Irish Perform Well at World Champs

Well done, David, Niamh, Nick and the rest of the Irish team in Norway. For the first time we had qualifiers in every distance: Nick Simonin in the Sprint and the Long, David Healy in the Middle and Niamh O'Boyle in the long. The first 15 from each of three parallel heats went through to the final in each distance. Niamh, her brother Seamus, and Ciara Largey were among those to miss qualification by a matter of seconds in some of the heats. David Healy finished 43rd in the Middle Distance final, Nick was 41st in the Sprint final (2 mins 20 seconds down on winner Matthias Mueller) and 40th in the Long, and Niamh was 34th in the Long distance final race.
You can read about the Irish performances at the World Championships in Trondheim, Norway, on the excellent Irish Team blog here, with reports from all the races by the team members themselves. Full results, maps, photos etc are here.
The atmosphere in Trondheim was electric, with runners and supporters on the edge of their seats waiting to see who would qualify for the finals. The competition at this level is intense, and the shorter the distance the more severely a mistake of a couple of seconds is punished.
Trondheim, Norway's third city, was out in fete to celebrate the WOC: banners on the streets, newspapers in the shops, a big stage in the town square for concerts and prizegiving. There were almost 2000 other runners there too, taking part in the WOC Tour, a series of five events run on the WOC areas at sprint, middle and long distance. This group included many of the Irish Junior Squad on a training trip - and they learned a lot about orienteering both from running in the fantastic Norwegian forests and from watching the world's elite orienteers in action.

Aonghus O'Cléirigh's advice was to keep your feet wet, in other words to use the marshes to run in, and there were few enough other linear features out there to use. The natural pine forests were a delight and the WOC Tour courses were testing and fitted in well with the WOC programme itself, allowing us to run and watch.
The best Irish WOC Tour performance was Ruth Lynam (2nd W55).

We should also mention the three members of the Irish Trail-Orienteering team, Alan Gartside, Wilbert Hollinger and Gordon Stephens, all from LVO, who were on their way from the European Trail-O Championships in Sweden. Wilbert was the highest placed of the three.

Finally, no account of the Trondheim WOC would be complete without a special mention for the "extra man" on the Irish team: Mike Long and family. Mike and Catherine, Róisín and Ruairi made their house in Trondheim a base for the Irish team before and during the competition, with a series of Elite runners staying there and training over the summer.  Not only that, but they provided floor space, bikes, local information and transport so that the team and supporters really felt at home.

Ivan Millar adds: David Healy gives a fascinating insight into the big race thought- processes in his World champs middle distance report.
You can read his view of the race on the Irish WOC blog now.

World MTBO Championships, Portugal
Read NWOC's Bobby Smyth's report on the event here.

Northern Ireland Championships Weekend

In a move from tradition, the Northern Irieland Championships were run in June rather than September, and the weekend - based at Tollymore forest park in the Mournes - also included a night mass start race (won by M16 Jack Millar), a barbecue, overnight campsite, a Temp-O event, a bearing and pacing challenge, technical training on the Sunday and orienteering fun and games for the kids, all hosted by Lagan Valley Orienteers who simultaneously ran a micr-O event in Belfast for the official opening of the Decathlon store. On top of all this, LVO managed to have more than 80 entrants in the NIOC - some going!
Steven Linton (NWOC) took the Men's title and Sharon Lucey (FermO) the Women's.

French 3-Day

A small party of Irish runners made it to Besancon in Eastern France for the 3 Jours de Franche Comté: a sprint in Besanconn on Friday evening was fast and not too technical, the courses starting at Vauban's UNESCO listed Citadel fortress and dropping to the town below, passing through a 400 metre long tunnel with a canal. The Saturday race was full length, in runnable limestone forest with lots of depressions, and the Sunday was similar. Luckily the temperatute had dropped from 38C just before the event so running conditions were just right. About 800 runners took part, mostly from France. The event was only about 100 km from the World Masters in Switzerland a few days later but I didn't see much evidence of overlap between the events. Next year's World Championships are not far away (further south, at Chambéry, in August).

