Emus Street Orienteering Pages

Welcome to all of the newcomers that turned up at Research Primary School earlier this evening; it was particularly good to see so many younger participants and all clearly enjoying taking part.

Research is almost certainly the hilliest map that we run on - but Northern Series runners are tough - the choice of courses this year seems to have had a focus on the more brutal courses out our way. Our course setter Ewen Templeton was running the event for the Radio Orienteering folks (for more information about Radio Orienteering see http://www.ardf.org.au/ ) - and seemed to have taken the opportunity to make use of every hilltop in the area - or it certainly seemed that way! As I crossed paths with other runners the comments were unanimous - summarised well by Dale's comment "this is cruel....". The downhill sections provided some relief - punctuated by cries of "Sorry, I'm out of control....out of my way..." as Ray Howe shot past me on one of the steeper sections.

First timer Kerryn Rim got all but 3 controls on the A course - a terrific effort 1st time out. Other notable first-time efforts tonight included Christine and Laura Young - two delightful young girls - who walk with father Craig (an old friend from my gymnastics days) participating in the very competitive B-grade, Linus Andersson a newcomer who won C grade even after losing 6 points penalty, Hilary McVey in C grade,. Finally, Shona Gregan and Jacob Turley returned with 13 and 14 controls respectively - a brilliant effort in power walking that put them just behind the leading pack - I suspect the pack will get a little bigger once these two get a little more experience and Shona gets over her knee injury.

As we head into the final two events things are close in a number of areas - and we can expect a number of runners to push hard to make up lost ground before the final event. Don't forget that there will be presentations and food at the final event - more about that one the web site in the next week. Watch this space!

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Past Ramblings

Eltham

A most interesting course - a bush event in the North-East suburbs of Melbourne. In spite of the late notice, our course setter Libby Meeking (with a little help from John...), set an excellent course that maximised the many parklands in the Eltham area. Some of the control placements were quite interesting and I wondered how streetO new-chums would cope - but as I passed by Riley and Sally they seemed to be coping - and later told me that it made the course the most interesting one that they had done to date. A lot of the more experienced orienteers did get a little confused and there were lots of stories about bad route choices and unintentional mistakes.

Numbers were down this week - the hot weather, a distant map and dreadful looking conditions as we drove towards the event. The radio spoke of flash floods (comparable with the best that Newport has to offer) and major electrical storms. I wondered if the event could still go ahead as the northern sky was lit up every 3-4 seconds by a bolt of lightning. But as we got closer, all seemed well - cool conditions, a slight breeze, and the bad weather was heading away from us. Don't be pessimistic - get out there and take part - we are after all, drip-dry.

Recent arrival from the Northern hemisphere - Luise Kraeger is giving Ian Dodd a bit of competition in B grade - and, in fact, all of the top 5 are pretty competitive. Notably in A grade, Paul Leicester who appears to be tail-end Charlie - is only there because he gets all 20 controls every week! There were lots of people that had difficulty finding the pit - and one had to stay in contact with the map carefully as you navigated through the very detailed mapping in several areas near control sites.

Young Jarrah didn't run this week - after pulling a muscle in a swimming comp. He stayed as a helper and subsequently acted as 1-man cheer squad for runners and walkers that he recognised as they approached the finish. I suspect that father Paul had a lighter run this week as Jarrah was not there to exhort him to greater and greater efforts pushing the pram.

Thanks to all of those that so kindly pitched in to help pick up controls. With 3-4 controls each, we had most/all controls in by about 8:25 and were heading for home.

8 Feb 2007

An excellent night out once again - cool conditions and a map with sufficient contours to be more than a little challenging. Our course-setter, James Macknamara, had set a good course - although, it did initially have similarities to a course in recent times for the first 2Km or so....and then I no longer cared as respiration rate, heart rate and lactic acid concentration all started to increase on the uphill sections. I thought I was running reasonably well but couldn't seem to shake Jarrah and his father Paul who was pushing a pram. I finally managed to shake them by crossing through a park and up an embankment - and chuckled as I could hear Jarrah exhorting his dad to push harder with "....quick Dad, he's getting away".

A few participants were caught out by light grey shading over a school - although the boundary line around the area and building in the middle sort of suggested that there was a passage through to number 5 - but it wasn't to be....a high fence and various signage provided more than enough inducement for most runners to find another route choice. This proved to be the right decision - as, based on practical experiment carried out this evening we can say that "climbing over two high fences is slightly slower than 50-60 metres in and out to another control...".

There was lots of interest from local residents as we ran through the area - one runner was asked by a passing motorist if there was any reason why everybody seemed to be running away - and was somewhat relieved by the explanation provided.

