Organisers - Dave Prentice, John Owen
Having a map is a rather important pre-requisite for an orienteering event, but it was rather a close-run thing whether the map was going to be ready for Tayside Orienteers’ Tuesday event at Glenalmond. The map was a new extended one incorporating the main Glenalmond College grounds, the golf course and Cairnies wood, an area of forestry between the golf course and the road. Without an aerial plot, it took a long time to survey the 'new bits' and the final two parts of the survey plus quite a few corrections / changes for the parts already drawn up were sent to Stirling Surveys on Monday evening and in the morning the cartography was still being completed, with the sites to be used for some of the controls still being added to the map. The map was collected from Stirling Surveys at 2.30pm and all was ready just in time for the 5.30pm start. Stirling Surveys did a wonderful job getting the map ready...especially as it was only near the end of the preceding week they realised that Monday was a holiday.
It was also a close-run thing in the long course, with a clutch of runners finishing in just under the hour, but Davie Frame (54mins.20) and Donald Smith (55.48) were at the head of this group, scoring valuable points for the grand prix competition. However the convincing winner was Brian Williams who covered the 6kms course in 46.20. Even though there was some fast running in the college grounds and on the golf course, there was tricky navigation in the forest with its network of paths and ditches and the descent to the River Almond and the climb back out again was hard on tired legs. Davie should know as he cycled to the event, having cycled over 50 miles earlier – perhaps it was not surprising he started to get cramp half way round. Orienteering demands concentration, and the prize for lack of concentration definitely went to Matthew McCullough who literally lost the plot on arguably the easiest part of the course and after having run up and down the road three times also lost his chance to challenge for the lead and did well to finish in just over the hour.
On the 3.8kms medium course, Jane Anderon showed everyone a clean pair of heels, finishing in 33.30 and on the 1.8kms short course, Hamish Weir in 22.50 just beat his sister Mairi.
The map is a joint initiative between Glenalmond College and Tayside Orienteers and most of the competitors returned saying they really enjoyed their run, so it seemed to be well received. Moira Laws was perhaps the exception, as her route choice on the medium course to control 8 took her through two sections of fight (fortunately correctly mapped!), the first being a section of unpleasant gorse and the second being thick conifers, both of which I had been through when mapping, and at both of which I had drawn a line and decided that there was far too much work involved to carry out any 'environmental improvements'. Jennifer did discover some extra gorse in an area which had been a bit rushed when surveying...which I had hoped would not be on anyone's route – this will be included on the final map! The hard luck story is that of Abigail Williams who navigated through the difficult section of the short course, but because of her (quite valid) approach to control 6, did not see the flag as it was rather tucked away in a ditch and as a result lost out on first place.
The area offers somewhat unusual orienteering. There is another bit to be added to the map on the NW corner – any thoughts as to whether it might be a suitable area for our Christmas score...with lunch in the college??
As for 'Glorious Glenalmond', that did not quite materialise, with the weather cold and windy and the rain finally coming in around 7.00pm – just as Davie was setting off. It was rather fortunate the weather had been dry during the survey – otherwise there might not have been a map at all. Many thanks to John Owen for putting out all the controls, a somewhat difficult task at times as there was not a complete map – without his efforts there would not have been an event.
Length: 1.7km, 15m climb
| Name | Time | Grand Prix Points | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hamish Weir | 22.55 | 10 |
| 2 | Mairi Weir | 23.45 | 8 |
| 3 | Arran and Ellie Williams | 44.00 | 7 |
| 4 | Abigail Williams | 47.00 | 6 |
Length: 3.2 km, 45m climb
| Name | Time | Grand Prix Points | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jane Anderson | 33.30 | 10 |
| 2 | Moira Laws | 46.35 | 8 |
| 3 | Jennifer McCullagh | 49.30 | 7 |
| 4 | Diane Adams | 65.30 | 6 |
Length: 6.0km, 100m climb
| Name | Time | Grand Prix Points | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brian Williams | 46.10 | 10 |
| 2 | Davie Frame | 54.20 | 8 |
| 3 | Donald Smith | 55.48 | 7 |
| 4 | Stuart Hunter | 57.14 | 6 |
| 5 | Nick Leslie | 57.30 | 5 |
| 6 | Allan Downie | 60.01 | 4 |
| 7 | Matthew McCullagh | 61.05 | 3 |
| 8 | Roos Eisma | 65.20 | 2 |
| 9 | David Anderson | 72.00 | 1 |
| 10 | Felicity Martin | 72.06 |
Next Event: Next Tuesday Evening event is Grand Prix 3 at Knock of Crieff on the 16th May, starts from 5.30pm.
HOME | ABOUT THE CLUB | LATEST NEWS | FIXTURE LIST | RESULTS | CONTACT
If you have any problems or queries regarding this page or its contents, contact David Sloan - email: dsloan @computing.dundee.ac.uk
Content of this web site ©2000-2010 Tayside Orienteers unless otherwise acknowledged. All rights reserved. Terms of use.