British Orienteering Championships this Bank Holiday weekend. Bradford University Sprint event Friday 04th May. Our Dedicated Medlock Family were there racing and gave it a concerted effort over 2 days. Firstly a Sprint race on the Saturday, Jolyon in the mens vets class made 9/22 on a highly technical urban site, with Lyra the youngest in the Junior Women class, coming 2/10 amongst the W16 girls. Perhaps more impressive was her focus in the Course overall result 2/35 entrants- staying firmly in the top 3 again there Lyra well done. Results day one here.

Then the long race on Sunday when we were in Rushmore-Jolyon says “A weekend of mixed fortunes and mixed emotions after the JK. After a fun afternoon sprint at Bradford University, we headed up to the beautiful dales for the long distance championships on Arncliffe and Kilnsey North. The bitter wind kept up from the day before but the profusion of mountain pansies and orchids kept us entertained as we waited as the breezy start. Sadly all excitement for the girls quickly diminished as both girls made errors misinterpreting the lattice network of dry stone walls. An uncharacteristic slight misjudgement by Lyra on control two heading for the wrong stile cost her 5 minutes, to come 5th and 4 mins 30 behind the winner. Important lessons learned. Conversely Rebecca and Jolyon throughly enjoyed the open moorland and scattering of limestone boulders and pavement. The final descent from Arncliffe moor to the finish fields was exhilirating and rapid for a grandstand finish. Rebecca, despite a 6min error on control one, finished 7th/14 on W45S and 26/81 on her course. Jolyon finished in a very content 19th/30 on M45L. ” Thanks for that write up Jolyon, Yorkshire Limestone pavements do make another superb navigation challenge as I remember. Results are all here.

Day three is the Sprint Relay Champs. Today Monday.

Jolyon

Over to Rushmore and our own regional Galoppen event Sunday. A protected private forest in deepest Dorset, the sort of place I love to go. Firstly thanks to all our helpers making a smooth day of it, team WSX making it look easy. We hosted 203 people on all courses, good to see some new families out there too. 20 so 10% of the entrants were WSX members and where you see ‘nc’ on the results thats where runners had put out controls on their courses,  ‘non competitive’ result. Still good efforts from everyone we all loved the racing. Jolyon planned some great courses with constant direction changes and lots of tracks, perhaps more difficult than indistinct tracks like in the New Forest, as you can ignore them- these tracks between the deep valleys of Rushmore forced you to keep in contact with the map the whole way around. Notable results on the day were the my own 3rd on the Blue Course 3/49, and Agnes Brooke 3/65! I actually felt like Id run farther than I needed to taking track route choices where I could see undergrowth, and despite making a 4 minute error on 4-5 pretty happy with that overall. Super running by Agnes in an even bigger field, well done. Lots of pictures today.

Wild Garlic or ‘Ramsons’ everywhere

Old Growth Beech forest, lovely

 Starting runners

Finishers were all smiling.

Having a chat after finishing, and Julie awarding Andrew Beldowski his J.K Gold .

perfectly trimmed Deer forest

Bluebell Heaven

Theres the Dorset School Champs this friday in Avon Heath, pleased to say Haymoor Juniors who I’ve been working with this term are going along- good luck to them. Then the 13th WIM have a new map local score event at Ashley Heath in the evening, do support.

Lastly its tuesday training again tommorrow from Sport BU, 1km loops is the session, start training when the fitness is there- the Orienteering takes care of itself. Honestly. Jason