Thanks all for coming and hope everyone enjoyed running on Gala Hill, after a fairly long gap since the last event here – hope you all agree it’s not a bad wee area for orienteering !
Well done John for the fastest time, but if Colin Williams hadn’t ‘warmed up’ by running from Innerleithen to the Start and wearing flat shoes, it might have been different…! And thanks very much to Fiona F, Judith and Ian for help with the event, much appreciated.
Please make sure you read the SCORE FORMAT section !!
Car parking: Parking is behind the Busy Bees Nursery, near the BGH.
Directions: turn off the Melrose bypass at the traffic lights for the BGH. Go straight on past the main entrance to the hospital, and after 250m bear left to the car park BEHIND Busy Bees.
Course: Score course – with a TWIST.
Terrain: Mostly urban, but with a couple of small areas of woodland. It has been a prolific year for undergrowth, so if thinking of going direct in the woodland, full leg covering strongly recommended.
Other road users. Traffic in the Hospital area should not be busy, but you will cross many urban roads, including a bus route through the middle of Darnick where there are few pavements. Please take care when crossing these roads. The main roads are completely out of bounds and may only be crossed at a bridge or using underpasses. The main road to the north of the area has a pavement or grass verge which you may use.
You may meet dog walkers, cyclists and horses. Please be respectful and considerate.
Registration: You only need to visit Registration if you need to pick up a hired dibber, pay some money, or check the battery on your own SIAC dibber. Otherwise, you can go directly to the Start.
Start procedures: Clear and Check your dibbers before you enter the start boxes, as usual. Start boxes will be laid out so that there are at least 2m between waiting competitors. There will be a contactless check box in the -2 box for those of you with SIAC dibbers to waft. If your SIAC fails to register you will need to “dib” manually at the controls. Please do not arrive in the start area more than 10 minutes before your start to enable people to maintain 2m distances from others.
Map: scale 1:4000. Thicker vegetation and runnabilty is variable, mapping gives an indication only. In the Hospital precincts, some of the landscaping mapped as thickets, have been radically pruned.
Control descriptions on the front of the map only, no loose descriptions.
Control sites: Control units will be grippled to anything suitably immobile at the control site. Consequently, control units may be sited low to the ground. Please avoid putting your hand on any of the equipment.
Score Format:
You have a time limit of 30 minutes
Each control has the code number marked on the map.
Each is worth 10 points
there will be 22 controls, 11 odd numbers, 11 even numbers
You must alternate between ODD and EVEN control numbers. So, if you start with an ODD number, the next must be EVEN. If you start with an EVEN number …. well, you can guess the rest!
If you visit two even or two odd consecutively, the second one will be deleted from your total
Penalty for taking more than 30 minutes is 10 points per minute or part thereof
You will be given the map and then have 30 seconds to plan a strategy before dibbing the Start
Note that the control boxes will be programmed for contactless punching (SIAC)
Results: You will not receive a printout when you download but, fingers crossed, live results will be available on the internet: rr-live2.droppages.com
Covid-19 procedures: Sanitiser will be available at start & finish. All equipment will have been sanitised before use. Always keep a 2m space between yourself and anyone not in your family, this includes out on your course.
We are required to remind people in the higher risk categories, as set out by British Orienteering and Government, of the need to be aware that attending places them at increased risk.
Please leave promptly after your run and minimise socialising in the car park and in the Start/ Finish/ Registration area.
Planners comments: Selkirk Hill is a funny kind of place – we all know it well enough that we’ve probably visited every decent control site ! So it’s tricky to do something new, and make it challenging. On reflection, that was probably a bit more technical than was strictly necessary for a night event, though that said, every control was on or near a path, and there were always path options to connect them. I tried to tempt you into taking cross country choices rather than ‘round the paths’, and tried to give you route choice decisions to make. In order to make the most of the complex pitted area, the course had a LOT of controls – but I felt that was necessary to prevent it being a simple fly-through on the larger paths. I suspect patience, keeping it slow and steady and really drilling down into the detail and always knowing where you were was what worked. Maybe ask Ellie what the secret was !
Thanks to everyone for coming on what turned out to be a pretty miserable and damp evening !
After consulting various forecasts, there’s no doubt Bowhill is in for an extremely wet day on Saturday, and while the estate is fairly sheltered, we feel that travel to and from could well be hazardous with the risk of flooded roads.
In addition, competing in such conditions is not very pleasant, so the decision is that tomorrow’s Local event at Bowhill is CANCELLED. We will hope to re-run the event before the end of the winter.
It was good to see such a good turnout at our Selkirk Sprint, I hope you all enjoyed the courses. Especially pleasing to have the yellow course turn into a training event for the Schools Championships! Continue reading →