Lakeland 5-Day

I hope to get a report on this one soon, but as I write it's just finished. Rain meant the cancellation of one of the days because of the possibility of pollution from the parking field to a reservoir nearby. (The organisers have appropriately affered to pass on unclaimed refunds to the Pakistan flood appeal). A quick run through the results shows Niamh Corbett 3rd W16, Anne May (former Irish Orienteers secretary) 1st W60S, Anne Donnell 1st W75, an Enniskillen native if I'm not mistaken; Cillín Corbett 5th M18L, Shane Lynch 5th M21L, Declan McGrellis 3rd M35L, James Logue 1st M40L, Brian Corbett 2nd M50L. The event website is here.
Next year's 6-Day is at Oban in Scotland starting on July 31st. Details here.

Autumn preview

The Fingal scatter events are among those to kickstart the new season - these are like score events but without a time limit, where you have to get a certain number of controls in any order (also called Spanish Scpore events, if I'm not mistaken). Apart from this, the annual Mournes Mountain Marathon is on 18-19th September (details here). Full fixtures list here, though there are more events still to go on the list. Cork and Kerry clubs are also staging series of beginners events in the autumn.

MTBO

Good to see two mountain bike orienteering events scheduled: Setanta Orienteers have one at Castletimon (near Brittas Bay, Co. Wicklow) on September 19th and one at Djouce Woods, again in Wicklow, on September 26th.

JHI 2009
Congratulations to the Juniors selected to run in the Junior Home International at Perth in Scotland on September 11/12th:

M14 Cathal OCléirigh, Donal Kearns, Jonathan Quinn, peter Meehan
W14 Róisín Long, Jill Stephens, Caoimhe O'Boyle, Megan Getliff
M16 Jack Millar, Alex Simonin, Mark Stephens, Laurence Quinn,
W16 Niamh Corbett, Clíona McCullough, Deirdre Ryan
M18 Seán Knight, Conor Short, Colm Moran, Cillín Corbett
W18 Áine McCann, Andrea Stefkova, Laura Cox

The relay race is at Kinnoull Hill outside Perth, used for the 2009 Scottish 6-Day, and the individual on Sunday at Devilla, used for the 2008 World Schools Championships.

Event cancelled

The NIOA series Woodburn event on Sunday September 5^th has been cancelled due to an infection of p.ramorum in the Japanese larch trees. This is the same fungal infection that causes sudden oak death in the USA and it has been identified in three forests in south Antr

Istanbul 5-Days information

IOG (Istanbul Orienteering Group) invites you to the 7th "Istanbul 5 days" Orienteering Event which will be held in and around Istanbul, Turkey on 2-7 November 2010.

This is a multiday O-event taking place in two continents (Europe and Asia); in various parks, forests and even in the maze-style streets of the huge and ancient Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. The middle distance race on November 6 will be a WRE (World Ranking Event), while other days host sprint, long and classic distance races.

Since 2004, IOG has been organizing the Istanbul 5 days and have enjoyed a high level of participation from different countries. Last year 1028 competitors from 32 different countries participated to the event and returned home (with their words) “I don’t regret a second ;) Good organization and nice competitions” . According to a participant, Jan Kocbach of WorldofO, “The Grand Bazar orienteering is one of the things all orienteers should have on their “Must-have-once-in-a-lifetime list”

On the website www.ist5days.com, you can find all the information about the event, accommodation possibilities in the centre of the old town, transportation, participation fees and more. Bulletin 2 is already released and Bulletin 3 is coming soon, while you can also register online for the event.

For more information : http://www.ist5days.com/

That's all for now!

August 2010

Good luck to the Irish team running next week in Trondheim in the World Championships, and to the Trail Orienteering team in the World Trail-O Champs there: Neil Dobbs (Middle distance), David Healy (Sprint, Long Distance), Shane Lynch (Sprint), Seamus O'Boyle (Sprint), Andrew Quin (Middle, Long), Nick Simonin (Sprint, Long). Ros Hussey (Sprint, Middle, Relay), Susan Lambe (Sprint), Ciara Largey (Long, Relay), Niamh O'Boyle (Sprint, Long, Relay). Trail-O:  Wilbert Hollinger, Alan Gartside, Gordon Stephens.

