September Round-Up
Adam and Hazel at Ironman World Championships
The new season is now well underway, with 2 JOGs and a QOFL already done, and plenty of other action further afield. Here's a recap of the past month.
To kick off our first event was JOG at the ever popular Long Run, followed 2 weeks later by JOG in the woods at Wind Down. Fine weather and good attendances at both events, but only the Powell boys, Theo, Boris and Linda have made it to both. So the competition is wide open.
The day after JOG1, we had the Devon vs QO at Haldon Hill. Fair to say QO were soundly beaten by a much larger Devon team. Top scores went to Brian P and Robin on middle and long respectively, with Will also making a good score. But Devon had strength in depth and took the win (again), retaining the inflatable champagne trophy. A nice format, great venue, but really foul weather!
Devon's first league race at Five Tors produced an interesting result with QO taking all 3 podium positions on brown. Adam was the winner ahead of brother Robin by just 24 seconds, with Olly taking 3rd spot. Brian F also had a good run taking 2nd place on blue. Overall 19 from QO travelled to the far side of Dartmoor to take part, and we made up more than half the overall brown entry. If we had matched that performance a couple of weeks earlier, the Devon vs QO might have gone the other way!
Other "away" events included BOK's event in North Bristol, attended by Phil, Bee and Elliot S, and Steve R went to the Forest of Dean the day before Ramscombe, managing decent results both days.
Our QOFL at Ramscombe rounded off the month. The rival brothers went head to head again but this time Robin took the win from Adam by just a few seconds. Also on the brown course Will also did a very good time only just coming in a few seconds behind Olly R. Other notable results include Dylan winning the orange course and Tommy finished in a good time on light green but was non-competitive for some reason.
Away from orienteering, the standout achievement of the month is clearly Adam, for competing in the Ironman World Championship and finishing in an impressive time of 10:03. Well done!
Behind the scenes now. Our Annual General Meeting produced few surprises - the committee remains the same as last year, and finances remain healthy. But the agenda was livened up by a discussion on the future club direction. At one stage a club merger was being considered, but in the end the proposal was toned down to a commitment to closer collaboration with Devon. The committee will look into that over the coming year.
To finish, some good news for the club, Graham H and Sheila have agreed to be our Welfare Officers. A few things to sort out before that's fully settled, but great to be filling that vacancy.