For those of us not at the Scottish Six Days there will be the chance to take part in the WEE at Musgrave Park on Wed 2 Aug. Registration from 1800 with starts from 1830 (hopefully). Last starts 1930. Courses close 2000. There are two courses on offer. Long is 3.3 Km and Short is 1.8 km. The start is located in the car park. See You there.
Junior training is planned for Saturday 29th October in Donard Forest. Meet at 10:00am in Donard Forest main car park. O training will cover relocation and distance estimation in and around the control circle. Further training will subsequently be planned (during the Christmas school holidays) building on this bite-size session – date to be agreed amongst interested Juniors. If you are planning to come along on 29th October, please reply to: lvojuno@gmail.com. Alison Collins – LVO.
A number of our juniors (Rachel C, Andrew E, Sophie P and Peter R) took part in the Irish Squad at the Junior Home International Competition held in Northumberland. Steph P, who along with Geoffrey C helped to lead the team, has produced a great post about their exploits that can be read at the Irish Orienteering website.
A number of our juniors took part in some demanding contour training on Luke’s Mountain on Sun 12 Jun. The rain only stayed long enough to soak Alan and Steph as they put out the controls but had gone by the time the athletes turned up leaving perfect conditions for the training. The challenge was to complete a number of short courses (6 in total) but with only the contour details left on the map and no way to tell North. This was a demanding exercise but one that all took something away from, even Alan who took home several hundred midge bites Read More …
The next training event is due to be on Sun 12 Jun at Luke’s Mountain in the Mournes. The plan will be to meet at 1.30 pm at the gate in the North Wall of Tollymore that leads onto Luke’s Mountain from the main path – 300m East of where the Spinkwee River cuts through the Tollymore Wall. This is a 30 min walk from the Tollymore car park. The training will be aimed at practicing the use of contours, but with a twist (no other features on the map, no grid lines and no way to tell which way Read More …
On a beautiful Sun afternoon in late May a number of our juniors, and some not so junior, took part in sprint training at Tollymore. There were 3 x 2 km loops to be done with the pressure of having to move at top speed and take as straight a line as possible, not to mention not being allowed to stop running at any point, even if you needed to study the map. All useful skills for sprint racing.
There will be junior compass and pacing training available at the Woodburn event on Sat 2 Apr. The course will be set out in the wood to the left of the main path that enters the forest just by the car park – all nice and close. You will be given a map with only the control circles, scale and grid lines on it. You then have to take an accurate bearings and pace the distance to get to the control kite (which will be on the ground out of sight). The course will open at about 1130 and run for 45 minutes or so. Read More …
On Saturday before the score race at Crawfordsburn there will be the chance to warm up by taking part in some compass and pacing practice. This will involve maps with only the control circles and connecting lines left on them. All other detail will have been removed. The challenge will be to stay on the right bearing and pace out the correct distance to find a small kite that will not be very visible from a distance. There could be the odd obstacle in the way to spice it up. Although this training is for our juniors it is open to anyone. Read More …
Two of our juniors, Rachel and Andrew, took on the Armagh city race on a cold Thur evening on the 18 Feb 16. It was a busy night with athletes from all over the country and indeed world taking part. Both our our athletes took on a hard and fast 3 km race around the Mall in Armagh city centre. With lots of people there to cheer them on and plenty of atmosphere there were some unbelievable times from the winners. Not to be outdone our own stars performed extremely well, despite being amongst the youngest to take part, with both Read More …
The Junior Training Programme for 2016 has been set. Make sure to get the dates in your diaries. Please note that due to personal circumstances I am unable to commit as much time as before to junior training this year. Therefore these events are subject to the volunteering of just some of the many coaches we have in the club to help put them on. If you are a coach let me know when you can help please. Without volunteers then the programme can’t take place. 13/14 Feb – Dublin/Wicklows Irish Junior Squad 12/13 Mar – Limerick Irish Junior Squad 27 Feb – Read More …