For the World Orienteering Championships in Norway (August 8-15) see here. (next year it's in France in mid-August). The Irish Senior Squad blog is here. The Irish Elite page (with team profiles etc) is here.

Multi-Irish champion Niamh O'Boyle is not afraid of a challenge! 2010 has seen her not only finishing off her PhD, this summer she has also taken on the challenge of orienteering her way across Scandinavia against some of the best orienteers, most testing terrain and thirstiest mozzies you could ever meet!

Thanks to Niamh for permission to reproduce this here:

Leaving for Trondheim
I was due to leave for Trondheim, where Mike (Long) and Catherine had generously offered accommodation, on Thursday 10th June. On Monday, June 7th I ran in the Flora Women’s mini-marathon, running a new 10km PB of 39:18 and more importantly, raising €1000 for Barretstown Gang Camp, an amazing association near where I live that works with seriously ill children and their families. On Tuesday, 8th June I managed to submit my PhD thesis, 466 pages of anti-cancer drug-related research. I was unsure until the very last few days whether I would be able to submit it before I left, or if I would have to wait until I returned, but it was in! No time to think about it – had to start packing and before I knew what was happening, I was on my way to Norway with a bag full of orienteering kit. I had some ill-effects from the 10km – a sore underfoot – but a trip to the physio (my long-suffering physio, Aidan Woods on Pearse Street – he’s great!) assured me that it was nothing serious and a few days rest would be fine…

The Trondheim Open
Arriving on the Thursday, myself and my brother Seamus had about 18 hours to settle in before our first competition. The Trondheim Open was held over 3 days and to be honest, I was still in a bit of a daze for the whole thing (this daze was to last a while…!). My foot was still a little sore, but improving daily and I couldn’t resist the enticement of a 3-day orienteering event. A sprint on Friday was fun (map below), with a middle distance on Saturday and a longer distance chasing start on Sunday. The maps for the middle and long are available here with GPS tracking, though I wasn’t wearing one. In the middle distance, I was doing well until number 9, where I dropped 3 minutes. Ditto for the longer course on Sunday, where I dropped 5 minutes on number 8 with a horrible error leaving number 7 the wrong way. Lessons learned and wasn’t worried at this stage of the summer at all. It was just wonderful to be back out orienteering!

The Nordic Orienteering Tour
This was a new concept in the World Cup for 2010. I won’t go into it in too much detail but basically it is aimed at raising the profile of orienteering by increasing coverage, etc. The bit that mattered for the athletes was that it incorporated 3 races in 3 countries over a 10-day period, coinciding with major races like Jukola and O-Festivalen. It was an interesting idea and an Irish team of myself and 5 males were to compete in it. The first race was in Finland. It was a mixed middle distance-sprint distance race, and the middle part was a disaster. It has been a long time since I made such a silly error, and I can’t even figure out a reason for it. I was running along the high bank from 13 – 14 when I saw some huts, and try as I might, I could NOT locate them on the map (of course they were there!). I was thrown by this and took way too long to relocate. Rusty map skills… The positive that I took out of the race was that I got over it well and completed the sprint part with no hiccups, and was in 33rd place for the sprint part of the race. Map and GPS tracking.

After this, it was time for Venla and Jukola. Unfortunately I was picking up a cold, which got way worse after my Venla run. Not good for stage 2 of the Nordic Tour, which was being held 3 days later in Stockholm. It was nearly gone by then, and I managed a good, consistent sprint race to finish 44th. Unfortunately it wasn’t fast enough to qualify for the next round (top 30 – was 45 seconds down on qualifying). The sprint finals were held in Gamla Stan (The Old Town) in Stockholm. The final leg of the tour was in Norway at O-festivalen. Another sprint race, not part of the World Cup series, was held on Friday and the World Cup chasing start on Saturday. The terrain was rocky and tough, and I didn’t see anyone out there, so it felt very alone. After all this, I was really looking forward to going back to Trondheim!

