Presents open- What's next?

Well Santa has been, presents open, titanic battles with Christmas tucker completed. All that is now left is a traditional day watching the Boxing Day cricket.

Well almost.

With Christmas done and dusted many Uringans are looking forward to the Xmas 5 Days. For the first time ever the event is being run in Sydney.  Entries are high with a top of 360 runners at Cockatoo Island and an average entry around 270 a day. Uringa on average has 24 runners each day.

Day 1 is a long sprint in the scenic surrounds of Georges Head. The views of the harbour from here are absolutely stunning. Day 2 is a sprint on Cockatoo Island. No parking worries here as you must come be water transport. This will be interesting as there are road tunnels, stairways and huge buildings as well as a vast variety of ship building debris.
Day 3 see a return to the Summer Series format at Pyrmont. Great venue and great houses of coffee. Day 4 is a traditional bush event at Lapstone and finally Day 5 is Uringa's event the Ultra-sprint at Kippax Lake directly across the road from the Members Entrance to the Sydney Cricket Ground.

92 controls will grace an area about 600m X 300m

Dining Table test event

For my part running the computers for the 5 days is a job but running the IT at the Ultra-Sprint is a real test. Each runner runs 3 legs, after each leg they download into a computer that matches the leg. Hence 3 of the computers you can see. Now we will be having enter on day so we need a computer to cope with that and then computer number 5 is to produce the results and handle any issues.
Fortunately Gayle wasn't home to see the kitchen / dining room swamped with IT. Then again it is not the first time




Gees they hide the controls in the Dining Table test event!

Set up for the event will commence at 6.30pm on Tuesday evening as we bang 68 stakes into the ground which will be the framework for a complex maze. Course setter matt reckons someone will enter or leave the maze every 9 seconds.
Then at 6am on Wednesday it will be complete the maze and set up the 3 starts, 3 finish, results and other bits of infrastructure that we need. Come 11 am we should be working in reverse.

We have a good number of Uringans lending a hand but if you want to drop in please do so,you will be given a job.

I would suggest that there will be a number of Uringans who will probably not see in NEW Years after a very hectic 5 days.



A small crowd of Uringans- Shane, Jakob and Serena  Doyle will be joined by Dave Lotty, Dick and Maureen Ogilvie, Gayle Shepherd and Ron Pallas are travelling to Tasmania for the Oceania Championships in the new year.

We wish them great runs and an opportunity to take in the delights of one of the best tourist locations in Australia. Mmm will we get to MONA again!