WNL3 – Amesbury Urban (SARUM)

Location Info

Event Details

Results available:

Post Event Comments:

Three races in and unsurprisingly a lot of jostling for position early in the season. Dale still leads the Open, Andy has moved up to 2nd and Jo to 3rd. John Oakes has jumped up 5 places to 5th.

In the Handicap it is Julie Astins turn to take the lead with a great score from Amesbury. Dale retains second slot and Mike Frizzel is up three to 3rd. Notable mover is Chris Branford up from 14th to 6th. One to keep an eye on for the title I suspect.

Organiser Charlotte Thornton comments: Some competitors went for the challenge of trying to gain bonus points. (A few others started out with that intention but either gave up or ‘miss-punched’ part way round.) As you see, three managed it, two missed out one control (Paul Pickering and Paul Lane) and one (Jeff Butt) got them all but was over time. Competitors were told that, in order to qualify for the bonus points they must punch all 10s, then all 20s and finally all 30s. There was also the option of doing a normal score and getting 500 points but without any bonus points. As you will see, this was an easy option for the fast runners. We think the challenge worked well as three people achieved it within the hour and we knew the area was too small for a straight score. The New Inn staff were very welcoming and many runners ate in the pub after their runs.

A few words from Simon Branford: On a cold November evening we made the trip to Amesbury to run on a new map that covers the town centre. There were thirty controls to visit but there was an added twist making a route planning decision more difficult. If you wanted to get the early finish time bonus then you had to start by visiting all the ten point controls, follow this with the twenty point controls, and finish with the thirty point controls. On starting I took a quick look at the map and decided that I’d struggle to make all the controls in the bonus order and still finish inside an hour, especially with a new pair of shoes purchased earlier in the day to replace the ones I destroyed in Salisbury a couple of days before! Instead, I set out to visit all thirty in any order. I started by going north and east and then continued around the eastern controls, before crossing back over near the start to complete the western group. The only mistake I made was trying to follow an indistinct path through a small wooded section – I lost the path and ended up stuck in the vegetation – when just running around would have been more sensible. Having finished I went back into the pub for food and a pint. Several people commented that they’d tried to go for the bonus points, but had either not finished in under the hour, missed a control, or punched controls in the wrong point order. I’d found just keeping track of which controls I’d visited difficult enough! Thanks go to Charlotte, Ricky, and Liz for an interesting and challenging evening.

Pre-Event Bulletin:

Hosted by SARUM Orienteering club – more details available on their website

Last updated on Sat, 7th January 2017, 20:27 by Peter Suba