April social 2023Currie, Tuesday 18 April
Another well-attended social, with MapRun orienteering courses and a spice-themed Turf event.
Alison O'Neil reports:
This week we had a more traditional format for the social orienteering activity, with Sprintelope style Long and Short courses on offer. Competitors had a choice of using MapRun, answering questions about the locations, or both. The Short course was effectively a cut-off of the Long course and with a condensed start block from 7-7:15, this meant a busy start with lots of runners chasing each other around the alleyways of Currie. Very well done to juniors Rachel Rose and William Atkinson for their 1st and 2nd placings on the Short ahead of the more experienced Peter Halling - with Alison O'Neil, Sabine Oechsner and Mark Sanderson taking top spots in the Long.
Orienteering Planner Martin Caldwell said:
"I like to entertain my runners with some interesting local questions, not all boring post box and lamp post numbers, however that led to a panic just before the event when I found the answer at 3 had been tidied away! Thank goodness I made that final run round and found an alternative question.
The Maprun tracks showed that only one person took the east route to 2 (it's longer) but there was an even split of route choice to 4. A couple of people took the long way to 8. Alison and others chose the shorter option, but had to climb over the railway bridge twice. Again there was a split opinion of the best way to 15, but everyone took the east route to 18."
A few ESOC-ers abstained from the orienteering and made a beeline for the pub, where we had a great turnout of over 20 people for food and prizegiving. Prizes were awarded to second-placed competitors in the absence of winners, with Oreo Dairy Milk being the clear MVP (Most Valuable Prize), chosen by both turf and orienteering winners ahead of the plain and dark Dairy Milk varieties.
Turfer bythesea reports on ESOC FTT (Foot Turf Tuesday) #10 which saw seven turfers battling it out across the Juniper Green and Currie neighbourhoods on Tuesday evening.
"The weather remained fine and dry throughout, with navigation of unfamiliar surroundings helped by the 8pm finish now being in daylight. MarkkuESOC had created just the right amount of zones to make this a real tactical battle. Zone names had a spicy theme and, since the event was in Currie, turfers may have felt that they had received a subliminal message to visit their local Indian take away on their way home.
At the start, turfers were spread out across the event area, but ended up converging in the middle, where zones were closer together. Decisions needed to be made about whether to run past blocked zones or stand on them until they cleared. Trying to anticipate where other turfers were going next was all part of the fun. It was close at the top of the leaderboard, with the lead changing hands several times in the early stages. Congratulations to the first male KoveshEzorim and the first female FeTaTo. A convincing win for KoveshEzorim, and then almost nothing between it for second, third and fourth places: TimmyM, FeTaTo and Cubist."
Thanks to Martin and MarkkuEsoc for planning the April event. Bring on next month's social!
Full details of the Turf event are on the ESOC FTT#10 event page of the Turf website.
See this document for a description of how a Turf event works: Participating in a Turf Event