Orienteering – WEE 2 – Ormeau Park
Last night’s second WEE series event took place within Ormeau Park. The ‘Long’ course could be described as ‘classic’ Park O – fast and furious with relatively straight forward navigation. The race would be won by micro route choices that would save a few seconds between controls. The WEE events are designed to promote orienteering to a wider audience as well as providing the regulars with a challenging mid-week run. Fun is a good word to describe the series, but I still get nervous before hand as if it was any other serious competition.
The long course was 4.1km with 15 controls spread around the park. The terrain was mainly flat and open with a good path network. It was indeed going to be fast for the top runners, so mistakes had to be kept to a minimum for any chance of winning. The course took a rough figure of eight going anti-clock wise around the park. The first 4 controls were quick and easy before the course took you back up into the main body of the park. From CP 5 to 6 was a long run along a path before cutting off to hit the control at the SE side of a large bush. CP 9 was the first ‘tricky’ control which was located at a small re-entrant within the wood section on the south west side of the park. From 9 you had to cut across to the east side again and run back up to CP 10 which was located on the north west edge of a shallow hill. CP 11 and 12 was again straightforward, but the run to CP13 was my first and only mistake of the course. I cut across from CP12 ok and went directly through the nettles (ouch!) to the small dirt track. I knew I was south of the control so turned right and run along the path a short distance to what I though was the area where the control was – but it was not there! I checked the map again and the control was slightly off the track on the west side. I doubled back and then cut across further over toward the fence. This led me to another ‘grassy’ path which ran along the boundary fence. About 10 metres further north lead me directly to the control. It felt like a big mistake (and I guess it was), but I only lost about 20 seconds. The last 3 controls were again easy enough and it was a fast sprint to the finish.
As predicted it was very fast, but apart from CP13 I was happy with my run. I wanted to work on my control exits during the race. In the past there were too many times that I stopped for a few seconds at the controls to recheck the map. This time I checked the map as I was running into the control, so I instantly knew which direction to run in once the control was dibbed. It worked well during the race and I felt I didn’t lose any ‘real’ time at the controls. Next week the WEE series will be back to more challenging terrain at Lady Dixons. ….can‘t wait!!
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