South London Orienteers
Winterfold Forest, 17-18 May
In 1979 (I think) I took part in the first Harvester Relays event near Sheffield (Ecclesall Woods).It was a massive event with literally several hundred teams and I remember being in a large tent about the size of half a football pitch in which each team had it’s own bit to kip in. Very few people had running lights in those days and I went out for my night leg with a large hand torch which had what was called a lantern battery. It weighed a ton. Things have moved on a bit since then!
In recent years we have entered a number of WIM teams for the Harvester – mainly because we have been lucky that the majority have been in the south of the country. Most years we have entered 2 or 3 teams.
Year |
Club |
Venue |
2014 |
SLOW |
Winterfold and Pitch Hill, Surrey Hills |
2013 |
BAOC |
Longmoor |
2012 |
BAOC |
Borden |
2011 |
SHUOC |
Sheffield |
2010 |
SAXONS |
Erridge Park |
2009 |
BOK |
Merthyr Common |
2008 |
TVOC/RAFO |
Park Wood and Naphill Common |
In recent years there have been two classes – A which is mainly men’s and teams of 7 and B which is women’s and handicap (mixed ages) and teams of 5. Most years A teams have started at 12 midnight and B teams at 1.30am and the leading teams are usually finish between 7- 7.30am in time for breakfast. If you have too many fast runners in your team you have to make sure you have enough runners capable of doing night legs (this year it started to get light at about 4.30am) and some runners have been known to pray that their earlier runners are not to fast!
We have had varying success over the years with our best results being a couple of 2nd’s in the mixed handicap and ladies handicap in the B class. The handicap classes have a points score and basically your team gets points for each runners age (older means a lower point score) and you have to be 49 points or under in the A class and 26 or under in the B class. We are very lucky to usually have plenty of older runners so this is the category we usually compete in. We struggle to enter the open men’s and women’s as we have a lack of younger male and female runners although it is getting better in recent years.
This year was a bit of a struggle to put out teams (which is a bit unusual for this event). Despite this we entered one team in the B class. Unfortunately it was not our finest hour with both Philip Cooper and myself having poor runs on the night legs. Fortunately as soon as Becky Whittingham went out things improved drastically and with Becca Ellis and Wendy Bullen on the following two legs, the three of them put in very respectable times to drag us up from the bottom. While they were running Philip and I had breakfast at Tom’s to cheer ourselves up (Bacon and Egg Butties). It was also by now a very warm sunny morning. Then it was time to drive home and try and stay awake for the rest of the day. By 7pm I was in bed! I cannot survive on 1 hours sleep these days – I must be getting old!!
Chris Branford
