Joe Lalor

01 September, 2009

Drama in the Dublin Mountains

Probably not as dramatic as the couple who drove their car 20 m over the ditch near a certain Bullaun stone as the control were being taken in, runners in todays Nav. Challenge race had an eventful day. With a misplaced and missing control and heavy rain runners had a tough time of it. Peter Kernan with a winning time of 83.11 made short work of all the difficulties almost matching the predicted time of 80 mins.

It was generally agreed that control 3 was in the wrong place, which I concede but in my defence the Osi map refers to a standing stone and Dalbys to cairns and a retrospective check shows quite a difference in position between the two. The three runners who did the course (not as intended) in reverse came to control straight away. The control would have been put out from their direction. In hindsight it was probably a bad choice of feature and a mistake to use one map for planning and another for the event.
Control 4 seems to have be removed or ridden into the ground, an act of God (or Deco). I take no responsibility for those who did not see a bright orange flag at the bridge by the road (no 7)or those who transposed grid references wrongly.

To bear in mind for future events. Controls to be done in numerical order, as event is not run to orienteering controlled standards, controls may be kite, cane or person.
In strict orienteering circles todays event would be voided due to badly placed control. I have decided not to do this for the following reasons. If only next two races count in series newcomers who were not running today would have to count and would have an advantage, also 2 out of 3 would cause problems as overall result is calculated on accumulated time. So todays results stand, with no DNFs. This will please a few but annoy probably more, for no. 3 I apologies, for no. 4 complaints to Deco. For anyone still interested in more start is at T 087921 next week. There is limited parking here so meet up at Glenmalure Hotel and travel on in full cars. Map will be supplied.