The Nordic Tour was fun, but for me it came at the wrong time. In hindsight, I hadn’t done enough orienteering prior to it and would have benefited far more from staying in Trondheim and recovering from the craziness of the month before I left, with writing up and my 10km road race. The Nordic tour involved a lot of travelling, and I can understand why a lot of orienteers chose not to include these races in their schedules for 2010. It also ended up being quite expensive, and if it were not for the hospitality of Andrew in Stockholm, would have been even more so. I don’t think this Tour will be an event that I’ll be aiming for in the next few years. Having said that, it was fun travelling and staying with the Irish team.

The Irish selection races, Verdal
There was a one-week gap between the end of the Nordic Tour and the start of the Irish Selection races. During this time, most of the Irish team travelled up to Trondheim to get in some terrain work. It was a great week of team bonding! And it was fantastic to see so many of the guys going for the team. The only disappointment was the number of girls – only myself and Ciara made the trip, and we were staying in Trondheim anyway for the summer. This was good in one way, as the top 2 were guaranteed selection! Because of this, there was no need to taper and I could train hard in the week before the races. However, increased competition can only be a good thing and hopefully in the future, when some juniors start coming through, competition for the women’s team will be just as intense as the men’s.

The races themselves were fun. The sprint on Friday was fast and furious, and not very technical, mostly based on route choice (which way would you go? – see the course at this link. I was most pleased with my middle race. In the races since arriving in Scandinavia, I had been making unacceptable big mistakes, so the aim for this weekend was to forget about the pace I was running at and get around without any major mistakes. I managed to do this in the middle distance and only had a small loss of time, managing to beat some of the Swedish girls who were using it as their WOC selection race too. In the long on Sunday, I didn’t stick to this plan and lost a lot of time on number 3, and some more time with not being aggressive enough.
Routegadget middle distance
Routegadget long distance
In the guys, Andrew won the middle selection and Nick won the long. The Irish WOC team was selected shortly afterwards and is the largest team to be sent for many years.

And so, to summarise!
The trip has been a little crazy in terms of travelling around, so that’s something I’d like to reduce when preparing for a big event in the future. After the Irish selection races, I had a bit of time to breathe. I did some travelling with Hugh in the western fjords, including a hike on a glacier, incredible. I’ve been doing some training in the Trondheim area and getting some runs in too. It’s time for the 2 big aims of 2010: the World University Champs and the World Champs. I’m down in Borlänge in Sweden for the World University Champs, and unfortunately as I write this, the long distance is in progress. Food poisoning hit me three days ago, and although I’m recovered, I decided last night not to run the long distance. It was a really tough decision to make, but definitely the right one. Even if I could get around the long, I’m not here just to get around – I want to do well. Getting around the long and risking the possibility of wiping myself out again for the sprint and middle (Wednesday and Thursday) would have been silly. I learned my lesson at Venla that I shouldn’t run whilst not feeling well. So as hard as it is to sit out the long distance, I can go into competition tomorrow knowing that I’m fully fit and ready to go. Looking forward to it!

There will be blog updates about how myself, Nick and Colm are getting on here in Borlänge and also from the World Champs. After the World Champs in Trondheim, where I’m running the sprint, long and relay, I’ll let you all know my own take on the competition phase of my summer. A big thanks to Mike, Catherine, Ruairi, Roisin, Murray, Aidan, Jim, Ivan, Ruchika, Hugh and the O’Boyle clan who have all helped me immensely along the way. Till then, happy orienteering!

Keep in touch this summer ...

You can keep in touch with all the international orienteering activity this summer on the internet. Irish orienteers are taking part in competitions across Europe, in countries including Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, France and the UK. We've already had teams at the European Youth Champs and the Junior World Champs.

For the Swedish 5-Day O-Ringen (July 24-30) , see here.

For the French 3-Day in Besancon (July 23-25), see here.

For the World Masters Orienteering Championships in Switzerland from July 31 - August 7, see here.

