3ROC Orienteering News 15 January 2018
Loops A, B and C from control 1 on the Long course. The length of the tail on the Routegadget trace reflects the runner’s speed.
Dublin by Night 1: Phoenix Park
“A keeper”, “A stroke of genius”, “Super event”, “Fantastic idea by 3ROC” – these were some of the comments after last Saturday’s first “Dublin by Night” in the Phoenix Park. What was different this year? Well, we decided to have a mass-start for everyone at the same time, with runners doing loops of controls in the area around the Magazine Fort in different sequences. This meant that everyone did the same course in the end, but that they did parts of it at different times.
We had 54 runners, on a par with previous years, and the rain had passed over and the wind died down before the start, so conditions were ideal. The runners starting off with their headlights wasn’t quite on the scale of the Jukola relay in Finland, but it injected a bit of additional excitement into the race.
Long course (7.6 km) runners had three loops to do from the first control (A, B and C) while the short course (3.6 km) runners had two loops. Towards the end, the long course had an additional loop which they ran either clockwise or anticlockwise to break up any groups of followers.
Cousins Colm Hill and Caoimhe O’Boyle took first place on the two courses, with Colm 54 seconds clear of runner-up Angus Tyner, and Conor Short a further three minutes adrift. Caoimhe had an easier time, with W16 Cliodhna Donaghy in second place 6 minutes down. This doesn’t tell the full story, however: Cliodhna took the opportunity to conduct an extensive post-mortem of her run with her 3rd-placed Dad, Ciarán, at the finish line instead of punching the finish, which added about 4 minutes to her time. A lesson learned!
Great to see some 3ROC faces like Ian MacNeill returning to orienteering after a long break and some newcomers like Finn McGrath trying his hand at night-O; another 3ROC tale was M18 Aidan McCullough whose headlamp expired two controls from home. Aidan had to wait for another runner to come along to tag along with. Unfortunately this runner (no names mentioned but you can see it on Routegadget here) promptly got lost, leading Aidan astray and costing him 3 minutes and a top-10 place!
Thanks as always to the band of 3ROC helpers, and a special welcome and thanks to Gerry Cunningham, back in Ireland for a short while.
See the results here.
Night-O Continues
The Dublin by Night series continues its Ballyward (January 20th), Killiney Hill (Jan 27th) and Bushy Park (Feb 3rd). There will probably be more but we don’t have details yet.
Donadea this Sunday
CNOC are running a local event at Donadea, near Clane, Co. Kildare on January 21st. If you haven’t run there, it’s a flat forest surrounded by a big wall, so you can’t go too far astray. It has a ruined castle, a lake with ducks, and a car park that you may have to pay to use. If you have a compass, bring it, as it’s easy to get disoriented with the paths and tracks. Start times 11-1, four courses from 1.5 kn to 7.5 km. See details here.
Leinster Championships entries open
2016 Leinster Champion Valdas Tilunas
The Leinster Champs on February 25th at Cronybyrne, between Laragh and Rathdrum, promises to be a great event. The area has a mixture of deciduous and coniferous forest, with Scandinavian-style heather and bilberries underfoot. It’s a nature reserve, so there’s a limit of 200 runners and entries close on 9th February, so enter soon. Entries are at Fabian4 here.
Will our 3ROC M21E Champion from last year, Valdas Tilunas, manage to hold off the likes of Colm Moran, Niall McCarthy and Colm Hill?
Leinster League
The first Leinster League event of 2018 was the WatO race at Castlecomer on Sunday. The 1:7500 scale map of greenish forest and tricky old gravel-pits was updated by Pat Healy to the new 2017 ISOM map standard (read about this on the “Mapping” page of the IOA website here). (You should also be aware of some changes to the control description symbols too – see the same page for details). A poor turnout from 3ROC for some reason, actually a zero turnout unless you count an injured John McC taking photos, but Colm Hill again displayed his fitness and orienteering prowess with 4 minutes to spare over Angus Tyner, with Conor Short 3rd, in fact the same finishing order as in the night-O the day before. Fastest lady on the Blue course was CNOC’s Alison Campbell, with Swedish visitor Josefine Klintberg fastest and only lady on the Brown course. See results here.
Leinster fixtures are still bit scarce on the IOA Fixtures List but be aware that there are plans for a League event at the Pine Forest on 11th February, run by UCDO and DUO together: it will be nice to run on a 3ROC map without having to organise the event!
Fitness test – put it in your diary now
Calling all 3ROC Juniors – the annual Junior Squad fitness test at the Furry Glen in the Phoenix Park is on Saturday 10th March. Any Juniors (M/W12-18) who are interested in joining the Junior Squad should be running this. It’s a very good gauge of your progress from year to year. See the course and previous results here. Contact the IOA Juniors Officer, Jeni Pim, to find out more: juniorrep@orienteering.ie.
Lots of former Juniors also like to measure their fitness on this circuit, as you can see from the results. 3ROC’s Eoin McCullough ran the fastest 4 laps in 2017, with Aidan McCullough 2nd for three laps and Cuan Riordan 2nd for two laps. You should also be reading the information of Juniors and College students on the IOA site here.
Hoots, Mon!
A big group of orienteers are heading to the Edinburgh Big Weekend this week, to run in three orienteering races – a night sprint, the Edinburgh City Race and a cross-country event on Arthur’s Seat. The weekend is hosted by Edinburgh University Orienteering Club and is a popular one for Irish students.
2018 Subscriptions now due
Your 3ROC annual subscription for 2018 is now due. Once again, you can join up instantly online at Fabian4 here. Membership fees are cheap and are the same as last year: see details here. If you are a club member you will normally get reduced entry fees at every club’s events; you will have subsidised club orienteering gear; you can buy an SI card at a reduced price from 3ROC; you will get your relay entries paid; you’ll find it much easier to get transport to events; you’ll benefit from physical and technical training; you can learn to map and to plan courses; you’ll enjoy your orienteering more and you’ll make new friends! What’s not to like?
Incidentally, if you are a new member who joined since the middle of 2017, your annual membership runs until the end of 2018.
Don’t forget to watch the 3ROC Facebook page and Twitter feeds, and to visit the club website every week for the latest orienteering news.
See you in the forest!