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SHOO held their club event on Sunday at Lake Alexandra, Mittagong. It was the first event after their initial training session for some of the people who are on the new SHOO coaching course and they were keen to have a go at a real event. Uringa came with their exercises on 'Control Flow and Exit Direction' and SHOO joined in to make for a lively pre-event training session.
It is best to adopt the mantra 'Never underestimate a SHOO club event' and course setter Neville Fathers made sure that the Hard course was testing, and a great warm up for the bush season ahead. Ian Jones (Uringa) was on fine form, whistling around in 35:10, well ahead of the next competitor Stephen Wagner (SHOO) some eight minutes behind. SHOO runners John Russell, Val Hodsdon and Corinne Fulford had a good run coming in under 60 minutes. Corinne, who won the SHOO Summer Saturday Series, was mentored around the course by Michael Davis, a great way to develop her orienteering skills as she progresses on bush courses.
SHOO's next bush event is at Appin on April 22.
The Minigaine Madness, a joint event between ONSW (as part of the Summer Series) and NSW Rogaining Association, was a huge success pulling in 130 teams and well over 100 individuals to race in the event at Lindfield this weekend. Using a combination of Bennelong Northside's Lane Cove map and Big Foot's Blue Gum Creek map, competitors had 3000 points to chase down in three hours. Gill Fowler and Stephen Ryan were the only team who managed the perfect score, but Glen Horrocks, Mark Schafer, Tim Austin and Richard Green, running as individuals, all gathered in full points. Perhaps this proves that sometimes two heads are not better than one when it comes to rogaining or maybe the issue was with teams having four tired legs rather than two. Certainly there were plenty of hills on offer and quite a bit of mud too as the course took full advantage of the extensive bush in the area.
Winning teams in the various categories on offer were:
- Open - Gill Fowler, Stephen Ryan (also won the Mixed category)
- Men - Chad Armstrong, Ryan Armstrong
- Veteran and Super Vets - Neil Hawthorne, James Lithgow, Warwick Selby
- Family - Barbara and Matthew Hill
- Women - Lisa Grant, Claire Winnick
- Novice - Ben Gardem, Dale Jackson
- Under 23 - Alexander Watt, Tristan White, Samuel Wicks
- Legends - Bryony Cox, Timothy Cox
Provisional results can be found here
Entrants to the first State Leagues of the 2012 season received an email from Big Foot organisers last weekend which read: 'After a site visit this weekend, Big Foot have reluctantly had to postpone State League 1 & 2. Access to the area by 2WD is impractical, and it looks as though this will remain the case for several weeks.
We apologise for the inconvenience that this will no doubt cause.
We will attempt to reschedule the event and will be in touch as soon we have a date. This may take a while, since we have to negotiate with a few land owners, consult the relevant orienteering calendars and sacrifice something to the weather gods.'
Big Foot plan to retain entry fees pending the setting of a replacement date for the events.
Around forty orienteers, drawn mainly from ACT and NSW Elites and Junior Squads, enjoyed some fantastic training at Timberlight this weekend. The training was a last minute arrangement between NSW, and ACT training coordinator Toni Brown, after the disappointment of the State League postponement. With exercises set by National Senior Squad member Josh Blatchford and World Masters Gold Medallist Jenny Bourne the training was high quality and just the thing to sharpen up bush skills after the summer of street navigation. New Zealand International Lizzie Ingham and Australian JWOC 2011 team member Belinda Lawford (also National Senior Squad) were amongst those taking advantage of the opportunity for some extra training.
NSW Head Coach Nick Dent ran a session for Sydneysiders returning home, in Belanglo on Sunday. Dave Lotty and Dick Ogilvie who were out in the forest planning for Uringa's August State League joined in the tough physical loops course on the Miner's Despair map.
Many thanks to Toni Brown and the coaches for working together to pull this off at short notice. Many thanks also to the Knights family for access to their property, Timberlight, and Western Hills Orienteers for access to the map. This may be one of the last few opportunities to run on this part of the map as the property is being subdivided and sold in 100 acre lots.
