East of Scotland Championships – Dechmont

ESOA Champions 2011

ESOA Champions 2011

A small but very select band of Reivers were at Deans and Dechmont (Livingston) on Sunday for the 2011 East of Scotland Championships, an event postponed from 2010 when snow and ice led to it being called off at the last minute.  This year the weather couldn’t have been better – blue skies and not cold.

The courses were a combination of urban and park/woodland and the first challenge was to find the start triangle on what appeared to be a quite dark overprint.  Out of bounds roads meant using underpasses in some places, and we were certainly kept on our toes.

Ian had a bit of trouble reading the map due to his colour-blindness and was 10th at the end of the urban section but blasted the second part to finish (initially) in 2nd place on M50/Blue.   The winner was subsequently marked as n/c so Ian is now the M50 Champion but didn’t get his trophy on the day so missed out on the photo.  Kirstin was pleased to finish in 3rd (now 2nd) and become W20 Champion but wasn’t quite so pleased to be beaten by Ian by only 7 seconds.  Also on Blue, Fiona Forrest won the W35 title, taking less than a minute longer than Kirstin, but left before the prizegiving so also isn’t in the winners photo.  Bill Bruce finished in 6th despite going up Dechmont Law when he didn’t need to, and he lives nearby so should have known better.

On Green, Karen easily took the W16 title as did Lindsey on W50 despite a clattering fall onto a boulder 10 minutes from the end (the bruise is quite impressive !).  Eileen finished 4th in a strong W45 class.

Barry Veitch, running Brown, put in another good performance to finish in 2nd place on M40.

Results are HERE