Glasgow Parks Championships 2025Sunday 30 November
Credit: Crawford Lindsay
A good day out, in fine weather!
This was the 26th Glasgow Parks Championships, organised by St Andrew's Orienteering Club Glasgow. It’s an annual competition, with three separate short events in one day, and is always a good social event, with plenty of time between races to catch up with friends. Start times were allocated in advance for the first two parks, with a chasing start for the third one.
The first race was at Sighthill Park, a small area of parkland and modern housing development north of the city centre, and the second was to the northwest at Dawsholm Park, a wilder area by the River Kelvin. The final race was downstream at Kelvingrove Park, a formal city park.
Hannah Durnall reports:
“The day began at Sighthill Park under cold but sunny skies, with sealed maps thoughtfully labelled with start times saving any confusion at the start. The compact urban map offered mostly straightforward navigation with a few memorable moments: an unusual map symbol, some perplexing route choices, and one devious control tantalizingly visible but unreachable beyond an uncrossable fence. Fast running on frozen ground soon warmed cold fingers and set legs on fire.
After a Tesco pit stop for many, Dawsholm Park delivered technical forest orienteering. Control descriptions promised root stocks, depressions, and ditches - full leg cover was mandatory and some wished they'd extended that to their arms. Wet, slippery conditions and thick vegetation provided a physical challenge to match the navigation.
At Kelvingrove Park, competitors self-calculated their chasing start times before lining up in order. Early starters enjoyed warm sunshine while waiting in the cold air, then an impressively orchestrated start sent runners off mere seconds apart. The courses made excellent use of the surprisingly hilly park and university buildings, including a control tucked within the quadrangle - an exciting finale to a day of quality racing.”
The best ESOC results came from Hannah Durnall, 1st in Veteran Women, and Luke Durnall, 1st in Junior Men.
Hannah added that Luke enjoyed the day too, and remarked, "A highlight for Luke would have to be the edible shortbread medal he received!"
Other ESOC members in the top half of the overall results were:
- Supervet Men (17 competitors) – Keith Brown 7th
- Supervet Women (8) – Helena Nolan 3rd
- Ultravet Men (11) – Crawford Lindsay 3rd
- Ultravet Women (8) – Margaret Dalgleish 2nd, Sally Lindsay 3rd
Full results are in the STAG results archive.
Further details about the event are on the STAG website:
Race 1 – Sighthill Park
Race 2 – Dawsholm Park
Race 3 – Kelvingrove Park
Other entries categorised under: Event Reports