ESHER COMMON - 27th NOV 2005

Saturday 26th Nov 05 saw the RAF Inter Services Team meet up for the traditional team get together prior to the event itself on the Sunday.

The Pack Horse pub in Wendover was the meeting place for a quiet shandy before heading to the George and Dragon
Thai restaurant (In ancient Thai it literally means "Bloke called George and Large fire breathing lizard") where we enjoyed a superb meal washed down with a few relaxing beverages, all helping to get the weekend off to a great start.

Next day saw us meeting up at the ACS school Cobham, where a refreshing change was in store for us, no freezing cold tent to get changed in but a lovely warm sports hall which would prove to be an absolute godsend when we'd all finished our runs.

As usual, Bob Hill was on hand to ensure everyone knew their respective start times and had picked up their dibbers and, with assistance from Keith Francis everyone was set to go.

You may have heard the word "Micr-O" being bandied around over the last few weeks or so.   Well this is what it all means:-

Runners start their courses as normal and the first few controls will be conventional orienteering controls.  Part way around the course will be an intermediate Finish which denotes the end of the traditional section and the start of the Micr-O section.  At this point, runners turn over the map to reveal the Micr-O section, where the Start is shown by the same (normal) control at the end of part one.

The Micr-O map is a specially (Jon Musgrave) surveyed map, drawn to 1:5000 scale and with 2.5 m contour interval, and containing more detail than the 1:10000 race map.  It will show five Micr-O controls, each identified by a circle and control number in the usual fashion. However, what are not shown are the dummy controls which are placed in the vicinity of each normal control and which define the navigational challenge provided by Micr-O. None of the Micr-O controls, whether real or dummy, are labelled with control codes and all are provided with flags and SI boxes, thereby being indistinguishable except by correct navigation.

The aim of each runner is to navigate correctly to each control as marked on the map and punch it, just as in normal orienteering. However, unlike normal orienteering, an incorrect punch does not lead to disqualification but causes a penalty time to be added to the runner’s race time. The penalty time will be 30 seconds.

The last control of the Micr-O section  is where the runner turns over the map to return to the rest of the course, starting from the same control which ends the Micr-O section on the 1:10000 map.  The course is then completed normally.
(Courtesy of SLOW)

So as you can see there was an added feature to this race that no one had seen or used before which could potentially affect the outcome of the race and hence the direction the trophies took.

Another feature of the weekend was the introduction of the new look RAFO 'O' suits, modelled here by  Jen Healing & Robbie Austin and no, they are not see through (I looked, hey I am an armourer you know!) Helpfully, should you forget what sport you're doing, the word Orienteering is printed on the front.

Jen has obviously posed professionally before as she helpfully advised Robbie "T**s out, bottoms in". Wise words indeed.

Anyway onto the race itself.  An excellent area most people said, plenty of differing terrain, contours and everything! The course also included lots of tracks for the billy whizz's amongst us and as the times were posted it became obvious that the terrain would favour the faster runners.

The MicrO provided the challenge it was intended to, with several runners stating that the scale change caught them out slightly with controls coming up faster than they expected.  But everyone got safely through it albeit with the inevitable time penalties that were incurred for podging the wrong control box. There was of course, a post mortem, lots of "I podged the right control box, definitely so why has it been marked wrong?" but in general I think everyone enjoyed it and would agree that the addition of MicrO added a little extra spark to the competition.

As it turned out, almost inevitably the Army came out on top with the mens winner Richard Barrett, finishing on 60:05 mins after a 30 second time penalty was added.  Agonisingly close in 2nd place, was our own Geoff Ellis at 62:00 mins after 1 minute penalty was added.  The next RAFO male was Andy Ebdon on 79:47 mins after penalties were added but we won't talk about the 7 Army chaps between Geoff and Andy.  And finally Rich Anderson on a credible 80:30mins after penalties for 3rd RAFO male. 

As for the Ladies, a much closer race with Sadie Burrows once again proving the pick of RAFO ladies finishing in 3rd place overall on 71:18 mins after penalties.  Rachel Ellis was the 2nd RAFO ladies runner on 74:59 mins and 3rd RAFO lady was Mia Armstrong on 77:49 mins but once again the Army Ladies proved too strong so 2nd place for the Ladies too.

On the right you can see some trophies we didn't quite win, although Sadie did say that next year when she's fit, she 'll be quite happy to accept the Ladies Winner trophy and there will be plenty of people around to remind her that she said she'd win it.

Anyhoo, congratulations to the Army (again!) and commiserations to the RAF (again!).

It was a tremendous weekend thoroughly enjoyed by everyone apart from the bit where we came 2nd.

Mick Sillet

Full results, feedback forms for the MicrO and a map of the MicrO portion of the race are on SLOWs website at this LINK.