The weather forecast was for high winds and snow, and a warning of possible cancellation was posted.  On the day however only Carol and Douglas H found any real snow as they crossed the border from Englandshire.  At Pitmedden the sun shone for most of the time but there was a bitterly strong wind so there was little incentive to stand and blether.

There was a catalogue of minor cock-ups by some RR’s, some even before they had started.  Andrew A mislaid his dibber, hired a fresh one then found his own in his jacket sleeve.  John didn’t bring the right socks then picked up the wrong map at the Start losing several minutes.  Carol mispunched and was gutted but luckily it didn’t cost us a place in the final.

The results are here.  The team score was 1192 points, only 61 points behind FVO and 20 points behind ESOC.  If Carol hadn’t mispunched she would have scored 74 points and we would have Won !   Well actually 2 FVO’s also mispunched so there are a few “if onlys”.  Anyway, FVO, ESOC and ourselves are in the final which is being held near Mansfield, Nottingham on 14 October.  John will be in touch nearer the time.  Well done everyone.

Lindsey and Jim spent last weekend competing in the Trofeo Costa Calida in Spain, the 3rd time they’ve run in the competition. This year’s event was held about 15 miles from where Lindsey’s parents currently live so the digs were quite handy.

Having won for the previous 2 years Lindsey was quite keen to win again but the competition looked a bit tougher with some of the good W40’s from 2006 moving up, then Lindsey acquired another coughing bug on the day they flew out!

The warm up jog to the start on Day 1 confirmed that tactics would need to be accuracy rather than speed for Lindsey, Jim would just be doing his own brand of jogging and fast walking (he escaped feeling poorly until after the event). The area proved to be quite rocky and scrubby but a clean round for Lindsey meant a surprise winning lead of 16 minutes ! Jim finished in 12th on M55, with no A and B categories.

Day 2 is a chasing start on a short course and with a 16 minute lead Lindsey knew a safe round would bag it. 34 minutes for 2.6k was good enough to win the day by 2 minutes for an overall win by 18 minutes. Jim pulled up a place to 11th and was quite pleased with his run.

The weather was into the 20’s both days, the scenery spectacular, the organisation friendly and efficient. Jim likes the unlimited free coke, fanta and cereal bars. The splits reveal what we’ve seen in the past – the Spanish W45’s are prone to blowing their runs with one or two huge errors otherwise the times would have been much closer.

Controversy reigns again and the talk in the car park at Beecraigs was of crossing points. The organisers chose to designate two sections of the several roads through Beecraigs as “busy” and put in place a system whereby competitors had to punch a certain control twice, once on the way into a loop over a road and once on the way back. Everyone got told the basics of this at the Start but a combination of adrenalin and mis-interpretation meant lots of people didn’t fulfil the requirement. The pre-event ruling was that anyone failing to punch twice would forfeit all the points for the loop, but with a large percentage of the field doing just that, it was agreed that he miscreants would forfeit 5 minutes instead. The actual class winners were largely unaffected but the Club Championships are currently “provisional”.

Having been disqualified (and taking some stick) at the recent ESOC Score event at Riccarton which had a similar crossing point requirement, Lindsey Knox carefully avoided going anywhere near a road and managed to take the W45 Scottish Score title. Ian Maxwell, Andrew Armstrong, Bill Bruce and Jim Knox all fell foul of the crossing point rules and will have points deducted. Funny how ALL the RR men managed to mess it up! Kirstin and Karen Maxwell both had well-judged runs to finish within time. Kirstin was 2^nd on W14 and Karen 3^rd on W12.

In the Scottish Inter Club competition Reivers are provisionally the winners of the magnificent silver and walnut Small Club trophy which the Maxwells will take to the “do” on Saturday for everyone to admire.

• Results here

Roxburgh Reivers’ hosted this year’s East of Scotland Orienteering Association Championships at Bowhill and Fauldshope, near Selkirk, on 22 October 2006.

Full results and comments, together with a list of the new ESOA champions are available from the Results page.

Roxburgh Reivers’ next event is a come and try it event at Selkirk Hill on Saturday 4 November. This event is ideal for newcomers to the orienteering, or those looking for a training run.

Event information

The autumn orienteering season kicked off in glorious fashion last weekend with a double-header at Aviemore. The warm sunny weather on both days was perfect for running and on Saturday 25 teams of 11 runners raced for the Scottish 11 Person Relay trophies. 

Douglas Tullie ran first leg for Roxburgh Reivers coming home in joint 2nd place but unfortunately the rest of the team couldn’t maintain the position and slipped to overall 7th in the Open Class.  However, with a team aged from 11 to 55+, Reivers did better in the Handicap Class, finishing a well-earned 3^rd or 7^th depending on which scoring system you use !   ECKO decided to use a complicated calculation for the handicap (making us 7^th) but the simple version which was used for at least the past 2 years made us 3^rd.  The whole event has sparked off a debate which you can view on the ECKO website.  The winning Open Team was Edinburgh University, consisting of several British Team members including James Tullie.  EUOC came 2^nd in the Handicap using both systems and consisting of only 18-21’s this probably indicates that neither handicap points system is great. 

The 6^th round of the Scottish Orienteering League at Loch Vaa on Sunday provided another memorable day of racing on what is regarded as one of the best areas in the UK.  Lots of wiggly lines, lochans and open areas of very short heather made for an enjoyable run for most people. Getting into the placings were Jim Knox 1^st M55S, Rob Cranston 2^nd M40S, Sarah Tullie 3^rd JW4, John Tullie 3^rd M45L, Lindsey Knox 3^rd W45L.  Other results: Douglas Henderson 4th M55L, Kirstin Maxwell 4^th JW4, Karen Maxwell 5^th JW3, Eileen Maxwell 5^th W40S, Douglas Tullie 10^th M21L, Ian Maxwell 15^th M45L, Andrew Armstrong 22^nd M45L.

• Relay results
• Loch Vaa results