A good turn out at Salisbury Trench today (Sat 17th November) for our latest Coaching Activity.

The activity concentrated on using a compass and improving navigation.

Four training courses were provided. A corridor exercise, an exercise with long and short legs, an exercise with some legs in terrain with reduced visibility and some in and more open terrain making runners adjust their technique and lastly an exercise which had a bit of everything from the above.

Experienced orienteers were on hand to talk through and analyse individual's runs and to shadow participants. Talking through how you approach particular legs can help understand what you may be missing or if you are over complicating things.

The Coaching was planned by Tamsin Moran W21 who put together an excellent training Activity. Well thought out with challenging courses that had the participants thinking about technique and challenging their orienteering skills.

We all make mistakes. It is all about how we learn from them and how we react when things go wrong. How often do we say we will use a small Local Event to practice our technique and hone our navigation skills? Then we just run round as fast as we can in our usual manner.

These activities are well worth the effort if you are serious about improving your orienteering. Look out for our next Activity and give it a go. You may be pleasantly surprised.

A big Thank You to Tamsin and the team of helpers who made this activity happen.

Kevin

As of today (15.11) Itchen Valley Country Park has THREE new POC courses on a newly updated map. The longer course goes into an area which we have not been allowed in before.

please go and try these courses - they are not technical but are ideal for beginners, improvers or those who just need a training run.

The POC leaflets are available from the reception desk in the vistors centre.

Kieran

So after 4 events in the series have taken place, I thought it time to publish the current open and handicap league tables. Text below from Gavin Clegg on this last Mondays event at Tisbury and his thoughts on the league tables thus far. 

Monday evenings race at Tisbury personified all the excellent things the Wessex Region Night League is about: Good competition, great venue, good company, good socialising, excellent turnout despite the weather and lots of junior participation. Many thanks to Sarum for organising. The format seemed to go down well, with Dan, for the second race in succession, coming out on top.

In the Open competition Dan has pulled a little further away from Alan, but the margins are small. Becca has moved up to third overall, big movers are Andy Snell, Colin Hicks and Kirsty Staunton, all up 8 places. In the Handicap Dan still leads but with a maximum possible handicap score of 540 he is likely to relinquish the lead further down the line. Kirsty Staunton has scored the highest handicap result of the year of 617 at Tisbury. Carolyn Dent with 596 could do well if she gets to enough events. Chris Branford with 601 at Tisbury is my tip for the title.