Event 6 - 4th May - Camelot Rise

Wally Cavill - Mulgrave

Hey Wally - a great event - sorry you couldn't make it along....we all enjoyed it!! Once again, the conditions were superb and the flat terrain was a nice change from some of our recent maps.

Many started with 12-22-11 and headed around clockwise. Others went in the other direction, but there were route choices at almost every turn for the first half-dozen controls or so. 3-14-19-24-10 was a popular choice for the clockwise folks and a couple of open parks offered shortcuts to some controls - although the alleyway to #7 was a little hard to spot in the darkness.

The theme for the night was fire-hydrants - and in spite of coaxing Fitz to prove that he's the dog he thinks he is, I couldn't get him to cooperate. My offer to provide him with a demonstration was rejected by Marta - apparently, according to Marta,  it's illegal to impede other runners access to controls.

The word for the day was fecundity - brought along this evening for the entertainment of the uninformed masses by none other than our scribe Peter Yeates. An avid book-reader, Peter draws on a fecundity of books for his encyclopaedic knowledge of useful facts (plus quite a few that are not...). He entertained us with a variety of uses of the word both as a noun and in adjectival form - and struggled, albeit unsuccessfully to provide an acceptable usage as a verb.

So impress your friends - "My you are a fecund little chap aren't you..." or "there's been a fecundity of ideas put forward by the group" - just have fun...

We went for a run last Monday
Where Peter discussed fecundity
He refused to agree
That Fitzel won't pee, saying
The little runt did one in front of me....

We noted that as we launched tonight's events that two participants had forgotten to take a map. I know we handed them out and shouted to keep them upside down and most people had 2-3 minutes to peek beforehand (I know I did - although it didn't seem to help much, I still changed my mind as I headed up towards #22). But as we were (a) locking the car door and (b) unlocking it so that Peter Maloney could take his jacket off and leave it there, they finally realised that they had no maps. No problem I said, it would be my pleasure to get you a map - here, I said....half each!! After a brief negotiation we charged double the normal entry fee (to cover the inconvenience of opening the car a 3rd time) and gave them one each.

Feedback

Ian Greenwood - sorry I missed it AGAIN!! Last week's run at Kensington demonstrated how badly I'm running of late - even Geoff beat me... the embarrassment of this was only exceeded by the myriad of messages that he left on my email and VoiceMail service over the following 3 days. I know that winning an event as rarely as he does entitles him to some sort of bragging rights, but there is a limit.

To return to my rightful place in street-orienteering, I'm trying to persuade Ray to introduce a new factor in his rankings system. It seems so unfair to me that these Biafran look-alikes that carry no excess weight whatsoever are running against us. I think that we should normalise the rankings by dividing by body-mass or perhaps we could use this to decide where we get placed in the Besley Handicapping system - either way, I think that such a system would certainly work in my favour....so I'm sure you'll all vote for it.

Ian Davies Responds -

Dear Geoff,
In the report for Monday the 18th, I resented(1) Ian Greenwoods comment that 'these Biafran look-alikes that carry no excess weight whatsoever are running against us'
I've been called Skinny (2), even Scrawny(3), never Biafran, that just takes the cake(4). I'll have you know that since I started running(5) I've gained weight(6). I blame this situation on my parents(7). I would suggest that Ian should attend more regularly(8), as he stands a good chance of beating me(9) in the next couple of weeks(10).

(1) Alternately I could say 'represent'
(2) I found it rather irritating until I chanced to find out that I was heavier that he was...
(3) I take 'Scrawny' as a complement. Although somehow it reminds me of chickens...
(4) Something has taken the cake, I can't have eaten it all, I always have such modest slices(11)(12).
(5) Ok, I started back at uni, I found it improved my concentration & would take a half hour break every 4-5 hours to go for a bit of a trot.
Guess I've never stopped.
(6) Sounds good but not quite true, I've always been 70Kg, except about
6 years ago, when I got down to 67(13).
(7) Specifically, Dad's responsible for the hairy ears!
(8) Geoff made a comment about lyrica, which I... Ok, Ok, let's
not go there!
(9) I recently tore a calf muscle & so I'll be walking(14) for a bit to give it a rest.
(10) I hope to run all three days of the QB weekend.
(11) Eating a less than modest slice of my Mums(15) fruit cake would probably lead to cardiac arrest through either caloric or cholesterol overload.
(12) When I was 18, my Mum would sometimes give me a piece of cake to 'take home', disappointingly it was never more than a quarter. I used to eat it by halves to make it last longer(16)!
(13) According to family, I was looking Biafran then!
(14) To be fair, I'll still put myself down as an 'A runner'. Some people may not call it walking & I do go fairly fast.
(15) 'My Mums fruit cake'. This is the cullenary equivalent of "grandpa's axe".
(16) Slice 1 = 1/8, Slice 2 = 1/16 etc, the last bit was inevitably a cherry.