The Summer
Series is coming to an end with a short extension to Sunday
4th October (courtesy of the Navvies team). So if you have
missed one, now is the time to visit the
navvies site and get your map.
There have
been some fine performances. Liam Corner set the standard by
coming first in the Stockport and Edgely Long running at a
pace of 4:32 mins/km. David Gray came 4th. Simon Gebbit won
the Medium, and John Britton came first in the Short. Rhiannon
Burke and Danny Jones ran as a pair (lets’s call them R&D)
ran 3rd in the Short, also 5th in the Medium and finally took
on the Long (twice) coming 12th and last in 1 hour 44m.
The second
event was at Glossop. David Gray beat Liam Corner by a whisker
in the Long, but Liam beat the rest by a distance in the
Medium. John Britton won the Short whilst R&D came last -
well they retired - after two hours and a half hours. Rhiannon
later admitted to working to her own definition of the Scatter
rules so that instead of visiting any 8 controls they visited
theirs in numerical order. Unfortunately the controls were
numbered and placed in such a way that they traversed Glossop
many times….
Wythenshawe
had a hybrid map: the urban area was Night Street League style
and the Park conventional. The MapRun courses were used to
create a Covid-safe event. It was a miserable wet evening. The
standout competitor was Chris Rostron who wisely began his
Long Light Green course wearing a head torch. He eventually
finished after an hour 43minutes in the dark having displayed
four separate orienteering types of skill: conventional day,
urban day, NSL and conventional night. The Summer Series did
promise variety.
Liam came
first in the hybrid Long Light Green, with David Gray second,
and R&D 7th in two and a half hours. Sam Drinkwater won
the Light Green, Gary Daniels the Orange, Don Taylor the
Yellow with R&D second. Simon Harding won the hybrid Red.
And so to Dove
Stone. Liam is winning the Daunting course but his pace has
slowed to 7:42 mins/km. Sam is just behind but Sam has also
run the other two courses and is leading them both. Maya the
Border Collie put up a good show in the Dash, but Maya is no
newcomer to MapRun, as this was her sixth event.
The Dove Stone
courses are still open. I’m hoping it will attract some more
runners including a few of the big names mentioned above. In
particular R&D. I think it might.
Many thanks to
the Planners who made all this possible. One pace forward
Marie and Trevor Roberts, Grahame Crawshawe and River
Edis-Smith to take your deserved applause. Let's not forget
Ian Watson who provided us with the navvies website and so the
means to distribute the Summer Season message and the maps.
What next?
It would nice
to create number of courses that will circumnavgate Manchester
to be run by individuals or teams over one day or many days.
The total route will be about 60 kms but it will be split into
12 courses of 5km. I have the maps but the project requires
three more planners. One of them could be you. Below is a
MapRun Panning exercise. It is likely to take you less than 20
minutes and having completed it you will have all the skills
necessary to become a MapRun planner. You will also have your
very own MapRun course to keep. And maybe it will make you
think that you could play a part in the Manchester M60
O-Ringen. I hope so.