For the World Orienteering Championships in Norway (August 8-15) see here. (next year it's in France in mid-August). The Irish Senior Squad blog is here. The Irish Elite page (with team profiles etc) is here.

For the Lakes 5-Day in England (22 - 27 August), see here.

And please don't forget to write about it when you get home!

For IOA Fixtures at home, see here; for Northern Ireland fixtures see here.

Have a great summer.

Niamh Corbett finishes 4th in Europe!

Cork Orienteers' Niamh Corbett finished 4th in the W16 race at the European Youth Orienteering Championships at Soria in Spain yesterday. The 14 year old demolished the opposition with a time of 49.25, just 4 minutes down on the winner, Katerina Chromá of the Czech Republic and 31 seconds down on third-placed Lucy Butt of Great Britain.
Reports suggest that the conditions were very warm (about 30 degrees)  with sunshine, thunder, lightning and rain. The W16 course is here. The courses had a tricky long leg up across a slope towards the end (6-7 on the W16).
You can see the full results here, and maps and routes here.

Irish results were
W16 (76)
4 Niamh Corbett
58 Cliona McCullough

M16 (86)
20 Alex Simonin
32 Jack Millar
62 Laurence Quinn
65 Mark Stephens

M18 (94
76 Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan
85 Colm Moran
90 Cillin Corbett

In today's Relays the M16's finished a very good 14th place, just behing France, beating the British team for the second year running. Jack Millar ran a fantastic first leg, coming in in 6th place, ahead of eventual winners Denmark, second place Latvia and third place Russia. Niamh finished 10th on Leg 1 of the W16 relay. Relay results are here.

Here are some more photos of the team in action.

International Action

Irish orienteers are in action across Europe at the moment: let's hope they get as much fun from orienteering as the lad in Sweden on the left!

The Elite squad have been taking part in the Nordic O-Tour and are now ready for the World Championships selection races in Norway. You can follow their fortunes here.

The Junior World Championships team are at JWOC at Aalborg in Denmark. The Sprint is on Monday and it finishes with the Relay on Saturday 10th July. The team is Conor Short, Seán Knight, Niall Ewen. Read about it here.

The European Youth O-Championships team are at EYOC at Soria in Spain. The Long Distance race is on Friday July 2nd, Relay on Saturday and Sprint on Sunday.

The Irish team selected for EYOC 2010 in Soria, Spain is:

M18: Cillin Corbett, Colm Moran, Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan

W16: Niamh Corbett, Cliona McCullough

M16: Jack Millar, Laurence Quinn, Alex Simonin, Mark Stephens

Read about it and follow the live action here.

Good luck to you all!

June News

Donegal 3-Day report

CNOC's Deirdre Ryan reports ...

On the June Bank Holiday weekend the Irish 3 Day event was held near the beautiful Lough Eske in the Bluestack Mountains of Co. Donegal. There were mixed feelings over returning to the challenging area as last year’s Irish Champs; for some it was a weekend of fantastic victories while for others the most vivid memories of that weekend were the pouring rain, the dense fog, the waist-deep marshes and the long haul to the start.
Just over a year later however everything was different. Saturday dawned warm and sunny, with not a breath of wind turning the wind turbines visible from the start. The event centre was at the local Community Centre, with a steep 1km walk to the start at Benson's Hill. Starts were not until 4 in the evening, meaning all the orienteers were relaxed and ready to race. All of the eight courses were very technical and of middle distance, but due to the blistering heat were surprisingly tough. The terrain was a fabulous open mountain with undulating hills, very intricate contour detail, many horrible marshes but very few tracks. Rock features were very useful for navigation. 

Sunday morning came too soon, and once again too hot to be running in. There was a longer 2 km trek to the start, with longer courses and more climb. Day 2 started at Croaghmeenare, circling around some beautiful lakes and gruelling hills. Once again, courses were technically difficult only today they had physically challenging thrown into the mix too. 

