Weekend events included a local at Avon Heath Country Park, an area the local clubs use regularly and venue of one of the Permanent Courses belonging to Wimborne. I wrote about sequencing a while ago, saturdays event give another twist to the way that my sport always keeps you interested in Navigation at Speed. Score events as you know mean collecting as many as possible in the time allotted, an option on this event was to collect extra points by correctly visiting an exact next control which was given at 4 locations in the competition area. Runners might have seen the area map previously,  however definitely not seen the days event before.

09 December Avon Heath Score

Setting off- you decide on first view which order to go in, My picture shows the sequence in which I completed this 8 KM challenge in 55 minutes, running on open heath and trails in 4 distinct loops. For bonus points at control 156 next control was specified as 136 in the centre of the map area on the open grass. Thereafter I decided on the Southern section- again coming across another instruction at 155 to return to 136 for second bonus points. Happy with this by 15 minutes into my run it was clear that the central hub of map was the bonus point, next I had to decide the rest of the route, which seemed clear to head up into North East and continue around anti-clockwise. Heading off I wanted to not come across the bonus prompt, as more controls collected would mean less dead running back to centre. Happily after another 6 on a loop completed then back to centre (loop 2 on my picture). Two more loops and visits to central later and I was on the final leg back to my final control 153. When scoring you are looking at balancing the time running against what is possible to find- on this race the planner had made a great challenge for all which turned out to be possible for a third of the runners. Now I was racing club mate Peter who records all his runs and rides on Strava, and I was curious to see what he made of the event, having beaten me by 2 and a half minutes. Reading the splits shows that our sequences were very similar with a couple of variants, as was Second placed Steve.

I’ve added Peters Strava route on which you can compare to my similar route. We were both managing the terrain whilst making decisions about covering the ground and avoiding dead running over the same terrain. Funnily enough I managed to get 10 of the fastest splits between controls, whereas Peter and Steve got 8, so whilst I must have been running fastest the incremental difference between choices meant they both beat me on time overall. Great fun and similar in format to many of our Wessex Night league events, or nationally- Urban score events. One of the most popular types of events emerging now in Orienteering is the long score. There seems to be more appearing as they give all competitors their own challenge regardless of the fitness or age. Well done to all the 30 runners who came on saturday, tonight we will be heading to Hillborne area for the 8/ 20 Wessex Night League events. Again a score event with a twist that will keep us challenged tonight in the Broadstone Rec area and local streets, You are very welcome theres always helpers to get you started off happily- just bring a sense of adventure and a head torch. Next one after tonight will be the 08 January  Poole town race, which I believe is the best most interesting Urban map in the U.K. Do hope you can make one of these. Dont be afraid of the dark.