Happy New Year!

The last Leinster event of 2013 and the first of 2014 run by 3ROC:  a cold and windy St Stephen’s Day on Three Rock Mountain saw a good crowd of orienteers out, with many beginners and also many people who have not been active in a while: great to see members of the Convery, Rowe, Elliot and Nowlan families out from 3ROC and other reappearances from three generations of the Bonar-Laws from GEN and Walshs from Setanta. Underfoot conditions were pretty icy in places, as they had been on the day before for the 3ROC Christmas Day run.

Competitors in fancy dress scored an extra 50 points, which was well worth the effort. Colm Moran planned the event, with two high-point controls (in more ways than one!) near the top of Two Rock to lure runners into the area, with the surrounding section blanked off the map to increase the challenge.A fancy-dressed Ruairí Short took the 60 minute long course ahead of the conventionally-clad 3ROC pair of Eoin McCullough and Ger Butler, while on the 40-minute short course Dexter Hodkinson also played the fancy dress card to finish ahead of Mary O’Connell and Clíona McCullough. The results are here.

Saturday’s Dublin by Night event (4th January) is in the Phoenix Park, starting from 6 to 7 pm at the Garda sports ground across the main road from the Polo Grounds. Two courses, SportIdent timing. For IOA insurance reasons, night events are only open to over-16’s. Final details closer to the time.

In the meantime, have a Happy New Year!