Lakes 5 Days 20227 - 12 August
ESOC members enjoyed varied orienteering at this year’s multi-day event in the Lake District, with 3 podium places at the prizegiving.
The Lakes 5 Days event takes place every 4 years, with orienteering throughout the Lake District. Everyone agreed that it had been a great week and they enjoyed the variety of terrain, as well as the good weather.
Day 1: Swindale South, Sunday 7 August
Swindale is near Shap, just off the M6 in the northeastern Lake District. The terrain is open fell with lots of contour and rock detail and many marshes – the map was very blue, and rough open land is shown as white. Early starters commented that it was quite hard going, though expected it to track up. The courses were quite long.
Day 2: Threlkeld Knotts, Monday 8 August
Threlkeld is in the northern Lake District, east of Keswick. The terrain here is runnable and open (shown as yellow this time), on north-facing slopes with no bracken, but a lot of loose rock in old mining areas. The courses were shorter than Day 1 and it was reported to be easier going.
Day 3: Graythwaite, Tuesday 9 August
A middle distance event in Dale Park Oak Woodlands on the Graythwaite estate in the Southern Lakes, described in the final details as “a delightful area of steep oak woodland with lots of intricate rock and contour detail”. The longer courses also visited an adjacent conifer plantation. Comments included “Proper forest orienteering in glorious sunshine.”
Rest Day: Wednesday 10 August
On the rest day, there was an Urban event in Penrith, organised by Border Liners.
A few of the ESOC contingent competed – the best ESOC result came from Eleanor Pyrah, who won WUV. Other ESOC results:
MUV (29 competitors) - Les Dalgleish 10th
MHV (6) - Ian Pyrah 2nd, Brian Yates 5th
WUV (18) - Janice Nisbet 3rd, Margaret Dalgleish 5th, Rhona Fraser 6th
WHV (5) - Eleanor Pyrah 1st
Day 4: Raven Crag, Thursday 11 August
Raven Crag is across the road from Dale Park (the venue for Day 3), and is a varied forest with a lot of contour and rock detail. Some parts are conifer plantation, others mixed woodland, on steeper rocky ground, with bracken in places. The map was very green compared to the other days. Comments included “Quite physical terrain - either bracken/brashings underfoot in the white/open or thick trees in the green. Walls were the best handrail features through the green. A lot of fun!”
Courses 11 and 12 were in Dale Park again, due to terrain constraints on Raven Crag making it unsuitable for the older competitors.
Day 5: Helsington Barrows, Friday 12 August
Helsington Barrows is a long limestone hill overlooking Kendal, and has fine views. It is mostly open fell with areas of loose rock and some contour detail, many paths and some high walls. The weather was hot and sunny, so most found it hard going.
There were podium places for Margaret Dalgleish, 1st in W70L; Alison Cunningham, 2nd in W55L; and Alison O’Neil, 3rd in W21L. The prizes were sticky toffee pudding and a certificate for a tree from Trees Not Tees.
Other ESOC results:
M50L (46 competitors) - Terry Johnstone 30th
M50S (15) - Finlay Ross 4th
M60L (67) - Richard Oxlade 8th
M70L (56) - Les Dalgleish 14th
M75L (44) - Roger Scrutton 11th, Brian Yates 33rd
W21S (22) - Shona Simmons 9th
W60L (44) - Christine Mahony 33rd
W65L (40) - Janice Nisbet 6th, Rhona Fraser 21st
For all classes, points were awarded for each day’s result, using a formula based on the mean time for the top 90% of runners on the course, the runner’s actual time, and the standard deviation of times for the course. A competitor’s 4 best scores of the week were totalled to give their overall score. Several other ESOC members were there but ran on fewer than 4 days.
The Lakes 5 Days 2022 website gives further description of the competition areas, comments and results for each day, including Routegadget, and links to photos.
Day 3 (Graythwaite) and Day 5 (Helsington Barrows) were the 19th and 20th events in the 2022 UK Orienteering League. There are more details about the UKOL, including the latest league tables, on the UK Orienteering League page of the British Orienteering website. ESOC is now lying 37th in the club league. The score for each club is calculated automatically from the 15 best club members' scores (across various age class groups) - so the club members whose scores are included may change as the year goes on and more events are included.
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