SoSOL 4, 2025South Achray, 12 April

The fourth event in the 2025 South of Scotland Orienteering League was a Middle Distance race, organised by Masterplan Adventure, with just 10 competitors from ESOC.

Crawford Lindsay reports:
“This SoSOL event took place in warm, sunny weather in a surprisingly dry forest at South Achray, by Aberfoyle. It was good being able to step across a burn that in previous events had a rope to aid safe crossing, and to finish with dry shoes.
The event was held in conjunction with an Elite Relay and all the courses were planned by UK international and Edinburgh resident Luke Fisher of Interløpers. South Achray is a tough and challenging area and the courses were hard work for most competitors, providing interesting route choices but a lot of ascent and descent on steep and sometimes slippery slopes. There were 2 starts: Brown and Blue started by assembly at Dounans Outdoor Centre, and the rest in Aberfoyle itself. The finish for all was at Dounans. Being Middle Distance, the courses had more controls than usual, but not as many changes of direction as some would like. It was a shame that there were fewer ESOC runners than I would have expected, as there was an unfortunate clash with ESOC’s local event at Lauriston Castle.”

The best ESOC results, and the only ones in the top half, were:

Brown (13 competitors) – Ben Brown 4th
Blue (36) – Megan Brown 15th
Light Green (6) – Emma Daley 3rd

Before the SoSOL event, there was a relay race for elite runners. Rachel Brown was in the winning team in the Women’s relay, and Jim Bailey was in the 4th team in the Open relay.

Further details about the events can be found on the Masterplan Adventure website.
Specific links:

Further details about the South of Scotland Orienteering League, including the league tables, are on the SoSOL page of the East of Scotland Orienteering Association website.

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