Phew – today we were out of the forest, and back into Sprint mode. In a moment of madness, I’d entered the Womens B course, the equivalent to the Senior Girls Schools Sprint course.  At 3 kms and 27 controls, it was a bit longer than what I’m used to – but what the heck.  Most of my usual rivals were on the shorter C or D course, so I found myself running against former Schools team and current/recent JWOC reps.  I set my aim at less than 30 minutes, and/or no more than double Lanita’s time (one of the aforementioned former Schools and JWOC rep).  Put it this way – Ian gets pretty excited if he beats Lanita in a sprint. And he is twice as fast as me.

So … here we were at All Saints College in outer Bathurst.  Flat, with lots of open space, but plenty of buildings to give a good level of complexity.  The course setter put out 70 controls in total!  Way too much like hard work, and it meant we’d really to need to check the numbers, as there would be controls everywhere.  We saw at least half a dozen just walking in from the car park.

We got to start whenever we liked between 9.30 and 11am. It was promising to be another hot day, so going out early seemed like a good idea.  Before long the campus was buzzing with orienteers of all persuasions, heading in all directions, and having a great time of it.

Go!  Off to no 1, a bit hesitant as it was tucked in between two small buildings, and I overshot the gap and had to correct.  No 2 was right out against the school boundary fence.  It looked like private property and I had to convince myself I was heading in the right direction, but all was ok.  I spotted a small gap between a building and a fence which offered the quickest route to no 3.  No 4 – easy, as were 5-7.  I was checking ahead so that I knew my exit strategies – usually a sign that I’m navigating confidently.  No 8 was a trap – it was on a small grassy slope behind a building, but there were two controls close together. Although the features were clearly different, the numbers – 72 and 77 – were very similar, and they caught out some people. My opinion is that is poor course setting.  However I got it right.

Next I had four controls in a series of parallel buildings separated by courtyards, so you had to keep count and not get distracted by the numerous other controls.  I picked these off quite cleanly.  A poor exit out of 12 cost me a bit of time, but before long I was heading across the oval and preparing for the map flip.  The course setter had been kind, and given us the whole oval to turn the map over and start planning section 2.  On the other hand, its always pressured to run under perceived scrutiny (in reality no-one is watching but you feel obliged to suck it in and run hard all the way).

The first leg after the flip was also out in the open so I kept going at pace.  It was with some relief that no 18 was tucked in behind a building, so I drew in a few deep breaths here.  No 19 was easy, but it set up plenty of route choice options for no 20.  I opted for what looked like the simplest, with the least map reading. The next 6 controls zigzagged through those parallel buildings and courtyards, again the trick being not to get drawn into punching an incorrect control.  I’d run out of legs by now (actually about 7 controls back), but managed to put my head down and run the finish chute, completing the course in 29 minutes and 56 seconds!  Lanita ran her course in 17 minutes, so both aims were achieved!

It was the best fun I’ve had all week.  Anyone who says sprint isn’t “real” orienteering should consider that well over 500 people competed in a midweek, non championship, public sprint race, and had a ball.  When you add the 130 or so Schools competitors, this must be a record figure.  Sprint is well and truly here to stay.