Getting High in Dullstroom

And we do some orienteering too

Rainy South Africa

Scott also likes to live dangerously
Our chalet

Well about an hour after my last post, thunder storms rocked Dullstroom for the rest of the day and all night. The whole town lost power about 6pm, and was off until about midday today. We went out running yesterday evening, and about 20mins later, we were running through torrential rain and lightening. Luckily the restaurant in town which does a 'sports meal' cooks with gas, so we could still get some food. Today has been pretty overcast, but still over 20 degrees. Did a nice interval session this morning along some of the tracks out of the west of town. The surroundings are basically rolling hills with almost no trees, and then occasionally a small pond or copse, and a few little huts.

Sunny South Africa

After a couple of days travelling, we are finally in sunny Dullstroom, about 3 hours east of Joburg in South Africa. The weather is perfect, in the twenties with a slight cool breeze. We flew at 6am on 1st January - not very fun, but the flight was OK and despite a slight delay, we got to the Mulder's house at a decent time. Yesterday we picked up Bjorn Eriksen and then drove over to Dullstroom (after a slight detour out of the airport) and via some shopping malls and Middelburg to buy some food and some clothes for Bjorn (his bag didn't arrive). We arrived in Dullstroom in time to get a quick run as the sun set.
We are staying with some Swiss boys, but there are loads of other athletes, and a few other orienteers staying in town. Our house is amazing, with 4 bedrooms, BBQ, satellite TV, everything you need on a training camp.
This morning we hit the gym, and we are slowly easing into training, to adjust to the altitude. This afternoon we will go for a slightly longer run.

Photos when I can get the connection to upload them.

Map links

Didn't seem to work in previous post, so here they are

Back in the UK

Box Hill

I have been back in England staying with my parents for the last two weeks, and I have had a couple of slightly easier training weeks before I head off to South Africa for January. I have taken the opportunity to do quite a bit of work, making maps of two large schools, a park and updating and extending a forest in Kent.

A new section of the Millbank map

I have also done a few races. On 23rd December I did the Army Long-O/Bike-O around Longmoor, Woolmer and Borden. The last two years I have just done the running, but this time I decided I wanted to have a go on the bike, so I decided to do the medium bike (17km), and then run the brown course (9km). I have only ever done MTBO once before, and that wasn't a proper event, so it was a bit of a steep learning curve. I borrowed a bike, and unfortunately the map board wasn't screwed on properly, so it wobbled and spun around, and eventually fell off which was a bit unfortunate. I also got blisters on the palms of both hands which was a bit annoying. Technically, it was very good except for one control - they had joined up existing orienteering maps with sections of OS map, which are much less detailed, and not very easy to read. On control 5 I went sailing past the junction and made a 4-5 minute mistake. Hmmm. Was good after that really. Will have to do some more MTBO sometime.

Results and splits for MTBO here

Five minutes after finishing, I did the brown course. I felt really good off the bike and made a really fast start (although I ran into a nasty looking fence on the way to number 2 and had to go back round). Caught up Nick Barrable about number 6, and had a good little tussle with him for some of the course. He was running slightly quicker (having not done the biking), but I was a bit cleaner into the controls. On the 21st control, I decided that I wanted to run on my own, so I took a far left route (not ideal), and he got a bit ahead and we ran seperately from there. He pulled away a bit in the end, and I took the victory by 5 seconds!

Results and splits here

Every year Southdowns have a Christmas Score event, and I seem to run it every year. The forests down there are really nice and runnable, and although I am not a big fan of score events, this one is pretty good fun. I managed to get all the controls with about 5 mins to spare. Results here.

Yesterday I ran a regional event on Ash Ranges, which is basically home terrain for me, about 5 miles from home. I have run there quite a lot, but it is always nice to do a race there. It is mostly open, with lots of heather of various depths, so it can be quite rugged, but still very fast. The course was really really good, with a variety of leg lengths and some really technical parts. It would be easy to have some dead legs, but the planner did a good job and it was all technically interesting. We started with a control pick, and I missed 10 seconds on the 2nd, and 30 secs on the 3rd (didn't see the pit as I ran past, but saw another control). After that I had a good period through the open area. 12-13 I stopped for a moment to check another competitor was ok, and lost my direction slightly. Coming out of 13 I completely misread the wall as crossable, so I ended up taking a long way around to 14. Then another tricky part through the woods before a few longer legs through the open. The heather was up to waist deep in some parts here, but I felt really strong. I navigated from 21 back to 12 (muppet), but it turned out not to be too bad anyway. 23 was slightly tricky, I came off line a bit and was hesitant. After that was really good though. Results here. Splits here.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Johannesburg, and I will be spending the next 4 weeks in Dullstroom, about 2 hours east of Joburg. The altitude there is around 2000m. I will mostly just be training, but I am also going to spend a few days making a map for an o club down there.