CompassSport Cup, March 08
It was great to have an ECKO team in the CompassSport Cup this year.
This is an inter-club contest in which you wouldn't rate our chances against the big city clubs, but it's fun to have a go! The Scottish heat this year was held in the Pentland Hills overlooking Edinburgh. It was a sunny day in Argyll, but altogether chiller the further east we headed. Fortunately the hilly courses were enough to keep us warm, and the open terrain gave great views over the city.
We certainly didn't embarrass ourselves, finishing 7th of the 10 clubs taking part despite surely being the smallest club there. Well done to all. There were some great individual runs, in particular from our top scorer Gill, on the women's green, and from Briony who finished top of the W12s on orange (read her thoughts below).
Full results can be found at the ESOC web site.
Look at the RouteGadget for the map and competitor route choices.
Andy Dale
Briony Kincaid writes ...
On Sunday 16th March we went to Edinburgh for the above orienteering event. Five of us went down in a car together (Andy D, Dave, Niall, Daddy and me). We met up with everyone else there.
There were lots of cars there, lots of people running around with fancy clothes with TAY or ROXBURGH REVIERS written on the backs of them, a big red and green striped tent (ESOC's colours), a big banner saying FINISH and quite a lot of mud!
The start was about a kilometre up the hill so we had to walk up there. It was a timed start. We all had a different start time and started in a box. We got our maps after we had started. I ran the orange course which was 3.1 km with 12 controls. There were about 19 other people running my course. I messed up my third control but apart from that I was pretty pleased about my course. I ran most of my course but I ran fastest at the taped finish. Then I had to wait around for everyone else to finish their courses. It was quite chilly waiting. Afterwards we all went to a tearoom to warm up and chat, before driving home.
Robert Kincaid writes ...
It now seems a while ago to that run at Dreghorn with the soldiers scurrying about and gunfire cracking on occasions.
It was certainly good to take part in a larger event where some people seemed super fit and flew past you which rather left you wondering. I was simply trying to keep it all together and make best choices and certainly did not run all the time. The end result I am pleased with and I don't think I could have got to the finish very much faster unless I got very dedicated about running and I don't think that is me. What I presently do is I think in conjunction with mountaineering etc and suits me and the time I have available. On the other hand I would like to do more map work and get quicker at that and understand it all at a higher level and that in turn might seed better decisions and a faster result. I will however have to wait until my sailing season is over, as that starts on Sunday business as usual. Look forward to next October for some more run/fun & mud.
