Success at British Night Championships27th November 2021 at Cleeve Hill
LOC runners have been successful at the British Night Championships
Congratulations to:
- Charlie Somers-Cocks 1st on W60.
- Emily Turner 2nd on W18.
- Anne Edwards 3rd on W21
- Christine Robinson 3rd on W65
Results are available on the NGOC website here. Charlie has sent in a report on the event below.
Six weeks previously I had been out at the mountain bike orienteering World Masters in Portugal in 30degree heat so a bit of a contrast in both temperature and needing to find my running legs in time for this.
Weather forecast for Saturday at 4pm in Cheltenham was 2 degrees with 30mph winds gusting to 48mph. At 300m higher, Cleeve Hill was always going to be cooler than this.
Preparation for this race therefore was not only about checking batteries on lights but about selecting the clothes to race in. I packed a windproof cycling beanie hat together with a pair of old windproof cycling gloves. Added to this a hooded windproof that has a thin fleece liner was packed. I wore all of this and was glad as I was warm without overheating.
I had only done one night event since the last event in February 2020 so I resolved to start steadily on this new area for me. The battery in my air dibber is about due for a change so when it did not work at control 1, I suspected the worst especially when I could not even get it to dib manually. I did a quick pin punch on the map and was relieved when it all worked normally on the next control.
I started to see Jackie Hallett (my 2 minute person) ahead of me going towards 3 however she made a right angle turn to head up hill. This pulled me slightly back up the hill to the small path which confirmed my location and I carried on the short distance to the control. Talking to her afterwards she had seen the trees looming large just below her and she thought that she was too low. Fortunately I did not see them. The rest of the controls I hit cleanly with only a bit of hesitation going from 7 to 8 where I found reading the contours tricky.
Because I was camping I had walked over with a full set of warm clothes including thick duvets to change into. I only went inside briefly for prize giving before heading back to my uninsulated and unheated camping van for the night. Whilst I stayed toasty in my sleeping bag my gas cooker was slow to start in the morning but once I had opened the door on the beautiful sunny morning and put it in the sun it came back to life whilst I looked over to the complex area around 7 and 8 wondering how I navigated through that in the dark!