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Sydney Sprint #6 at Georges Heights treated orienteers to gun barrel views of the Heads as they navigated their way at high speed around the 2.7km course. Old defensive positions, complete with cannon, provided quirky control sites as well as great photo opportunities.
Explosives Reserve was the name of the map for Sydney Summer Series #19 but there wouldn't have been much left in the tank after the 45 minute score event on Wednesday for most runners. Racing around Castle Cove competitors were faced with plenty of choices between distance and climb, and making the wrong choice was severely punished as anyone looking at the results and all the time penalties incurred would see. Lee Coady and Chris Frain deserve special mention for valour in the face of steep hills, chasing down perfect and near perfect scores before time penalties. Planner Andy Simpson tempted many a seasoned racer into 'just one more' in a cleverly planned course which didn't give too many obvious route choices. Anyone interested in what the optimal routes might have been can see what the computer thinks with Chris Brown's Summer Series Solutions here.
This event was the first in the three events which Big Foot are promoting with their February Competition. The DuO race at Western Sydney Regional Park is the second and with numbers almost double that of the first in the DuO series it looks like there are plenty of people looking forward to a dinner for two. Runners from Wednesday who haven't signed up for Saturday can be reassured that there will be some entry on the day. After all, you've got to be in it, to win it!
Central Coast has the enviable position of being close enough to both Sydney and Newcastle to draw competitors from both those centres and this was reflected in the winners of this year's series. Patrik Gunnarsson (Sydney, Big Foot) and Karen Blatchford (Newcastle) were the worthy winners of the series with perfect scores of 600 points for their best six races over the ten races held.
The SHOO Saturday Series finished on 11 February with a romp around the Camden Showground. Careful map reading was required to pick out the fastest routes through farming grasslands and the adjacent Equestion Centre, and this time it was Ian Jones and Corinne Fulford who showed the rest how to gather in the points on offer.
Read more: Summer is drawing to a close - SHOO Saturday Series is complete
