Autumn League #3: Regional Park Ballincollig Results and Report

Post date: Sep 11, 2013 10:47:26 PM

The third and penultimate event in the Cork Orienteering Club Autumn league took place on Tuesday evening in the tranquil setting of the Regional Park Ballincollig. The park was busy with people making the most of the last of the long evenings and 51 eager orienteers turned out to enjoy the fine evening and the orienteering challenges the Regional Park presented.Tuesday’s Explorer Course was all about Colours. Colours show different types of vegetation. Orienteering maps use colours to tell you how easy it is to run in an area e.g. white forest is one that is nice to run in but darker green shades tell you how much the terrain will slow you down. The controls were placed at the boundaries between colours. Being able to identify what the colours on the map look like on the ground would have helped our Explorers locate the controls. The Explorers also had the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of colours by taking the Explorer quiz. If you missed it you can download it below.This week’s Advanced course was a score format. With no time limit and 18 controls to visit it was all about optimising your route around the park. This required competitors to study the map and do some forward planning to minimise the distance covered while ensuring all controls were punched in an efficient manner. With controls distributed on both sides of the mill races failing to spot a control in a certain area which later required back tracking over an area already visited proved costly. On Both the Explorer and Advanced courses it seemed that a number of people found control number 11 at the elevated knoll difficult to locate. Given the fantastic summer we’ve had the park was exceptionally dry for this time of year which resulted in some very fast times on the night.

On the Advanced course it was a combination of speed and economical route choice which gave Jonathan Lucy the honours on the night. He completed the course in a time of 25:54.  Sean Murphy took second place with a time of 27:21 and the final podium spot went to Gary O’Donovan who finished in precisely 29 minutes.

Trishia O’Mahony recovered well from her misadventures last week and was the fastest lady on the night completing the course in a time of 40:17. Second place went to Elaine Sheridan with a time of 41:28 and Helen Stone took third place finishing in a time of 45:01.

There was fierce competition on the Explorer course this week with just twenty eight seconds separating the top three finishers and a tie for fourth place. However, it was Karen Dineen who took first place with a time 39:19 just narrowly edging passed second place finisher Sinead O’Donoghue. Sinead finished with a time of 39:30. Karen Howe who was a just 17 seconds behind Sinead took third place on the Explorer course.

Well done to all who participated at the event we hope you enjoyed the evening in the park. Full individual results are available here.

Thanks to Gerald Duffy for organising the event and Rob McEvoy and Danny O’Hare for planning the courses and training material.

Special thanks also to Niamh Murphy and Martina Broderick who took care of registration on the night and to Catherine Kiely and Irene Eighan for assistance with results and control collection.

Thanks also to Margaret at Cafe Chico for the delicious post run refreshments.

The final event in our Autumn League series will take place in Fota House and Gardens. I'm sure our club coach and training leader will have more interesting courses in store for us next week in the idyllic parkland terrain around the house and gardens. Further location info and directions are available here.

Hope to see you there!