Before I talk about the recent Night League events, I’d like to pass on the information to all you Park Runners out there that you can now update your profile by entering ‘Wessex Orienteering Club’ as your running club. This will mean that WSX will appear in the Park Run results against your name – free publicity for us! Thanks to James Crickmore for registering WSX on our behalf.

Two Wessex Region Night League events to report on: the first was at Southampton last Thursday, based at a pub near Ocean Village. It was quite a tricky and complex area, involving going into the Village itself and down by the water. Unfortunately, one of the controls became inaccessible due to some gates being inadvertently locked, which caused some discussion afterwards about how to award bonus points for those who managed to get all the other controls. I haven’t seen yet what the outcome of this discussion was. But WSX had the top two places, with Peter Suba beating Alan Blanchflower into second place.

It was also tight at the Basingstoke event last night, at Hatch Warren. A turnout of 50 meant that some later-arriving people had to wait for the return of maps before they could have a run. It was a well-planned event, causing challenges for even the top runners. Peter again beat Alan, but in 2nd and 3rd places this time, as arch-rival Dan Cope won by 12 seconds! It’s getting very tight in the league at the top.