A windy day near Aviemore resulted in perfect conditions for the local gliding club and the orienteers running in the Inshriach forest below them, although the orienteers also had the added interest of an aggressive capercaille which had chased the course planners the day before.  Luckily it didn’t make an appearance although some courses were changed to avoid it’s area.

The more serious business of navigating through one of Scotland’s most intricate forest focussed the athlete’s minds and Roxburgh Reivers bagged a good number of podium places in this the penultimate round of the 2008 Scottish Orienteering League.   There were wins for John Tullie, Robin Sloan and Lindsey Knox plus runners-up places for Jim Knox, James Tullie and Eileen Maxwell.  With the final round taking place at Dunkeld in a fortnight, all these runners are in a good position to take the overall title.

Other results: Kirstin Maxwell 3rd, Sarah Tullie 4th, Ian Maxwell 5th, Karen Maxwell 6th.

The Scottish Orienteering team, including John Tullie and Lindsey Knox, returned home in good spirits on Sunday evening having secured overall victory in the annual Home International match which this year took place in Northern Ireland.  The team regularly wins either the individual competition or the relays but this is the first time the Scots have won the overall match, beating England into 2nd place with Wales and Ireland 3rd and 4th.  John was in formidable form all weekend, winning his individual race by several minutes on a windy and rain-swept Magilligan Strand on Saturday then leading his relay team to victory on Sunday.

Closer to home, five club members travelled to Northumberland for the October Odyssey weekend.  Douglas Henderson finished an excellent 2nd over the two days, and there were 3rd places for Ian Maxwell, Karen Maxwell and Eileen Maxwell. Kirstin finished 5th.

The weekend also saw the first in this years South of Scotland League events which was held at Dunkeld.  On the Brown course Douglas Tullie took the honours, with James Tullie finishing 2nd.

John Tullie finally got his hands on a Scottish Individual trophy, comfortably winning M50L on Saturday. He was (is!) chuffed. Eileen also had a cracking run to win W45S and was chuffed too. Carol got in the frame with a 2nd place on W35S, and Jim was 3rd on M60S. James didn’t get “on the podium” but his 4th on M21 Elite was a great run considering his recent injury.

Best result among the younger members was Kirstin’s 3rd place in W16A.

We had 4 teams in the relays and managed some very respectable results. John, Lindsey and Robin were 1st in the H15 class. Ian, Jim and Andrew were 7th in the H12 class. Rob, Eileen and Carol finished 4th in the H15 class but were n/c due to being too young. The junior team of Sarah, Karen and Kirstin were 5th in the -48 class and first all-girl team.

Results are here.

The weather was brilliant, the scenery spectacular and Day 3 of Tay 2009 at the same venue will hopefully be just as good. We’ll have late starts that day so the bracken should be nicely battered down.