Results of Local event and Grand Prix 5 at Crombie Country Park on 13th June 2006

Organiser - Roos Eisma.

It was a lovely evening in Crombie, with the rhododendrons in full bloom and the sun shining, and there was a very nice white course for people new to the sport. Ideal for a CATI event, or for families. However, they were not there, and Duncan showed he has outgrown the white course by whizzing around it in 12 minutes to grab the GP points.

Does anybody have ideas how we can promote events better in the Dundee area? I contacted the Courier but got no response, placed messages on the websites of Dundee council and Radio Tay. Angus council did not place the event on their website, maybe because they have a more cultural focus, or maybe because I was a bit late. I also put some flyers up in Crombie beforehand.

Duncan and Angela were also the only ones to give the "easy medium" course a go. This was meant as an option for people that have progressed beyond the white, but are not ready to tackle the serious medium that there was here. This course was a longish orange (3.8 km) which was a good level for Duncan, but the distances between the controls were a bit long, and both he and Angela had already done a course, so they decided to retire before going all the way around the lake.

Crombie is maybe a bit far for TAY members beyond Perth, but the area is worth the drive, more interesting than Camperdown or Clatto, and I think the people that did come had a good evening of orienteering.

For the long and the medium courses the theme of this event was ditches. Mainly dry, even after the heavy rain on Monday. Ditches deep enough to hide a control until you're really close, deep enough that there is no mistaking it if you find it, but also deep enough that crossing them takes a bit of effort, as some competitors found when their route took them across about 15 of these within the course of just a few hundred meters...

Only Angela and Moira ran the medium course. Angela was back in just 45 minutes, a good time for a course with so much rough terrain and tricky navigation. Moira has to be complimented on completing the course after losing a lot of time on some early controls!

The long course was more heavily contested with 7 of TAY's (and KFO's) faster runners. The comment from most runners was that it was a course of 2 halves: a slow going first half with tricky navigation and a faster second half. Brian Williams was the first to start and ran the fastest time, closely followed by Davie Frame and David Sloan. New member Marieke Dwarshuis came in with a very good 4th place. Chris Dibben who had won the previous GP event missed control 13, and wondered if it was in the right place. Other runners on the long course agreed that it was a bit off to the North, though everybody else managed to find it. Sorry for that! Matthew McCullagh was honest enough to admit that he stumbled upon control 3 before he had been to 2 so he punched them in the wrong order. I don't think it made the course much shorter though!

Control 14 on the long course illustrated how much difference time of day can make. This control was an area of open forest in the middle of a very dense conifer forest. When we set out the courses on Sunday the sun was bright and we could clearly see the brighter green area from the path, and a fairly open route towards it. Once we were in the centre we could see that the way out the other side was clear and this gave a nice leg to the next control. However, on Tuesday evening the sun was lower and the forest pitch black, and nobody saw the other route out and so everybody went back the way they came in. Maybe if the control had been at the other end of the clearing people would have been able to see the more interesting (and faster!) route, or maybe this is not a control to use in the evening....

An event like this is as much training for planners as it is for runners, so thanks to all runners for giving me the opportunity to see how my plans work out. Also thanks to Pete for whizzing around on his folder bike to put out and take in controls.

Short Course

Length: 1.2 km, 8 controls

	Name	Time	Grand Prix Points
1	Duncan Raitt	12:15	10

Medium Course

Length: 3.3 km, 11 controls

	Name	Time	Grand Prix Points
1	Angela Dixon	45:06	10
2	Moira Laws	103:00	8

Long Course

Length: 5.2km, 17 controls

	Name	Time	Grand Prix Points
1	Brian Williams	53.35	10
2	Davie Frame	57:15	8
3	David Sloan	58:00	7
4	Marieke Dwarshuis	63:10	6
5	Stuart Hunter	92:30	5
	Chris Dibben	64:10 (missing 13)	0
	Matthew McCullagh	65:50 (mp - 2 and 3 in the wrong order)	0

Next Event: Next event is a Local Event at the Hermitage, Dunkeld on Sunday 18th June, starts from 11.00am. The Grand Prix series resumes after summer - on 22nd August at Strathallan School.

If you have any problems or queries regarding this page or its contents, contact David Sloan - email: dsloan @computing.dundee.ac.uk