Nerves were running high on Monday morning as people tried to mentally prepare for the stressful Chasing Start at 10am. The winners of each course set out first, with the remaining competitors starting later according to the total time they trail. The first person over the finish line on each course was the overall winner of the weekend. At the start at Benson's Hill on Monday morning adrenaline was pumping and I for one was super nervous, starting first on my course. Courses were the longest yet, but luckily the sun stayed hidden all day and temperatures remained in the high teens. The area was the driest of any of the days, with many of the marshes having dried up a bit throughout the weekend, so terrain was more runnable today than the previous days. Out on the course, orienteers had to concentrate on their own race and remain completely unfazed by the many other hectic competitors out on the mountain, be they on their own course or not. 

Minutes after the prize giving as everyone was making their way towards the cars, the heavens opened for the first time all weekend- lucky!
Overall the 3 day event was thoroughly enjoyed and well organised (thanks to WEGO!), with great orienteering opportunities on great new terrain. Hopefully CNOC will return next year to retain all of our titles! (Adapted slightly from the CNOC web site.)

The editor continues ... The closest and most exciting finish of the weekend was the sprint for the line by CNOC clubmates Sennen O'Boyle and Pat Farrelly in M50, with the timing unable to separate them. Pat went out about 4 minutes clear of Sennen who caught him on the final controls See photo above). David Healy (GEN) won the M21 class and Maeve O'Grady (DFO) the W21.

What always surprises me is that such a small bunch of people as Western Eagles, probably numbering less than 10, can put on a high-quality three day event like this at a location so far from their base. The courses were planned with a remarkable economy of controls, using SportIdent's ability to allow planning with criss-crossing legs. Planning easy courses for young juniors is difficult in an area like this and, if there was a deficiency, it was in achieving this. A minor quibble might also be the visibility of some controls on the senior courses - they could be seen from a long distance, but you still had to get across the terrain.

On the plus side, the area had dried out a lot from IOC last year, and the cuckoos were still in fine voice, so all in all it was a very successful weekend. In common with the Shamrock O-Ringen, the numbers of Irish competitors was relatively low but there was a fair smattering of runners from further afield: Germany, Scandinavia, Hungary and the UK at least.

Results are here, Routegadget is here. Photos are here. The results are presented as three distinct days which makes it a bit difficult to get the overall picture, but the Routegadget routes will capture some of the excitement of the competition and bafflement of the runners!

Next year there will be a Shamrock O-Ringen on the Sheep's Head Peninsula in Co. Cork on the June Bank Holiday weekend (4th-5th-6th June 2011)  mark it in your diary now. Details from Cork Orienteers.

Watch Jukola Live!

Watch the Jukola Relay in Finland live this Saturday here. More than 15,000 runners will take part in the Venla (women's) and Jukola relays this Saturday. At home the focus will be on the Northern ireland Championships at Tollymore in the Mourne Mountains on Saturday. Details here.

Irish Team travel to Scandinavia

Six members of the Irish elite squad are heading for Finland this week as the first leg of the 2010 Nordic tour kicks off. This is part of the team's preparation for the World Championships in Trondheim, Norway, in August - the selection races will be in Norway in July.
The Nordic tour consists of three World Cup events held in Finland, Sweden and Norway throughout June.
The Irish team of Niamh and Seamus O'Boyle, Gerard Butler, Darren Burke, David Healy and Nicolas Simonin start the competition this Thursday 17th June.
You can follow the team's performances on the Nordic Tour website here.
We also hope to have regular updates from the team members on the Irish blog here.

June Preview

Donegal Three-Day

The area around Lough Eske in Co. Donegal is the venue for three exciting days of orienteering on the June Bank Holiday weekend. Mapped for the 2009 Irish Championships, the open mountain terrain resembles West Cork, with its marshes, crags and contours. The weather at the Irish Championships, particularly at the Relays, didn't showcase the areas as it might have, but hopefully this time Western Eagles OC's efforts will be seen in better conditions.

Details of the events are here.

Tollymore Orienteering Festival

The Northern Irish Championships are being held on Saturday 19^th June at Tollymore Forest near Newcastle in Co. Down. Following on from last year's very successful, inaugural ‘Tollymore Festival of Orienteering’, LVO will be hosting a full programme of events on the weekend. Everyone is welcome to join in the weekend's activities.

