Gallopen – High Brow (11/07/2010)

With the challenge of Orienteering up in the lakes Tony Varley and I decided to take on the Gallopen at High Brow. On arrival at the event it was very windy and I have to say that I thought about just letting Tony head off and I would just stay in the car and go to sleep, but I didn’t. Tony headed off while I was still faffing and getting changed and I headed off about 10 mins later.

With both of us on the Brown course I knew it was going to be a hard run on the way to the first point. The ground was very tussocky and it was difficult to get any sort of rhythm. Finding the 2nd control first was my first error but then just seemed to drop on to the next few controls. After number 6 though I went disastrously wrong. I read the map wrong and then didn’t believe the compass when it told me north was in a different direction to what i knew it to be. After 15 mins of messing about on the wrong side of the hill I ended up back at point 6 and realised the error of my ways. On reaching point 7 I saw Tony just in front of me heading for point 8. This was a little frustrating as I had already passed him on the way to point 4.

From here the rest of the controls were found without much problem, my other issue now is to try and increase my speed over the ground. The windy weather eased as the event went on and I finally made it to the finish, but with a mild twist on my ankle, in a terrible 2:06.37. Tony followed behind in 3:19.40. However all experience is good experience and Tony is feeling more and more confident with the map and compass.

Results Here