SELOC Orienteering Club

The results for todays Leverhulme Park event are now available for you to see. Also Routegadget is now available to take your routes.

Planner/Organisers post-event comments:

Thank you to everyone who turned up. It was a terrific day, very cold initially but in the sunny patches quite warm once you were moving.

Excitingly, we saw some new faces as well as some of the regulars. Without so many competitors to enjoy the event all my work would have been significantly less worthwhile. Thanks to Mark Seddon and Lisa for their important contributions to course planning and helping on the day - there may not have been so many satisfied customers if my original plans had got through to the printers - multiple steep hill ascents and river crossings, where no bridge existed!

Arguably the fiercest contest of the day was between the SELOC juniors who were 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the Orange course with Ross just piping Joel and Therese (who unfortunately had a stumble which significantly delayed her). Congratulations also to Robert Seddon who made quick work of winning the Yellow course.

Special mention has to go to two athletes who have been around the local road and fell running scene respectively for many years but who both made their orienteering debuts yesterday - Paul Freary (Belgrave Harriers) and Graham Schofield (Horwich Harriers). Paul Freary showed his potential for orienteering by first taking on the Light Green, before recording a stunning victory on the Orange, although many of the controls visited overlapped with those previously visited. However, I think most people will agree 16.03 for the 2.8km course is pretty good going! Incidentally, Paul owns Foot Traffic the Specialist running shop in Astley Bridge and I would recommend anyone visiting the shop makes reference to their interest in orienteering and SELOC to receive the best deals!

From my point of view everything went really well on the day and it was great that we managed to post results on the Internet and prepare RouteGadget shortly after midnight on Saturday - many thanks to Mark Sammon. I realised yesterday that introductory events don't just give novice competitors the chance to have a go at orienteering but can provide organisers with a manageable event to learn the organisational 'game' and it was very satisfying that the event went as well as I had hoped. The only hiccup of the day occurred right at the end of the event as we were packing up, long after the final competitor had left the park. Mark Seddon, Lisa and I had a fight with a very feisty self-erecting tent. The tent refused to get back in its bag and finally had to be stuffed kicking and screaming into the back of the car. I guess the tent won the fight, although Mark did inflict a broken ‘bone’ (pole) on the tent - I have had the duck tape out tonight and I am pleased to say the tent is still operational!

Hope to see you all at the next event. Pete