The programme looks pretty much like this at present, with the facility in place to camp on either or both Friday and Saturday nights.

Saturday.

NI Championships – a full range of courses on offer.  

String course – always a popular event for the young and the not so young. At the recent Slievenagore event, the competitive spirit of the elites could not be contained and multiple runs ensured the course time falling, quickly at first and then with some reluctance.

TempO  - Exercise the brain, even if your legs are tired – pit your wits against the fiendish Mr Gartside in a timed Trail O problem.

Evening barbecue and social event. 

Prizegiving for LVO club champs and for NI Champs

Night orienteering. (10pm start)

Sunday.

Adult training session run by Helen Baxter

Junior Fun Day session run by Izabella Stefko - details here.

TempO – another puzzle to solve.

Entries are open here. Cheapest entries until 14th June. You can book your barbecue and camping along with the race entry, please make sure that you include for all in your party even if all are not entering the race. We don’t want to run out of food.

Everyone is welcome for what should be an excellent weekend of orienteering.

Gordon Stephens, LVO

Incidentally, if you're on for a spot of shopping, Decathlon, the giant sports supermarket chain, are opening in Belfast on June 17th, at the Holywood Exchange retail park, near the city airport and Ikea ... and LVO are running a Micro-O there on Saturday 26th June.

Belfast Parks

Another LVO venture in May is the Belfast Parks O-Week, a series of free races in Belfast's parks starting on Saturday 30th May in Ormeau Park after the Belfast Cliffhanger (see below).

The following events are on Monday 31st (Belmont), Tuesday June 1st (Woodvale Park), Wednesday 2nd (Barnetts Park), Thursday 3rd (Orangefied & Greenville), Friday 4th (Falls Park) and Saturday 5th (Musgrave Park).

The inaugural Belfast ‘Cliffhanger’ sprint race will take place in Ormeau Park in Belfast on Sunday 30th May from 1.00 to 3.00 pm. If you enjoyed the maze racing at Kilbroney Park on May 8th, you will find this even more fun! The event will consist of 2 prologue races with combined times used to determine A and B finals. If enough enter then there may be scope for semi-finals as well. Each course will pass twice through a specially constructed maze as well as through the more complex area of the park. Course lengths will be about 1.5 km, so everyone should get about 4.5 km if they stay for all 3 races. Start times will be deliberately close together and courses will be ‘gaffled’ to remove the temptation to follow other runners.
The event is the opener of the Belfast Parks Orienteering Week which is aimed at families and newcomers. Once the Cliffhanger is finished the maze will be available for all to try their luck and there will be simple courses in the park, so bring non-orienteering family and friends to watch you race and then to have a go themselves.

Summer Evening races

The Curragh-Naas OC (CNOC) Tuesday evening races continue with the Curragh (May 25th), Hill Wood, Monasterevin (June 1st), Curragh East (June 15th) and Hollywood, Co. Wicklow (June 22nd). In Munster, CorkO's Inter Firm league continues on Tuesdays with Currabinny (May 25), Moanbaun Wood, Watergrasshill (note change of venue from Fota) (June 1), Warrenscourt (June 8), Ballyannon (June 15), Tracton (June 22), Lackendarragh (June 29), Corrin Hill (July 6), James's Fort (July 13), Glenbower (July 20) and Ballincollig Regional Park West (July 27). Bishopstown's equivalent Business Houses league finishes up on May 27th at Corrin Hill. Full details in the Fixtures section of the IOA website. Evening mountain races are running at the moment too: Wednesday evenings - details here.

Jukola

The Jukola 7-person overnight relay takes place in southern Finland on 19th/20th June. Several Irish teams, or at least teams with Irish runners. have taken part in recent years but TIO isn't aware of any this year. If any of you are going to Jukola, (a) good luck and (b) please write about the event for us afterwards! More than 1500 teams have already entered for the relay and more than 1000 for the women's Venla 4-person relay  earlier in the day. Details of the events are here.

