SOL5

On behalf of Cunninghame OC I would like to thank you all for supporting our event on a weekend featuring the national Harvester Trophy relays near Hexham.

September is not always a popular time of year for vegetation, and I know that many elite competitors take a breather at this time. It was great to see so many people socialising in the sunshine in the assembly area, and we are very appreciative of the facilities and cooperation extended to us by the manager and staff of Forrest Estate. You may have noticed the names of children from local schools at the event. Brigid Flanagan has used your car parking money in advance to do development work at Kells, Carsphairn and Dalry.

Warm thanks also to every CUNOC member who turned out to administer the event with such dependability. A special word for Robin Strain who nursed Phil Smith’s novice team through its first major SI event.

We hope you enjoyed Pat Flanagan’s new map. He first started mapping the area in 2000, before foot and mouth postponed the event originally planned. This was also before the forest was marred by windblown and felling operations. We are indebted to Dave Peel’s professional advice on how to handle some of the representational dilemmas.

"Challenging" seems to be the verdict on Dougie Condy’s testing courses. Congratulations to Hazel Dean, winner of W21L and placed fourth overall on Course 9. It was interesting that our warmest praise came form M/W55 and 60s who enjoyed the technical challenge and variety of terrain. You could say that many of us in that age group are no strangers to physical struggle! Thanks to Ian Turner for his work as Controller.

We hope you will remember us for the sunlit forest and apres-O in the sawmill. Hopefully your small children will bring you back again because they so much enjoyed Tricia Woodward’s Harry Potter String Course.

Katharine Melville

It all started back in June last year having a look for car parking, starts, finish areas etcetera. Pat Flanagan (the mapper) and I visited the area again in August, bearing in mind our access was restricted due to foot and mouth and we still had to wash our car wheels with that smelly stuff. The area looked promising. I did my armchair planning then in March this year only to find some of my sites had been covered with wind blow from the high wind storms in February.

Looking at the event on Saturday, the weather was kind to us and it was a well organised event by Katharine and all her helpers from the club. The String course went down very well, and it was good to see a lot of you socialising at the end of your long slog.

Courses 1-4 seemed perfect in distance (looking after the younger members) but I got 5-11 on the long side due to the fact it was very demanding underfoot and runners just could not get a rhythm going. The downpour all day Friday made the going even worse (worse than the Trossachs!).

It is hard with a new map, but lessons were learned and I apologise to all the competitors on courses 5-11. The courses could have been dropped by at least 1.5-2.5km in length. Saying that, I had 85% finishers. I am sure this will not put you off your "O", and you may get me back one day yourself!

I would like to thank everyone who supported SOL5, the mapper Pat Flanagan who helped me throughout my ordeal, the controller Ian Turner, and all members and helpers from our club.

The Forrest Estate event was my first opportunity to assist with an "all-electronic" event. Although there may be some potential dangers in having the map on computer, courses on computer plus electronic punching and results, the overall effect is a major improvement on admin. The process was made smoother as a result of the close involvement of Pat Flanagan as the mapper. The biggest benefit was in time saving – although both Pat and Dougie had still to put in a lot of detailed effort to get the final versions together. The additional benefits were clarity and accuracy – the final map and course ‘overprinting’ were particularly effective with the bonus of being able to make fine tuning adjustments to parts of the map right up until a few days before the event.

Dougie’s courses made good use of the northern part of the map and while a number of people commented on the physical nature of the relatively modern plantation terrain underfoot, I think they also presented a fair range of technical challenges. The long, wet spring and summer had prompted an unusual depth of moss and grass in some sections, making the going quite heavy. Courses were scaled from around 9.7K for the longest course and many winning times were only a little longer than anticipated, although the tails stretched a bit. (We originally considered trying to reach some interesting southern areas of the map and an early draft included a long course of over 13K.)

While a few runners took longer than they routinely expected, the ‘pecking order’ in a number of classes was similar to other events and several runners clearly appreciated the extra test of fitness.

We are indebted to all CUNOC members and helpers for a memorable event and to all at Forrest Estate for their very helpful cooperation and support.

Ian Turner