Street Orienteering, or Hit The Road with the

“Manic Street Seekers”

I don’t really know what I expected that cold dark Wednesday night. I had spoken to Sarah about going for a training run and she had spoken to Richard Davies about maybe trying the street orienteering which this time was starting from the Pear Tree in Bamber Bridge.

My first image of this was of a lot of ageing boy scouts and school Ma’am types out for a bit of exercise. How wrong was I? After agreeing to give it a go we arrived at the pub and almost immediately were greeted by a couple of the organisers who told us what we needed to do to get us started. So, some 10 minutes or so later there we were, head torches on, maps, (with no street names), at the ready, scoring grid stapled to back of one map. This tells you what you are looking for once you have reached the point marked with a dot in a circle on map. These can be various things, i.e., ‘H’ on lamp post, substation, telegraph post, etc. You can also choose how long you want to be out for: 40, 60 or 75 minutes. Remember I was running with Sarah! So obviously we went for 75. You don’t actually get to see the map and grid till the timekeeper starts the clock. So watches set and off we go.

You need to take a minute or so to pick out your first scoring point and decide, very roughly, which group of points you will be chasing. Each circle is numbered and the numbers represent scoring points. Furthest out or difficult to reach score highest. We started off very cautiously taking the nearest one first then just going for the closest to that. Before you know it we are in competition mode! The big numbers are close by and Sarah has grown horns!! Shall we go for that one or we could then go and get this one. That’s how quickly your view of street O will change. It really is addictive. The clock was running but maybe time for one last high scoring point. We got it but we were close to ‘time up’. Big sprint for home, but not looking good. I took the route back to the pub that I knew although, if I had looked at the map, we could have taken a shorter route, (as the clever one in the partnership is still reminding me), we are 3 minutes and 50 seconds over time which cost us a 76 point penalty off our 480 points scored. Gutted! But what a great night.

Food looked great afterwards in the pub, but I had already made supper/late dinner so back to my house to bore Louise with our new found pastime. Ha Ha!!

Next up St Annes and we have competition. Mark Midge and Gary, (local knowledge), Moore have thrown down the gauntlet. We set off first as Mark is trying to find a parking space. As you can imagine the course is basically two long parallel straights with the points being mainly on the side streets, big gaps and a lot of running to pick up good points. Very wary of clock this time after previous foul up. Probably too cautious! We arrive back with 4 minutes left on the clock. This has cost us dearly as Mark and Gary in with just 20 seconds to spare. Winning our challenge by 570 points to our 520 and they only took the 60 minute option, I don’t know if Sarah was more upset at being beaten or not being able to blame me for loss. Not that she didn’t try! This time we all ate in the pub and did the usual autopsy on the run - always good banter. Another good night despite the result.

Next up was Kirkham, only a week later as it had previously been cancelled. This should be a level playing field as we all run this area with the Club. We all meet at the Kingfisher Pub on St Georges. Sarah and I set off and,, as in previous weeks, started picking off the ‘close by’ points which proved to be the right thing to do. After a fairly rapid sweep of the perimeter we then moved into the town centre with lots of points to be had with some rapid switching from one side to the other. We did cover the same area round the railway station more than once, but still managed to pick up points we missed on the earlier visits. Our victors from the previous week were well and truly brought back down to earth with 910 points to 720 points victory to the ‘Manic Street Seekers’ as we have been named. Their defeat was not helped by a penalty of 7 minutes and 28 seconds. All back to the pub for food and gloating in equal portions. The grin is back on the Boss’s face which makes my evening painless and pretenders are left with nothing but the distant memories of that now past evening in St Annes.

Helmshore was up next and, because of the logistics, I was under the impression we were going to give this one a miss, oh how wrong can you be. In the blink of an eye yours truly has been sidelined and replaced by a younger model, not a superior model just younger!! Oh the fickle workings of the female mind (Sarah says – “Actually G, your exact words were ‘I’m not going all that way’. So ‘oh well’ I thought, that’s that! Just goes to prove Richard D wasn’t far off the mark when he said your nose bleeds when you wander too far from Preston!). Just to prove the grass is not always greener on the other side both of the snakes really did end up ‘down and out’ taking a tumble which left Sarah & Mark scoring a measly 480 points. Nothing more to report on this as I wasn’t privy to the post event chit chat. What people fail to realise is that behind this rock of an exterior lies some very sensitive feelings, (that should get the sympathy vote)!

After some major grovelling and serious apologising by what used to be the Senior Partner in this pairing, we have buried the hatchet to be re-united for the next round of the Street “O” Night Series, yeah right! The Anderton Arms, Fulwood in Preston is tonight’s venue. Looking forward to this one as hopefully local knowledge will come in handy. Gary cannot make tonight’s gig so Mark is flying solo. It is a very twisty, turning course with a wide variety of terrain, but, as hoped, the local knowledge did come in useful. Sarah was also well up on the area and we had a good one tonight scoring 860 points, poor Mark, Ha! He managed 410 points. All is well in the ‘Manic Street Camp’. Bit of a disaster with the food which we pre-ordered yet were still told we would have to wait an hour. We got a refund as we would still be waiting at 10:30. Not a major problem as this gave us more time to rib Mark!!

Final Street “O” event is from Garstang. Really looking forward to this until Monday night at Club it is suggested we all go solo! Now you can get the worry beads out. Glasses will be a must as, up till now, I have relied heavily on Sarah’s younger eyes and superior map reading skills. After spending most of Tuesday looking back at previous maps we all travel to Garstang together with Gary ‘Captain Slow’ Moore driving and a last minute twist saw us decide to finish the series as we started - in pairs. Sarah and I set off a minute in front of the lads and are quickly into our stride spotting big points and a route to get us back amongst the tightly packed lower scoring targets. All was going great until we made the mistake of following another runner who led us back to ground already covered which meant a change of plan. Luckily we picked up a new route fairly quickly. We crossed paths with Mark and Gary a couple of times and I misread the map which cost us a little time. 8 minutes left on the clock and time for a couple more as we are quite close to HQ. Points in the bag and head for home. Clock stopped with 90 seconds left. Nothing to do now but wait for Gary and Mark and, just as Sarah said the words “They’re gonna be late”, they came speeding round the corner. Just in time! Mark is ‘all in’ - they must have worked hard tonight. As I am writing this, a message arrives from Sarah, the results are in. For obvious reasons I must sensor part of the message but Mark and Gary scored an excellent 920 points whilst Anneka and Kenneth, (as we had become), managed a very respectable 890 points. How close was that? Well done both of you!

Back to last night then. A hot shower followed by a very cold drink, just the job. We had all ordered food and very nice it was too. I had the veggie lasagne piled as high as was possible. The others had the hot pot with crust and peas and red cabbage. We stayed to applaud the series winners and were absolutely gob smacked when the guy called Sarah Sherratt and Graham Vickers as overall pairs champions for the series. If we had stuck to the original plan to go solo for the last one we would have missed out. So there we were collecting the cup (which Sarah said I could keep as her trophy cabinet is full - how unselfish is that?!!!), a very nice plaque each and £10 cash. Fantastic!

I would like to thank Richard Davies for the nudge that started all this, also Mark and Gary for their company and friendly rivalry, the people of South Ribble Orienteering Club and finally thank you Sarah for five brilliant ‘fun filled’ evenings of madness. Anyone who is looking for something completely different has to give this a go next time round. I for one will be counting the days.

Written by: Graham Vickers

Submitted: 4^th March 2011

Edited by: Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor