Back from my travels, which I’ll report on briefly below. But first some recent results:

Bridport SEOUL Urban  – organised by WIM last Saturday. A disappointingly low turnout but we had 3 good results with Jason 3rd and John 4th on the Open course (Jason pipping John by 11 secs!); and Rob came 2nd on Male Vets.

Hardy Relays – our contribution to the SW Summer Relay Series. The course was planned by Jon Brooke and Ian organised things on the day on my behalf. Many thanks to them.

Our top team (Wessex Raiders) of James, Dale and John won the event, and our second team (Wessex Wizards) of Ian, Jason and Rob came 6th. These results mean that WSX have an unassailable lead going into the final event at Killerton, Devon on Sunday. So well done to all those who have competed in any of the teams over the last few weeks.

This Friday we have our BBQ/Informal Score event at Knoll House Beach, Studland. I now have nearly 30 people indicating their attendance, so it should be a great social event. It’s not too late to participate – let me know by Thursday.

So now, a BRIEF summary of my time orienteering in Belgium and Denmark.

Firstly, there was the ASOM 2018 (Antwerp Sprint Orienteering Meeting) based first at Kortrijk for the Sprint Prelims and Final. As in England, it was VERY hot (30+ degrees) so not ideal. I came 10th/25 in the Prelims and 13th in the Final. The third event of the weekend was in Ieper (Ypres to you and me!) which was great fun – though, again,blazing hot. I messed up badly on control 6, totally missed seeing a set of steps down to my control on the waterside, hence wasting many minutes. Ended up 17th/26. But overall for the 3 days, I came 12th/26. So just in the top half.

After spending a few days looking around at the war cemeteries, museums and battlefields (HIGHLY recommended) I moved on to Denmark for the World Masters Orienteering Competition (WMOC 2018). This started off with 2 more Sprint events – the first, Qualification event was held at a Science Park in Horsholm, north of Copenhagen. Still hot. A couple of running up dead-ends, but not too drastic. Came 27th/80 and JUST managed to squeak into the ‘A’ Final! The Final was in Copenhagen itself,with the last few controls in and around Kristiansborg Castle. I had a ‘funny five minutes’ where I totally lost all common sense and spent many panicky minutes going in and out of alleyways trying to find 2 controls which were so close together. As a result, I came 73rd/80. I festered with the stupidity of my actions for the rest of the day!

But I redeemed myself at the Middle Qualification event at Tisvilde, a vegetated sand dune area on the NW coast above Copenhagen. I somehow managed to come 10th/63, only 35 secs behind one of the top British competitors in my class. So I was into the ‘A’ Final again! This was at the same location, but a different part of the map. It wasn’t a brilliant run – sloppy and slow, as I described it to others, and ended up 43rd/79, so just below half way.

This result enabled me to get into the Long ‘A’ Final two days later- so really pleased with that. But…… had a nightmare on controls 3 and 4, which should have been pretty straightforward. But I had to relocate about three times to find the small marsh for 3 and then, what should have been a 2 minute leg to 4 took me 16 minutes! My Garmin watch readout looks like the proverbial spider has been crawling over the map! By this time I knew I’d blown it, and I still had a long way to go. I was tempted to jack it in, but decided that I couldn’t do that at the World Masters. So plodded on – literally – and ended up, after 102 minutes and 8.6k – in 72nd place/80. Still, it was a great experience and I was so impressed to see M/W90’s jogging into the Finish, giving me hope for things to come!

I highly recommend the Masters – next year it’s in Latvia, based at Riga,and the following year in Slovakia.