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Night Orienteering Competition (January 2011)
![Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College (DSFC)](javascript:PopupPic("/military/images/nightorienteering.jpg");)
After its debut success the previous Sunday, a hasty call up saw Welbeckâs fledgling orienteering semi-squad kick away its chocks and scramble for a local night event on Wednesday evening. Leaving immediately after our afternoon sport sessions we stretched our legs, drank some coffee and snacked our way into forgetting that we would not see the dining hall until 2030hrs. Always ready for any contingency, our three man team allowed space in the minibus for a dozen potential hitch hikers, and as we arrived at our destination we were very much looking forward to the event. We arrived at the correct start point in good time (albeit with the aid of half a dozen Global Positioning Satellites and a handy Sat Nav!)
While we thought we were new to orienteering as a side, we were completely new to the world of night time, urban orienteering and were therefore glad to see a decent section of the course set on a rocky hillside with a bright full moon overhead as we shivered at the eerily quiet start point.
Peter Rhodes was first off the mark with the rest following at intervals of one minute, cold dictating. The course had a healthy mix of roads, paths and residential urban areas with the final section giving the runners a kilometre of rock running and heath top exploration. It was away from the streetlamps that the skills of night time orienteering were tested, even with the aid of a full moon and our head torches.
Once back, each member settled in to the minibus to await the rest of the team and within 2 hours of our arrival at the venue we were ready to depart. While there had been some difficulty in finding certain checkpoints some encouraging results came back. For the entire 4km + course, Captain Peter Rhodes returned in 40 minutes dead, Martyn Mangan in 53 and Michael Garrard and Major Reid coming in respectably short of the 75 minute mark.
Once we had had our obligatory team snap (on an ever handy iPhone) our brief minibus journey back to College gave us time not only to reflect that given our complete unfamiliarity with this type of competition our results were very pleasing, but also to discuss and eagerly await future competitions.
As ever, huge thanks go to Major Reid for giving us the opportunity to take part and for doing a lot of the legwork in organising our participation in this and other events.
Peter Rhodes, Nelson 09E