You should be able to follow it live on the internet - Jukola start time is probably about 11 pm local time (9 pm in Ireland).

Exam time

Best wishes to all our orienteering students doing Junior Cert, GCSE's, Leaving Cert, A-levels and college exams. Concentrate on the study for now, get the academic stuff out of the way then get stuck in to the orienteering again!

Leinster Champs Routegadget Fixed

The results and routegadget (route plotting program) for the Leinster Championships at Carlingford were hit by some computer problems, but these now seem to be fixed. You can out in your route from a GPS or using a mouse here. The organisers, 3ROC, apologise any inconvenience!

30th Anniversary Hill Race

On 22nd May the Irish Mountain Running Association (formerly "Hill Running") staged a race on Three Rock Mountain outside Dublin to mark the 30th anniversary of the first organise hill race to Fairy Castle back in 1980. Several orienteers (Peter Kernan, Tara Horan, Catherine Lyons, Joe & Caitlín Bent) ran in both the 1980 race and the 2010 "Fairy Chase". Photos, results and reports are here. Almost 120 runners took part.

Setanta Rogaine entries open

Setanta Orienteers have opened online entries for their 13th Rogaine, a two-person score event in Wicklow, on the weekend of June 26-27. The event will have two categories, a 6-hour and a 24-hour. Details of the exact location are a closely guarded secret until just before the event, but you can get information and enter here. The event has been running since 1998 and offers a mountain-marathon type experience without having to carry all your kit for two days.

Rogaining started in Australia in the 1940's - the word reportedly is composed of the names of the three inventors, Rod Phillips, Gail Davis (née Phillips) and Neil Phillips. (It has also been defined as a "rugged outdoor group activity involving navigation and endurance", the initial letters of which also spell "rogaine"). [This activity should not be confused with the hair restorer "Rogaine", also sold as "Regaine"].

New Wicklow Maps by EastWest Mapping 
Two new maps - Wicklow Mountains West and Lugnaquilla & Glendalough are now both available from EastWest Mapping - details here.

The new maps are in the same general style as their Dublin & North Wicklow Mountains Map published in 2009 and printed at 1:30,000 scale on 120 gsm Pretex paper which is water and tear resistant. Retail price is same at €9.95 per sheet. They have a value deal for people who wish to purchase a set of the three maps at €29.00. The maps should be available in Eason's, National Map Centre, Great Outdoors and shops in Wicklow in due course.

Barry Dalby writes "Fieldwork on foot and by bike was undertaken in 2009 (great autumn!!) and 2010 interrupted somewhat by snow & ice etc. I think we've done a pretty good job at capturing the forest, road, track and path detail as well other physical features. Contouring is still at 20 metres - not ideal, adequate in Wicklow for general hillwalking and biking. Hopefully we can improve with more contour detail in the future. As with any map, doubtless we have missed some features and/or new forest tracks have been constructed etc. As always, I appreciate any feedback on detail that appears to be missing or incorrect so that we can chase it up on the ground. Where there is a significant issue, I'll publish free .pdf updates on our website.

One aspect that I have invested a lot of time & effort into is a thorough review of the placenames of the hills and the location of 'heritage' features etc. This has been a substantial task in itself and of course, open to improvement. I have written some of my thoughts on this aspect which you can find here. In general I have deliberately chosen diversity as far as forms of names are concerned to reflect the richness of this aspect of our heritage. I have also placed an emphasis on the names known and used by the good people who live in the Wicklow hills rather than in some cases, those recorded on OSI material.

I trust you enjoy using these maps as much as we have enjoyed making them and I thank you for your support. I also hope that they'll go a little way towards a more complete record of these hills and valleys so close to many of our hearts.

Finally, I might mention that Wicklow Mountains East sheet will be published early next year. I will be also looking in more detail at releasing digital versions in due course as time allows. Thanks."

Barry Dalby
Eastwest Mapping,
Clonegal,
Enniscorthy,
Co.Wexford.
Ireland.
ph: 00353 (0)53 9377835
fax: 00353 (0)53 9377835

Quote of the month

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic", Theodore Roosevelt; Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910