pavement and wonderful views over Morecambe Bay (if you had time to notice). Longer course also went into the steep, stony Eggerslack Woods. Wet weather would have made all the limestone very slippery but fortunately after a few cloudy days, summer was now back. It was a fine end to the week and NWOA have again shown that they can offer an event to match the Scottish 6 (5?) day.
Points score for each day were calculated using a formula based on the average time of the top 10% and the standard deviation, with your best three score counting to the overall result. It sounds complicated but seems to give sensible results.
BL had two class winners: Stella in W70L and Judy in W75L. Close but not quite making the podium despite winning two days was Isabel in W45.
Border Liners Orienteering Club 