Northern Championships Weekend 2014Lake District, 3-5 May
A few ESOC members travelled south for an excellent weekend of varied, technical orienteering in the southern Lake District, part of SROC's 50th anniversary celebrations.
Lakeland Orienteering Club and South Ribble Orienteering Club presented three events over the bank holiday weekend, with a Middle Distance race on Saturday and the Northern Championships on Sunday, both in the hills at the south end of Windermere, followed by an Urban race in Kendal on Monday.
Saturday’s Middle Distance race was at Summer House Knott, west of Newby Bridge. This is a technical area, full of rock and contour detail, and included some conifer plantation, much delightful deciduous woodland, and some open pasture on the longest courses. The weather was good and there were spring flowers everywhere.
ESOC results:
Black (73 competitors) – Andrew Lindsay 7th, Ray Ward 41st (Claire Ward unfortunately mispunched)
Men’s Blue (125) – Crawford Lindsay 45th, Les Dalgleish 86th
Men’s Green (95) – Brian Yates 86th
Women’s Green (103) – Maggie Scrugham 49th
Short Green (119) – Janice Nisbet 6th, Sally Lindsay 29th, Margaret Dalgleish 42nd
Full results and Routegadget are on the Summer House Knott results page of the LOC website.
The Northern Championships was at Gummer’s How & Blakeholme, a little further east, and had a long walk to the assembly area. This is another very technical area, with a good variety of terrain. Courses started in thick conifer plantation, then ran through lovely mature deciduous woodland and out onto the open fell, before more conifer plantation and a very rough felled area just before the finish. There were intricate contours and lots of rock throughout. Unfortunately the weather was damp and misty, though not as bad as forecast, and it brightened a little later on.
ESOC results were:
M20L (7 competitors) – Andrew Lindsay 4th
M35L (14) – Claire Ward 1st, Ray Ward 9th
M55L (58) – Crawford Lindsay 23rd
M60L (49) – Les Dalgleish 39th
W55L (43) – Maggie Scrugham 18th, Sally Lindsay 21st
W60L (28) – Janice Nisbet 2nd, Margaret Dalgleish 11th
Full results are available on the Northern Championships page of the SROC website.
Monday’s Urban race was in the centre of Kendal, with the event centre at the town hall, and the start nearby. The courses included some steep climbs and interesting variety: narrow alleyways amongst old and new buildings in the town centre; parkland and formal gardens; a complicated area of interconnecting stairs between old houses; a modern housing estate further up the hill; a confusing multi-level section by a modern shopping centre; all with plenty of route choice, dead ends and uncrossable features. The weather was fine, and the town centre had many pedestrians and traffic to negotiate as well as keeping track of the navigation, so concentration was needed from start to finish.
ESOC results:
Black (38 competitors) – Andrew Lindsay 10th
Blue (143) – Roger Scrutton 43rd, Crawford Lindsay 63rd, Les Dalgleish 107th
Green (137) – Margaret Dalgleish 63rd, Sally Lindsay 64th, Brian Yates 123rd (Janice Nisbet had a very good run on the Green, but suffered the misfortune of a control that didn’t register on her SI card, although she had visited it.)
Full results and Routegadget are on the Kendal Urban results page of the LOC website.
All three events were part of the 2014 UK Orienteering League.
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