A newcomer to the Thursday Series was Luise Kärger a 29 year old orienteer from Germany. Luise came to Melbourne only a week ago to do an engineering research semester at CRC in Port Melbourne and will stay in Melbourne until mid June. Luise enjoys orienteering quite a lot and doesn;t want to miss it during her stay in Australia - and especially wants to get to know the Australian bush. Luise found her way to street orienteering via the Emus Orienteering website - and after initial contacts Phil Giddings who works near where she's staying has kindly stepped in to help out with transport. Great job Phil - thanks for helping out! Please introduce yourself to Luise - and if there's an opportunity to take her to orienteering events - either social or competitive - please let her know.

It was interesting to note that the top 3-4 A grade runners got back before any B grade runner - and most of the C's. We're going to have to make the A course longer if this keeps up - although some have suggested that they may like to run against Ian Dodd in D Grade Division 1 - to provide him with a little competition in that area. An item of note in the power-walking section was the growing number of prams taking part - with super-fit mums and dads providing the motive power. If this keeps up, we'll create a prams category in the PW section so they can compete with one another. (Somebody asked if there should be a dog-walkers category too...).

Next week is Eltham - starting from Central Park - more hills, I'm afraid....but a really nice valley down the middle. (I'm sure the course-setter will have set everything along the creek for most of us - only the fitter A grade runners will have to climb the hills...).

1 Feb 2007

What a great event this evening! The challenge here was to minimise climb and it was interesting to see the variety of courses selected. Being an economics lecturer at a local University, our course setter David Prentice had built a model of the course based on climb, distance, route choices and regulated demand by cunningly picking a fiendish number of controls that I'm sure caused many runners considerable mental anguish as they realised that their choice of the first 2-3 controls had painted them into a most difficult situation. (It worked well David - I once saw a bumper sticker that said "Economists do it with models" - and now I know what it meant).

Death and gloom warnings were provided to ask people not to cross the nearby railway line - even though access is not impeded in any way by fences or the like. Entrants were warned with the recent train problems that Connex drivers can't stop - even when they want to. So if you do get killed, it's all your own fault - and, in addition, we'll impose a 2 control or 6 point penalty as well!! So don't do it...

Fortunately, the temperature had dropped by 7pm and a slight breeze provided a little relief. In spite of this, one could still hear phrases such as "punishingly hard..." and "cruel climb..." as people discussed their courses. After the event, David asked if anybody minded that the courses were a little shorter than normal - to allow for the heat and the hills - I didn't think so.

It's great to see the number of Juniors on the increase - and tonight we were joined by Riley and Mum Sally who heard about streetO through our web site. In spite of their first time and coming back before any other PW entry, they still scored 1/2/3/4 for 40 points - a very healthy score for first time on what is one of the most difficult maps in street-orienteering. We look forward to seeing you at future events folks! Other Juniors taking part are Ethan and Liam McLynskey and Matthew Johnson - currently middle of the field, but these lads are fit and the older walkers above them will have to watch out (or negotiate with the boys to go up to D or C grade).

A great effort from Mike Hubbert this week - who seems to have found a niche in power walking - Mike, once a top long-distance runner, has the experience and stamina required to be quite competitive in this course (I notice that he's currently uncategorised in PW - but this won't last for long - and it's clear where he's going).

Finally, several people have asked me why Course D starts at Division 2 - and this is because I graded Ian Dodd based on last season's performance in D just in case he "ran-down" again this season. It seemed so unfair to pit any of the others against him, so I gave him a class of his own and I've already bought a suitable end of year prize. All he has to do is run at least one time in D grade this season (I'm happy if you want to run B, win that and then head out and do a D course too). Maybe I should buy the same prize for Len?

A Course - will be a close tussle between David Kipp and Bruce Arthur - with the possibility of a Bryan Ackerley wild card. It will come down to who does 6 events here. David is comfortable in this regard - but Bryan and Bruce would have to do 5 out of the next 6 events to take out 1st place.

B Course - is dominated by Ian Dodd, President of the VOA. At this stage, the competition for 2nd place could go any way amongst 3 very strong competitors - Alex Cohen, Rod Lawlor or Phil Giddings. Division 2 is similar with Ray Howe leading and Ian Stirling, Martin Spink, Lauris Stirling and Ian Greenwood all within 2 points.

C Course - also tight, with John Sheahan and Reg Saunders at the top but with Ron Frederick and Peter Grover coming from behind.

D Course - is a dead cert - Kath Liley - running well at the moment, very experienced, very consistent - it will be interesting to see if any of the other participants in Division 1 (or other folks that appear as entrants settle into the correct division) are able to provide her with some competition.


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