Pelaw Main was the venue for the Newcastle Orienteer of the Year race #5 on Sunday 7th August. Initially it looks like a map that doesn’t ask big questions, with relatively flat terrain covered in mixed runnable bush with low lying swamp areas, but this is deceiving; the lack of detail is the challenge. Results showed some runners out of their normal race, recovering from injury and illness, and still others who ran in multiple races for training. One such was Thomas Essinger who ran Blue, Green and Short Orange and put a good effort in for all three. Junior Tristan Hollard is not a name which is known much outside the Newcastle orienteering community, but his performance in Orange makes him someone to watch if he steps up to State League level. Andrew Power had a good run in Medium Red; although better known as a Mountain Bike orienteer he showed he can still mix with the Foot O crowd by taking 6 minutes off Tim Tew and Ian Dempsey. Rob Vincent might have only just come back from a broken arm but he ran well in the Long Red to win against Steven Todkill and a family of Blatchfords, one of whom was admittedly running a little jetlagged from his recent tour of Europe.
The next NOY is event #6 at Wallaroo on Sunday 21 August.
