Teviothead Results

Congratulations to everyone who ventured out into wet hills of Teviothead today. There was an impressive turnout of over 30 hardy souls. A special welcome to two orienteers from Solway who ventured East to run on Reivers territory today.

It was encouraging to see a number of orienteers taking on the challenge of the contour-only course. The ordinary Light Green course used exactly the same controls so the contour only competitors can compare themselves against those who had the benefit of the black detail on their map. Ian Maxwell, who ran the contour only course had the fastest time of all, but Ian might just have a little bit of local knowledge as well.

The competition at the top of all the standard courses was fierce with Faisal Khursheed winning the Light Green by under two minutes, Marc Heger just pipping Yousuf Khursheed by a minute and half in the Orange and Eilidh Murray had less than a minute to spare over Emma Amos in the Yellow.

In the Light Green Course, James Purves’ time has been adjusted to reflect the fact that his Start punch didn’t register properly. To make the mathematics simple James we just deducted 828 minutes from your recorded first leg time!]

The full results from today’s event can be found by clicking here

The Club barbecue required a further degree of hardiness from Club Members although there was a cover over the barbecue. Thanks are due to John Tullie for fabricating a cover from black bin bags at short notice. A good deal of food and drink was consumed.

The Autumn Series of events is scheduled to start in September. Further details will appear on the website in due course and we look forward to welcoming more and more orienteers to our events.

British Championships 2014

The British Orienteering Championships were held in north Northumberland and the winner was the glorious weather.

The forest for the individual race on Saturday has been rarely used and provided a very physical challenge to all the runners with most of the area covered in either heather, high bilberries or tree brashings making running very difficult. Roxburgh Reivers still managed to get two people on the podium in the shape of Fiona Forrest on W40 and John Tullie on M55 who were both 3rd in their classes. Pauline McAdam just missed out, finishing 4th on W55.

John Tullie 3rd

John Tullie 3rd

The relay championships provided much more pleasant running conditions among grassed-over mine workings near Otterburn. Kirstin Maxwell had a great run to help her Edinburgh University team to first place on the Women’s Premier class in what was her final run as a student. Roxburgh Reivers had a record six teams competing, including two junior teams. Although none made it onto the podium Elena Heger deserves a mention for having the fastest time on her leg on the mixed under-18 class, and Yousuf Khursheed also ran well for 4th place on his M14 leg.

2014-06-01-brc-euoc

Edinburgh Uni winning team.

Some photos courtesy of Rainer Heger below:

Next event – Teviothead 7th June

Details of our next event at Teviothead are now via the link to the right hand side.

This is the final local event before the summer break and were having a barbeque afterwards in Teviothead Hall, just across the road.  Everyone welcome but you need to bring your own food.

The hardest course is Light Green+ which is a mixture of Light Green and Green controls.  There will also be a contour-only version of this course for the people wanting an extra challenge.  Ian is running a “contours” coaching session starting at 12 noon which will be helpful for Orange and Light Green+ competitors.

Scottish Champs 2014

One of the highlights of the orienteering season are the Scottish Championships, two days of individual and then relay competitions, this years event being held north Perthshire last weekend.

The individual race took place in glorious sunshine just north of House of Bruar in a mixed area of woodland and open hillside and with Roxburgh Reivers being part of the organising team they had to juggle their runs with operating one of the Starts. The event was also a Scottish Veterans team selection event so competition was tight but Reivers were delighted to get three members on the podium. Fiona Forrest won W40L by over a minute and Lindsey Knox took the W55L Scottish title by slightly under a minute. Rob Cranston finished 3rd overall but 2nd Scot on M45S.

On Sunday the weather had deteriorated to dull with regular heavy downpours so the club were glad of the club shelter for the Relay Championships at Dunkeld. With additional members travelling up from the Borders for the day, there were 3 teams entered including a squad of under-16’s competing in their first orienteering relay event. Whilst not finishing on the podium all the boys did well and gained experience for future runs. Faisal Khursheed in particular had a good run, running an adult course and finishing in 4th position. The club senior team of Pauline McAdam, Lindsey Knox and Ian Maxwell won their handicap age class and were placed 4th overall.

This weekend sees a large number of Reivers doing a raid over the border to Northumberland for the British Championships.

Patrick - 3rd from left in blue top at start of relay race.

Patrick – 3rd from left in blue top at start of relay race.

Lindsey with W55 trophy and "bag" memento

Lindsey with W55 trophy and “bag” memento

Bowmont results and report

Results from today’s event are HERE

First of all, thank you to everyone who came along and took part on Saturday. A special thank you to everyone who helped bring in controls and an extra special thank you to Lindsey for advice on planning and for her help on the day.

A heartfelt apology for the muddled controls which affected some folk on the Orange course until I finally understood what a few of you had been trying to tell me about the “missing” tower at 106 and swapped them over. They were the first controls I put out and my brain had obviously not been engaged at that point. The splits are a bit distorted for that leg because I changed them over. Maybe I should have left them but I wanted to do it before Emma on the Yellow course got to them as they were both on her course. I hope that you all enjoyed your run despite this.

The nature of the vegetation in areas of Bowmont has changed quite dramatically, partly due to wind-blow and partly from the ongoing forestry operations so, after my first visit in January, I decided to mainly use the southern part of the map which was less affected by these.

My final visit was on last Monday when I checked the location of the depression where control 119 was. The bracken and stinging nettles were just starting to appear. I was amazed on Saturday to find how much undergrowth had appeared in 4 days and how tall it had grown, making everything off the paths on the Orange course that bit more challenging.

Finally, weren’t we lucky with the weather! We were all geared up for a miserable day and I actually could have done with wearing sun-cream. The rain was around though; parts of the road between Kelso and Edinburgh were seriously flooded and I drove through Gordon in a downpour.

Pauline.