Orienteering: Cramlington Urban, Nov 2023

What a n00b. 🙄

So yeah, I finally got back to the orienteering today, and made yet another of my trademark schoolboy errors in my navigation. At least, it certainly feels like that's what lets me down. Today's course — the blue course, which is one step down from the usual hardest/longest brown course — included something I'd not seen before: the same control being used more than once. So, at different times, you'll exit that control in different directions. Stupid me didn't even notice that, so my first exit from control #3 saw me running off directly for control #7 rather than control #4. Idiot. 🤦‍♂️

7.84km around the housing estates of Cramlington, including the odd unnecessary detour

Once I checked into #7 and saw that its number didn't match what I was expecting, there was a good chunk of me standing around feeling very confused, double-checking the number on both the control descriptions and the control itself, before looking back at the previous control on the map and realising my error.

I honestly thought there was a good chance I'd disqualified myself already, but figured the only possible way out of it was to double back and get controls 4, 5, and 6 before checking into 7 again and carrying on. So that's what I did. It was a bit gutting to realise that control 4 was pretty much in the opposite direction to control 7 when coming from control 3, but that was my punishment for not reading the map, I guess.

On the long trek to control 4, I also realised I'd not started Google Fit tracking the 'workout' either. Cue another pause to get that going. If I'd been more concerned about just managing the run (given the toe) at the start, I really wasn't bothered about my time after that gaffe.

The rest of the controls were all pretty easy to find — and there were no occasions where I would swear the map lied about the existence of passageways between houses, unlike last time here — so it was just a question of keeping going. And, of course, trying not to let anyone pass or follow me. About two thirds of the way in, the groin muscles in both legs were really complaining as if I'd not warmed up or something 👀 ...but I pressed on. Having finally got used to the fact that my shiny new dibber activated at a distance of about 10cm rather than needing to be plunged into the control itself, I even got the confidence to race past the last control or two, barely breaking my stride.

And then, it was done.

Overall, onthegomap.com tells me I'd done 7.84km in a time of 49:02. Except you can probably take a couple of minutes off that, as the sprint to the finish control took about 30 seconds, not the official 2 minutes and 30. Something wrong with the time on that last control, methinks. So let's say it was 47 minutes, which makes for an average pace of pretty much bang on 6:00/km. I'm very happy with that.

While it felt like the results took an eternity to be posted online, I was even happier when I saw them. 4th out of 12 on the blue course, even after messing up! And I wasn't disqualified! Granted, I was nearly 10 minutes behind the winner and could probably have been 3rd were it not for my mistake, but 4th of 12 felt pretty good. So good, in fact, that I've plotted my comeback on a control-by-control basis on the following chart:

I'm the golden line that plunges down to 12th at the 4th control

Honestly, I love diving into stuff like this; it tells so many stories. For example, we can see that Gwenda Cavill had a similar setback to me, messing up control #5 and dropping down to 12th from 4th. She also made a comeback, finishing up 8th though it took her quite a few controls to start moving up the order again. Another story: the guy in the M21 age/gender category got off to a flyer, but couldn't sustain it and I eventually overtook him near the end. The top 2 runners also had a pretty decent battle, swapping positions a few times in the middle of the run; they ended up being separated by just 27 seconds. And one other thing for me: I made a poor route choice between controls 7 and 8, which saw my comeback falter as I dropped a place I'd just made back. Looking at that section on the map, I now see that I missed an opportunity to cut through open land (grass and roads) but instead went quite literally around the houses.

So, I rue my mistakes once again and keep finding myself thinking "I'm better than this result". But, honestly, the results don't lie, do they? I am my results. I'm not a brilliant orienteer, but I do feel that the running I do has actually improved me. I kept going. There was only one time on the whole run when a choice to walk wasn't down to needing to read the map (and I castigated myself for it). I couldn't have done that before I started running regularly.

So yeah, really happy with that. I didn't think I was that bothered about orienteering anymore, but with the injured toe spoiling my chances of hitting my running goals for the year, this has been a real fillip. So much so that I've since signed myself up for another urban event, this time in Hexham on the 26th. No colour courses this time, just based on age/gender. In other words, it's a bit more serious and I imagine it'll be brown-equivalent. Let's hope I focus better this time. 😊