There were more good results for the Reivers on the weekend of the 4th/5th of October. The October Odyssey is held each year in the North East of England and this year it was on the North York Moors with a slightly different format than usual.

Day 1 was held in typical steep Yorkshire forest and moorland but thankfully the weather was not as bad as what forecast. The rain stayed off but the strong winds made the courses even tougher, being extremely physical resulting in longer than expected times. Ian managed to come 2nd on the short brown course and 1st M45. Kirstin was not far behind, 5th on the course and 2nd running up in the W21 class behind an Australian World Championship athlete.
Karen also running up an age class was 5th on the green and 1st in the W16 class, Eileen continued her improved form by finishing 3rd in the W45 class.

The winds had died down overnight and on Sunday competitors were met with lovely sunny conditions for the Urban race around the busy town of Northallerton. Sprint specialist Douglas H was 4th M55, managing to stay ahead of Karen who again  was running up and finished 2nd W16 and therefore an excellent 1st overall. Eileen was again 3rd W45 allowing her to maintain 3rd overall after the two races. Ian was 3rd M45 but that was enough for him to hold on to 1st overall. Kirstin was again 2nd running up to W21 allowing her to finish 2nd overall with a combined time quicker than all of the M18’s

For anyone who had not done enough orienteering for one weekend there was one competition left.  An ultrasprint  which is an extremely short course (750m) with a large scale map and lots and lots of controls and to make it even harder there was also a labyrinth to deal with aswell. Each competitor ran heats which consisted of three 750m courses with the top 4 times combined contesting the A final’s for various classes. Kirstin made it into the Open Women’s final and Karen into the Junior Girls but sadly Ian who was beaten by both his daughters had be content with reaching the B final. The finals were  intense head to head racing with all 4 finalists started together but on slightly different courses involving butterfly loops which added to the challenge. Kirstin took it steady and managed to ignore others and even with a slight mistake towards the end won the Women’s open. Karen comfortably won the junior girls after making a break from the rest of the field in the labyrinth. Unfortunately, after setting a quicker time than both his daughters, Ian was found to have punched a wrong control and was disqualified.