EckO Coaching Weekend 2010 Snippets

First of all, the results of the TEAM event!

Here are some people’s thoughts and reflections on the weekend. Keep coming back to this as it will be added to when there are more photos and writing.

The club would like to acknowledge the support received for the coaching from the 2014 Communities programme (Big Lottery fund).

Robert Kincaid

I found my leg held out really well which was a boost of confidence for me having only just started back to running.
Working the contours on the Saturday afternoon was an interesting exercise to see just how much detail is mapped and how well you can position yourself with it including relocation. I will be paying more attention to finer contour detail in future when required and have to slow up and be more observant but more accurate in the process.
It was great to be on terrain where you can see the ground really well and all the subtleties of shape, map and terrain showing to assist you.

Just how smoothly the whole event ran with the organisation that went into it was very impressive and to hear everyone commenting on how good this or that was, and what they gained makes me think it will be requested again as a valuable club booster.
The team event I enjoyed and I do like working with younger people and it has made me think about maybe doing a coaching award after the summer is over.

Suse Coon

A big thanks again from the Coons.
There’s never a time when you can’t benefit from training.
As you get older, eyesight, pace, and mental faculties all go to ****. You can’t see the map as clearly, and what you can read, you can’t remember. If you took the trouble to make a plan at the start of the leg, you are moving so slowly that you’ve forgotten it half way through and converted it into a shopping list. If you’re really unlucky, not only can you not read the map, you can’t even see the trees. Just supposing you manage to break into a trot, injuries and wear and tear mean you’ve lost that ‘it can’t happen to me’ feeling, and you tiptoe over any rough ground because if you fall your wireless alarm is way out of range of help.
It creeps up on you. You’ve been orienteering for a long time and received and even given all sorts of training. You know what to do, of course you do, but it isn’t working any more. You know you ought to sit down and analyse things but you just never get round to it.
Until EckO organise a training weekend.
The opportunity to re-examine strengths and weaknesses, to think about shifting from being a ‘map contact’ orienteer to a ‘big feature’ orienteer and to recognise that there is enough in the basket of tricks to help me keep enjoying this fantastic sport has been well timed.
So thanks again.

Ross Lilley

Before we even arrived at Lagganlia, Lynne and her team had undergone area recce’s, course planning, access permissions, accommodation booking, map printing, event kit sorting, health and safety checking, kite hanging and worked out what everyone of us was going to do for the weekend! Did we appreciate all of this effort on our behalf? I certainly did and so did everyone else, judging how quickly and smoothly they slotted into their places in the coaching programme. I particularly enjoyed and was rewarded by:

The great choice of terrain and maps. I appreciated the opportunity to concentrate on my technical skills unhampered by too physically demanding terrain – especially on North Granish…lovely.

Opportunity to cover some terrain jointly with Julie and Gordon S. It helped me think through my thought processes by verbalising them as we went round and to be challenged on my decision making.

Joining Roanne to collect in some controls. When I challenged her on her route choice she pointed to the crosses on the map, that were the benches we were just coming to, and that these were her attack point to the control, which she hit bang on. The TD3/4 coaches should be proud of themselves!

Coming back to Lagganlia to good food cooked by others – Thanks Alan and Trevor.

The kids giving the adults a run for their money when completing Julie and Kate’s quiz tasks.

The unintentional drive-orienteering I undertook in an attempt to show off my knowledge of A9 shortcuts to my passengers!

Black grouse, White Hares, Woodpeckers, Red Squirrels, vole holes and many deer – Strathspey matches Argyll on many fronts.

MacMillan family

What a sweet club coaching weekend, fun-hogging at Fishy-bridge. Big, active fun for the MacMillans - we loved it.

First we ditched the dragon-baby with granny jelly. How cool was that? It meant that Shazza, Fatman, Jurrasic and Luigi could get stuck in and crank up the action unfettered by other responsibilities.

As soon as we got to Lagganlia we knew we were in the zone. Great accommodation, excellent company and an action-packed agenda which featured wonderful catering, fir-cone fights, man-eating bogs, prime numbers, delicious cake, flumes, impenetrable woods, lemsips, expert tuition, dastedly dibbers, long runs over the hills in the wrong direction, darts, man-eating dogs, darts, food for basking sharks, scenic drives around the Cairngorms in the wrong direction, flapjacks, bunk-beds, waves, cheddar cheese sandwiches, and a lot of laughter.

It was so good that life seems a little suburban in retrospect.

Thank you very much for making it happen.

Lynne Walker

Lynne has written a long article about the whole weekend on her blog. It is far too long to reproduce here, so below is a taster
“North Granish. Wow, this is just brilliant terrain. I love it – so do the seven sheep that came galloping over the horizon and then followed me around the northern part of the area! One word of note, if you have your mobile phone in a pocket, make sure it is well away from your compass! I did wonder why the compass was not working well.“
Read the full article on my Blog…

Photo of author Posted on 25th Mar 10
by Lynne Walker - Secretary