INVOC's Eagle Weekend 2026Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th September

Saturday morning's urban race.

Alison Harding reports:

Scorguie and Muirtown is a residential area on the West side of Inverness, not far from the A82 that runs down to Loch Ness and 5th September dawned fair and sunny. Event HQ was a school close to a handy Spar and pharmacy. The route to the start went under the ‘main road’ of the suburban area and then followed the road to a junction by the finish. We got early starts so we could spend time with a friend who was providing accommodation.

I have tried to mark my route on the map and have just noticed a much better route fro 1 to 2, but early controls always have to be taken with care! Also 4 to 5, I probably ought to have gone left out of the control to pick up the ‘V’ shaped yellow area SW of 5. 7 was the only control using a artificial barriers in a meaningful way for me but Hobson’s choice for the route to 8. Actually overall it was great planning.

I found it enjoyable and came away with a few impressions:

        1. It was hillier than I expected.

        2. There were plenty of cut-through paths and green spaces to mix it up (some paths with slippy moss coverage!).

        3. The houses were very much the same, got me wondering if I was running along streets I had already been on.

Afterwards we visited my niece for a cuppa, her house is on the map, near the roundabout bottom left, but we had no local knowledge, honest!

ESOC result in the top half:

• Course 5 (21) - Ewart Scott 1st, Alison Harding 3rd, Sally Lindsay 5th, Leslie Dalgleish 8th
• Course 4 (28) - Kevin Harding 7th, Crawford Lindsay 11th

Results can be found on the INVOC website, with links to winsplits and routegadget. In the overall SOUL tables, Hannah Durnall holds on to her 2nd place in WV; Kevin Harding is in 3rd in MUV; Alison Harding extended her lead in WUV, with Sally Lindsay in 3rd; and in MHV Ewart Scott now has full points with Les Dalgleish in 3rd. 

Saturday afternoon's middle distance at the Carse of Ardersier.

Keith Brown reports:

Masterplan Adventure ran a middle event on the afternoon of the 5th of September after INVOC’s SOUL in the morning and before the Glen Affric SOL the next day. The final details stressed the limited parking (40 places) and there were 150 entries. On arrival the parking was found to be plentiful. The farmer had cut a wide track around the side of a large field offering parking on one side of the track and a route through on the other side so everyone was able to get parked.

The map had been updated by Joe Hudd and Frank Townley planned the courses. There were three courses; Elite Men, Elite Women and Short. The elite courses used a double sided 1:10000 map and were 4.7km for the men and 3.5km for the women. The short was on a single sided 1:7500 map and was 2.7km.

The courses were well planned and the map was good. There were sections that were hard work, wading through deep heather (except for some elites who seemed to float across it!). There was one area that had very few features (around control 1 on the short course). The rest of the map had some quite intricate features. A few ESOC members came along and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It offered different challenges to the upcoming Glen Affric.

ESOC results in the top half:

• Open Elite (61) - Ben Brown 30th
• Short (69) - Richard Oxlade 8th, Keith Brown 21st, Crawford Lindsay 32nd

Results and splits can be found here.

Sunday's tough forest event.

Matt Tinsley reports:

Glen Affric (SOL3) was great fun. Exciting orienteering in tough terrain. I definitely enjoyed it.

I had never orienteered at Glen Affric before. Beforehand, I was imagining the beautiful glen in autumn – fantastic views across distant ridgelines, open hill-sides swathed in scattered stately Caledonian pine trees, beams of September sun shining down onto runnable forest floor with pine needles and bilberry underfoot…..

As it turned out, we were somewhere else in Glen Affric, on a different day, with different weather. On arrival, the drizzle pattered down through the low cloud, and people walked round wearing midge nets.

I had two aims: to finish the course without yet another hamstring injury, and to score more than 1200 BOF ranking points.

I started badly. I took a bearing to control 1 but got tempted onto a small track going not quite in the right direction: after some ‘sightseeing’ whilst running round in a circle, I headed back towards the start and found the control (time wasted ~3 mins). Over the next few controls I tried to find out how to move quickly through the dense, boggy, brash-filled conifer forest. I tried running the edge of marshes (squelchy and littered with fallen trees), I tried running the spurs in the forest (deep in heathery undergrowth and tree stumps); then as the gradient steepened, I did a lot of walking! By control 4 to 5 I had been caught up by a better orienteer, which encouraged me to run faster. Control 5 to 6 involved a left-right choice to go round a large lochan – my companion flew off into the distance going left, but I thought right looked faster. Coming into control 6 I had caught up a bit of time and was excited to be finally
travelling fast. Then, I lost concentration, missed control 7 by about 20m, ran too far, felt thoroughly lost, spent ages staring through mist trying to make out any features – then finally relocated through the luck of stumbling onto a large track (~8 minutes wasted). Terrified of another mistake I tried to play it safe for the rest of the course and was very relieved to finally stagger out of the forest onto the meadows near finish.

It was an excellent ~2 hours of “running” (my watch tells me I was only actually running for 32 mins). I ate a heroic quantity of ScotJOS cake (thank you to the bakers!) and collapsed at the car. I achieved my goals – a few days later, the BOF website told me I got 1202 points, and to top it off, my hamstring was happy when it came to Cademuir the next weekend…

ESOC results in the top half:

• Brown (24) - Ben Brown 8th
• Short Blue (50) - Richard Oxlade 10th, Kevin Harding 18th
• Green (27) - Alison Harding 8th, Peter Halling 10th
• Short Green (15) - Sally Lindsay 1st
• Yellow (12) - Kirsten Tinsley 3rd

Full results can be found here, with winsplits and routegadget also listed.