Monday, February 2, 2015

Olympic Park- Great event

A total of 22 Uringans took the chance to run in the hallowed grounds of the Olympic Precinct.
For me it was my first ever run there having been involved in the organisation of World Masters when the area was first used.
I am unsure what others thought but I must say it is a great area and very tricky indeed.
The area of the gardens contained 6 controls and it was easy to mis-read the many paths, gardens and buildings.
I have to put up my hand as a "naughty little boy" in that going from 9-10 I didn't even see the olive green as you approached the fence corner- mmm you cannot go through Olive Green. I was chipped and rightly so by Lisa who was using the correct route choice- out through the fence break, right turn and off to the fence corner. I must say that I didn't notice the olive green as I planned my route to 9-10-11-12 as I was heading to 8. I owned up at the finish!

Interesting was the discussion after the event as to whether to go to the left or right on the leg 12 - 13. It seemed most went left but I did see some heading right. I wonder which was the faster. Josh Blatchford went left suggesting that the route to the right put you through the car park where the rows of parked cars meant that you could not run straight.

Talking of out of bounds. The non working water feature at number 13 was another "catch you" moment as it was easy to run straight ahead going to 14.

I remembered the furore of one well known competitor from England who was DSQ for running through the water feature. He lambasted all and sundry, tried using his link to IOF etc etc etc- It was a saga that lasted a good two weeks. "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it is a duck" If it is marked out of bounds- then it is out of bounds whether there is water coming out or not"

It was super to see Alice and Matt complete with baby Cassius. There was quite a queue forming to check him out. The worst of whom were Karen Blatchford and Gayle who I am sure were encouraging Cassius to wake up from his peaceful sleep so that could offer to nurse him.

Uringa runners did very well with Ondrej making it to the medal ceremony. coming in 3rd out of the 115 runners. ( A new record for Sunday arvo sprints.). Interestingly Helen beat home Terry by just 5 seconds!

Results:
Ondrej    3rd
Shane    8th
Catherine   18
Matt W    22
Matt P    39
Alice 41
Jim   49
Finn   70
Maree  80
Brian   81
Lisa   83
Helen   84
Terry   85
Jakob   87
Ron   90
Serena   94
Mary Jane   96
Dave    98
Jonathon   104
William   106

Unfortunately both Linda and Gayle mp

Coming Events

Don't forget the club's AGM on Friday 20th February 7.00pm for an 7.30pm start.

Uringa's next event is on Saturday afternoon 7th March at Sir Joseph Banks Park, Botany. We will need all hands on deck as it is a National League event plus the First of this seasons State League events. This means that we should have an entry list of  250+ The NOL event gets underway at 2.30 and the State League at 3.30.
The NOL start will be quite complex as there are two heats in each age class . The runners do not know which heat that they are running until they pick up the map- so the right map must be given to the right runner. "Start Captain" Ian Jones will be casting a monitoring eye over this process.
We will need lots of helpers for this event- Everyone will be able to run so remember to enter the event :
http://eventor.orienteering.asn.au/Events/Show/2195

To date we have:
Gayle, Ian, Maggie, Lawrence, Georgia, Sophie, Sarah, Rick, Lisa, Linda, Dave, Ron
Matt P and Dick are the  planner /controller.
If you can help out on the day please contact
Ron - ronpallas @hotmail.com

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