2 weeks ago I entered my first event in many years around a public park in Stoke. On the whole I feel that went really well and was a good reintroduction to the sport. However it wasn’t the most technical of maps (you wouldn’t expect a public park to be), so I decided to head to this event in Howe wood, hoping for a nice technical map with lots of small features to navigate between. To my surprise what I actually got was a small section of running through the wood and then the majority of the route was out in the urban sprawl of Milton Keynes. Not what I was expecting, but certainly helpful. It helped me to reacquaint myself with urban running and identify though small passages between houses instead of following the wide open roads for each leg. More on that later!
South Midland Orienteering Club was founded in 1986 and has over 60 members living mostly in the Milton Keynes / Bedford / Northampton / Luton area. Today I ventured down to an area of Milton Keynes for a local non ranking event.
Howe wood is a semi-natural woodland which is recorded in the thirteenth century, and possibly the eleventh century. Ancient large oak trees may reflect a medieval past as a deer park. It is poorly drained on clay, causing seasonal waterlogging, with some areas which are drier. Loughton Brook runs along the boundary. There is a wide variety of trees and shrubs, and almost three hundred species of moths have been recorded. Butterflies include the nationally rare black hairstreak. It is rare in Great Britain and restricted to a number of sites in the south and east Midlands, between Oxford and Peterborough. The largest breeding colony is in Ham Home-cum-Hamgreen Woods in Buckinghamshire. Historically there have been around 90 known colonies since its discovery in 1828 but there have been many, mostly unsuccessful, introductions at various locations in southern England including one in Surrey in 1952 that seemed to be successful until the habitat was destroyed. It is now one of the rarest butterflies in Great Britain. This small brown butterfly, wingspan about 37mm, is very similar to the white-letter hairstreak but the black hairstreak has a row of orange spots along the edge of the upper-side hindwing. In the female these spots also extend to the forewings. The undersides are similar to the white-letter but the white line tends to be straighter and the orange border extends onto the forewings. The most conclusive way to distinguish the two is by the row of black spots accompanying the orange band which the white-letter hairstreak never has. They spend most of their lives in the canopy or in dense scrub, feeding on honeydew, and very rarely come down to ground level.
So the major thing to point out straight away is that this map is printed on A3 paper. When I arrived I thought this was a great idea as it gave plenty of detail and room for route choice. However what I hadn’t taken into account was the scale of the map and this caused me quite a bit if grief early on as you will find out soon. As I said earlier I was expecting a woodland based, technical course. However you will notice from the map that only one third of the course was in the woods. Not an issue just not what I was expecting/hoping for. The one thing that got me with this course, there was minimal route choice for the first 8 controls. The course was very linear and followed straight paths or roads. This made it more of a test of fitness than map reading skill. I know I am lacking on the fitness side of things but always hope to make up time with a good route choice between controls. That just wasn’t possible on the first half of the course, to the point that I found myself overthinking the routes and making my runs harder than I needed to make them. Again more on that below.
My one slight complaint about the course was the way the punch stations were located. All were hanging in trees which made it extremely difficult to punch quickly. At each control I found myself coming to a complete stop, holding the unit in one hand and zapping with the other. Whilst juggling a map as well, this was quite challenging at times. I would suggest cable tieing the units flat which would enable a quicker transition for runners at controls.
Above is a zoomed in picture of the first 4 controls. This all looks very simple with straight paths and no reason for a mistake to creep in. Well sadly as I’ve stated above, I made a really basic mistake. Running between control 2 & 3, I remember distinctly running down the trail past control 3 and thinking “that can’t be my control I haven’t run far enough for that yet”, then 500ft further on to come to the T junction with the main path and realise that the control flag I had seen was actually mine. From this point on I felt myself pushing at each section trying to make the time back which I had lost at this control so early on in my run. I need to learn to block out mistakes like this as it could (and did) lead to me making more mistakes later on.
Between controls 7 & 8, I think it’s fair to say I made life harder than it needed to be. In hindsight, the sensible route would have been to cut along the southern boundary of the play area (shown as a fenced area) & then transact the point at which the hedge meets the road.
However in the heat of the moment, I decided to do something a bit different. I continued up the path which I had followed from control 6 to control 7 until I reached the large open area (cricket pitch). From here I ran an angle across to the break in the hedges & the thin path leading to control 8. Not a massive detour but one that probably cost me a few seconds.
Control 12 to 13 was probably the best route running I did, in that I feel I picked the correct route instead of running round. I was aware of that small paths which cut between the houses but locating these was quite tricky. Speaking to a few runners afterwards, they all missed this cut through. Yes the first path off the road did look like a route into someone’s back garden and the second one out the end of the cul-de-sac appeared to lead straight into a double garage. However I trusted the map and plowed on. My trust paid off and I was rewarded with the control & a split of under 2 minutes (below).
Sadly though I don’t feel I followed this good route choice up with a good run from 13 to 14. I opted to follow the path down the hill through the woods and then run 2 sides of the square up to control 14. I expect taking the paths back to control 12 or the little path between the 2 was probably quicker but I think the white roundabout confused me and I for some reason read it as woodland and not a run-able shortcut.
As you can see from my splits above there are no drastically long legs. The hill from 15 to 16 did me in (although I was very grateful the control was on path and not at the top of the mound!). What amazed me more than anything was looking at the final results (link below) to find the winning time was 15 minutes faster than me. I know I’m by no means quick, but that’s motoring!
http://www.smoc.info/Results/2022/220724_HPW.html
As it stands, my next event is on Sunday August 21st in Coventry. However this is subject to change depending on shifts & weather. After that I am hoping to participate in the Urban Event in Nottingham on the 3rd weekend of September. Let’s see what happens.
I hope that you have enjoyed the format of this blog, if anyone has any suggestions moving forwards I’m happy to listen.
