SOSOL 2 - South Achray

A long drive in the morning to Aberfoyle for the second SOSOL of the year. The day started badly - 1 hr too early as we discovered we hadn't put the clocks back. The rain
came down in bucket loads but as Max says orienteering is no fun in the sun - the wetter the better.

The course was in real rugged forest with lots of wild rivers in spate. Everyone performed well with the family hauling itself of the bottom of the pack. Hannah came 4th of 6 on Yellow. Max a very good 5th of 11 on Orange and Colin 16th of 41 on Blue.

Afterwards went to the beautiful Loch Katrine. The sun started peeking out and we hired bikes for a 1 hr trip along the loch side.

East of Scotland Orienteering Championships

Very bad weather on Arthur's seat for some tough orienteering. Hannah (and Cherry) came
second (and last) on the white course. Max missed a contol in the rush to reach the finish. Colin came sixth (and last) in the brown.

Race report and results are here

Thutmose III

Went to the Ancient Egytian exhibitian at the City Art Centre. It was "all right".

Crieff Hydro

Long weekend at Crieff Hydro. Played disc golf and crazy golf, walked up the Knock, enjoyed the evening dance, played bowls and chess.

Pentland Skyline

Ran the Pentland Skyline race in a fantastic 3 hrs 55 minutes. 16 Miles long - 6200 ft of ascent (and descent) that's 2 big munros from sea level.

Started out in sunshine completing the first three hills in good time and catching Willie Gibson (briefly), a much faster runner, near Flotterstone. Blisters came at this point and I wondered if I would make it. 1 runner came back down Turnhouse Hill saying its a much nicer direction to go!

Then the skys opened and the next hour along the high ridge saw rain and strong winds. Reached the half-way Drove Road in just over 2 hrs.

The return journey is a pig with smaller but very rough hills. Hard going through the heather and bogs of Hare Hill. Black hill - Black by colour Black by nature. A very tough ascent up Bells Hill past some runners that looked like the Living Dead. Along to Harbour hill by which time I knew that I would make it over the remaining three familiar hills.

Chatted with another runner up Allermuir. I thought we would just miss the 4 hr mark.
But we'd started late he said - another fifteen minutes top go. So with renewed energy we headed on to try to break 4 hrs. Never thought I'd be round so fast.

Dalkeith Country Park

Went for a very long walk through Dalkeith Country park to view the location of the new
road they plan to build near the park. There's a campaign to stop the road. Wouldn't seem to make much difference to the park although it's also not clear why they need another road just here. Played for a while in the fantastic playground.

SOSOL 1 - Corstorphine Hill

We started the new orienteering season with some good runs at the familiar territory of Corstorphine Hill in Edinburgh.

Hannah and Cherry had a good Yellow course running most of the way round a straightforward course. They finished 4th of 9 runners.

Max moved up to Orange and ran this colour for the first time in a competitive event. Got round fine though it was difficult, coming 8th of 13 runners.

Colin moved up to Blue and only got lost once, coming in 18th of 43 runners, some way behind a nimble 70 year old in 5th place. Room for improvement yet.