Naomi’s Report!

The Compass Sport Cup qualifier is one of my favourite events of the year. Not because I get to run down a course (although that never hurts!) but because it’s one of the few times of the year when it really feels like a team sport and the club (Klubb?) comes together. Normally you may see and have a chat to fellow club members in the car park or the queue for Tom’s burger van but orienteering often feels like a solitary sport. So it’s always nice when the heats come around and there’s the chance to spend time with everyone. This year was no exception, with the tent up and shortbread and crêpes courtesy of Luke and Antoine. The event was at Worthlodge Forest, an area I have absolutely no recollection of despite having orienteered there several times. (I can, however, remember that I bought my last pair of o-shoes there a few years ago and one event involved walking past the displays for Tulleys Farm’s hallowe’en Shocktober Fest, which looked quite bizarre in the autumn sunshine. Make of that what you will.)

If you’ve ever looked at my results, it is obvious that I’m not the fastest orienteer (to put it mildly) but as it was the Compass Sport Cup (OK, Trophy) I wanted to put in a good time for me and I hoped that running a shorter course than usual would help. No pressure then! After a squelchy walk to the start, I was in the start lanes and then off. One of my rules for orienteering is always to take it relatively easy to the first control, to get an understanding of how the mapper has mapped the area and because there’s nothing

GPS Naomi Drewitt

Worthlodge Forest

Green Women

Scale: 1:10,000

Contours 5m more soul-destroying than thrashing around for what feels like hours when you’ve only just started. But the first leg looked relatively easy: down the path then right along the stream so I thought I could take it quickly. And there it was. So back to the path on my way to control number two. A slight distraction as I see a competitor start moving towards an open area of land but I double check my map and realise she is heading towards the one that is marked out of bounds and I do want the one that is further ahead: have confidence in your navigation, I think.

And then I start knocking off the controls one by one. At control 5, a brief moment of surprise as my bearing to hit the knoll that the control is on is actually correct. (Taking and following accurate bearings is definitely one of my weaker orienteering skills.) The leg between controls 7 and 8 seems to take longer than I expected but I find the marsh and the control. “Don’t think it”, I think to myself (as thinking “This is going well” is usually and inevitably followed by going completely wrong…). On my way to control 10 I see Julie. By this point, I know I’m tiring but I dig in. However, the tiredness tells with the penultimate leg. I run out the woodland to the open field with the intention of following the open land underneath the power lines to the final control. But I take one look at the bracken and decide against it so go back into the woodland. I’d have been better off following the stream through the woodland in the end.

I’m almost finished. When meeting up with everyone before starting, I was particularly “pleased” to see the finish was uphill. However, with a little group of DFOK-ers there cheering all the club’s runners in, I think I better grit my teeth and run it. Also because I can see Tina taking photos and I don’t want to be the one walking! It obviously did the trick as this turned out to be one of my best legs: I was second fastest. I punch the finish and I’m done.

Overall, I’m pleased with how it went. My final position was rather higher up the order than where I can normally be found and checking Routegadget afterwards, my route choice was pretty good (or perhaps we were all making the same mistakes?!). If only my running speed was quicker So thank you Luke for the very tasty shortbread stars, thank you Antoine for the crêpes and thank you everyone for cheering me in and being excellent company. It’s sad we didn’t manage to qualify for the finals but I think we did well to lose by only a few points (and the top three clubs were only separated by 10 points. Here’s to next year!