The orienteering world is springing back to life again as events that have been waiting on the shelf were dusted off and finally put to good use. COVID restrictions remain in place to some extent but many of the limits on numbers that led to entries filling up within days of opening have now been eased. While we’re by no means out of the woods yet on COVID, there’s been enough action to warrant a quick round up of selected highlights. And surely orienteers would rather be in the woods anyway!
SELOC Successes
Our own SELOC informal events have been the most popular amongst our members with some good results. These have all been published on the club website so I won’t dwell on them here but try and use the chance to look a bit further afield. Our neighbours in PFO have been as busy as us and had more joy in getting permissions from local authorities to stage events than have SELOC, so even managed to put on a pretty full range of colour-coded courses at their Brun Valley event on 22 May. Best SELOC result came from Adam Thetford, now a regular on Light Green courses, with 2nd place while Jessica Briers took 3rd spot on Orange. Amongst the seniors, worth noting Matt Brierley’s 6th place on the Green course as our only other top 10, though Caroline Barcham just missed out with 11th on Short Green.
Paul Turner has got back into urban mode very quickly, travelling far and wide to take in events despite a couple of nagging injuries. John Nuttall has not lost his skills either, securing SELOC’s best places at the two biggest events of the year so far with 8th in M75 at the British Middle Distance Champs, then again the following day at the Northern Champs. Both in complex Lake District terrain too. Michael Hood is another who has been travelling a bit, with 4th spot in M60 at AIRE’s Middleton Woods event in May. Steve Round has managed to get to a few events too, though so far is still looking to match these guys.
Amongst our juniors, the Taylor family have been out and about with both girls running Orange courses now. Florence finished 7th at SROC’s Yarrow Valley event and 8th at PFO’s Stubbylee Park event while Abigail gained 12th spot at SROC’s Knots Wood event. New member Ben McDonald also did well at Knots Wood with 8th on the Orange course.
Many others have been fitting in what orienteering they can and dusting off the speed and the skills, but no space to list them all here.
Upcoming Events
SELOC’s next event is coming soon with the third in our Summer Saturday Series at Burrs Country Park, Bury, on Saturday 3 July. Details are on the website but pre-entry is still required and now open on Fabian4.
Otherwise, it is the season of midweek summer evening events and PFO have a set of score events in small local areas coming to a conclusion. There’s just one event left, at Peel Park in Accrington on Wednesday 30 June, and they have a limit of 30 on each course so get in quickly if you want to get a run. MDOC had a curtailed series, about to finish, or for those nearer Yorkshire then AIRE have some way to go in their Summer Sprint League run on Wednesday evenings.
The next big event in the country is the British Sprint Championships weekend, right on our doorstep at Skelmersdale on 21/22 August. There’s a Relay on the Saturday then Individual Champs on the Sunday, and SELOC are playing a big part in the organisation alongside other NWOA clubs. It is an amazing area technically, and even if you don’t fancy a run then we’ll need a lot of help on the day so please try to keep the 22 August free. Organisers are still juggling with COVID constraints at the minute but we should know what roles we are asked to fill quite soon so watch out for a more specific request in your Email.