Tinto Twin Weekend

This years Tinto Twin was based at Beecraigs Country Park between Livingston and Linlithgow and took it’s usual form of a night event on the Saturday followed by a conventional event the next day.
Kirstin, Karen and Ian Maxwell took part in the night event all with unsuitable head torches. Ian used his mountain bike light which has a good bright light but is heavy and overheats if you don’t keep moving while Kirstin and Karen had small head torches which gave out very little light compared to the modern LED or big Silva head torches used by the majority of competitors.
Kirstin still managed to finish 2nd W18 and 3rd on her course with Karen who was bravely running up a class on only her 2nd night event 2nd to W16 champion Rona Lindsay on both course and class. Ian could have completed the run of 2nd places but lost 4 minutes with a poor route choice and dropped to 4th.

The day event featured a new additional area which offered great contrasts in terrain unfortunately there was also a great contrast in the weather from the dry still autumn night to constant heavy rain all day.
There was a good turnout of Reivers as this was also the last round of the Scottish Orienteering League with several titles still to be decided.
John Tullie (M50L) and Jim Knox (M60S) were the only winners on the on the day with a 2nd place for Kirstin (W18) and 3rds for Karen (again running up to W16) and Ian (M45L).
Lindsey Knox picked up the wrong map and ended up in a Roxburgh Reivers battle on the green course with Karen and Jim finishing 2nd 5th and 6th on the course respectively with less than 4 minutes separating all 3.
Sarah Tullie, Eileen Maxwell and Bill Bruce all finished further down the field on a day where the weather made the courses very physically demanding for all competitors and equally demanding for the small Tinto team and helpers who set up manned and dismantled everything afterwards.