Christmas Quiz

Given the festive season the CNOC Blog is offering a prize of a selection box for the first person to email all correct answers to curraghnaas.orienteering@gmail.com

The selection box will be given out at the next CNOC event in Donadea at the end of January.

Question 1 - What club won the Senior Mens and Senior Womens Irish Relay Championships?

Question 2 - Name the only 2 CNOC women that have been crowned Irish Senior Champions in Long Distance?

Question 3 - What percentage of the Senior Home Team were CNOC members? Was it a) 16% b) 43.7% or c) 56.321%

Question 4 - What do the following stand for: a) DNF; b)DSQ; c)MP; d)DNS

Question 5 - Which of the following are used at CNOC events, Emit or SI?

Question 6 - What control went missing at the Snow Score O on the Curragh?

Question 7 - Which of the following is not a member of CNOC? Sean Ryan, Meabh Ryan or Laoise Ryan?

Question 8 - Who was/is/will be the chairperson, last year, this year and next year?

Question 9 - Where are the following - Brave Heart, Flag Staff and Bun Hill. (for bonus points, if you were to run up each of them, how many contours would you climb??)

and the final CNOC Christmas Quiz Question....

Question 1o - Which CNOC member got international acclaim, appearing on car windscreens all over the UK, Norway, the Swedish Oringen, as well as larger orienteering events in the USA while promoting the JK and Irish Championships 2011 to be held in Northern Ireland?

(Only CNOC members need apply, in the event of a tie, the judges decision is final. No correspondents will be entered into. Terms and conditions apply)

Happy Christmas :)

Snowed Under

Turns out that the 3ROC Christmas Score event is off.

Too much snow. It'll be on the following week, assuming that the snow clears!

Until then. Enjoy the white out.

Happy Christmas.

Happy Christmas to everybody from CNOC.
A little present from the world of O something for you techys to colour in when bored.
http://news.worldofo.com/2010/12/21/route-to-christmas-day-21-2010/

(From the IOA Forum page)
The annual Christmas Score Event will be on at Three Rock Wood, near Dundrum, Co
Dublin, on December 26th, St Stephen's Day.
Please note the slightly earlier start times: 10.30 to 12.00.
It will be a 50 minute score event: visit as many controls as you can in the
time allowed, with a penalty per minute if you're over time and a bonus if
you're early if you have got all the controls. Extra points for fancy dress -
the judge's decision is final!
Maps will be premarked and bagged.
The event is being run by Eoin & Cliona McCullough (3ROC) in aid of the Irish
Junior Team, so please support it.
If the weather is bad and the forest is inaccessible, there will be a message on
the O-Groups on the morning of the 26th.
Directions: take Ticknock Road, which runs off the Blackglen Road (R113) /
Taylor's Grange Road between Lamb Doyle's pub and Taylor's Grange pub.
Meet up in the Lamb Doyle's afterwards.

Curragh Autumn League.

The final round of the Autumn league was held on the Curragh yesterday. We had over 70 competitors taking part. The fog from the previous day lifted and competitors we treated to bright sunshine and snow.

Ruari Short won the brown course and was just pipped for the overall winner of the league by a couple of minutes.

Deirdre Ryan running the Blue course finished with a couple of minutes to spare over club mate Bernie O Boyle. Caoimhe O Boyle finished second on the light green while Eileen Loughman was eight on the Green.

Laoise Ryan had a good run on home turf finishing seventh in a little over 42 mns.

Full results can be accessed below and as of now I dont know who won the overall team event, But im fairly certain it was not CNOC as we had a shortage of runners me included ahh well theres always next year. "We are where we are"

Leinster League Curragh East.

We are a go for 11am tomorrow morning.
Colm (Course Planner) and his band of helpers are out placing the controls.
The main roads are clear and some light snow on the side roads. The curragh itself has some snow in places and is a bit sloppy where it has thawed.
At the moment visibility is down to approx 100 metres due to heavy fog will it lift ?? it adds to the challange.

As Robin Williams once said about fog, (Paraphrased)

“There are so many beautiful parts of the world . . . Thailand, Italy, the south of France (Curragh). There are places in Spain that are astonishing. But here . . . 1 mile and you go up on to the curragh to see the fog come in; 1 mile the other direction and you're somewhere else that takes your breath away. There's no question this is where I want to live. Never has been.”

Good luck to everyone takimg part.

Curragh Results

The results were in Sunday night but it was my fault they weren't up ontime.

Winner on the day was Eoin McCullough, followed Ruairi Short. Both runners had the same points but Eoin put the boot to the floor to make it just 8seconds outside of the time limit. Ruairi was unable to match Eoins pace coming down the road to finish 24sec adrift.

Full results are here (I think).

Curragh Today.

Snow, freezing fog and ice did not deter a bunch of hardy orienteerers taking on the curragh today. Ruth Lynam planned a challanging snow score event opposite lumville and across to Bun hill. Running conditions proved tough but fun for those who turned up.
The next Leinster league event has been rescheduled for 12th December meeting at Lumville

All Systems Go

With a slight thaw on, its all systems go for the mass start score event at 12:00 midday (although if you want to run it at night, i take my hat off to you)

Following the score, return to Lumville where they will hopefully have the open fire lit!

After a meeting of the CNOC committee that could make it to Shorts, it was decided that skis would be permtted. XC skis will be more favourible that Down Hill skis

Looking forward to seeing who are the crazy ones tomorrow

POSTPONED!

The League event planned for the Curragh is postponed for one week until
SUNDAY 12TH DECEMBER.

Many of the control sites are buried in snow & the gorse bushes are
flattened, so we are saving up the navigational challenges & hoping for less
snow next week.


However for anyone (intrepid?, fanatical?) who doesn't want to miss the
experience of orienteering on the Curragh in snow we are organising a
small-scale event this Sunday 5th Dec:

A Mass Start Score Event

Start Time 12:00 at Lumville House

Skis permitted
Non permitted items include Huskies and Snow Mobiles.

CNOC Leinster League event.

The final event in the Leinster Autumn League is on the Curragh this Sunday
6 Dec.
Current League standings are at
http://orienteering.ie/results/leagues/show_table.php?league=Leinster+Autumn
+Series
n+Series&date_from=10/10&date_to=12/10&best_of=3>
&date_from=10/10&date_to=12/10&best_of=3

Parking & download at the Rugby Club GR 787 117. Signs from the Ballymany
roundabout at Junction 12 off the M7 (Curragh exit).

Start times 11:00 to 13:00

Start is 800 m from the parking area.

SI timing will be used.

Map Scale 1:10000, 2.5m contours updated with Lidar survey.

Please let us know in advance if you are bringing a group.


Colm Hill has planned the courses:

Brown 9.8km, 30 controls

Blue 8.0 km, 24 controls

Green 6.0 km, 18 controls

Light Green 3.4 km, 13 controls

Orange 2.4 km, 9 controls

Yellow 1.8 km, 9 controls.


WEATHER NOTE: The event will go ahead unless conditions deteriorate a lot.

If we do have to postpone I will send out an email on Saturday & there will
be notice here on the CNOC website www.cnoc.ie.

There will be no further notification unless we have to postpone the event!

CROC 10'

This weekend was the Connacht Regional Championships held in Portumna Forest Park in Galway.

A large gathering of junior squad members however first braved the icy roads and freezing forest of Knockbarron for some technical training. The training was held under the watchful eyes of IJS managers of Ruth and Greg with Darren, Marcus, Ruairi and Colm on shadowing duty as the juniors were put through there paces in sub zero tempetures. The orienteering training was wrapped up with a heated mass start looped relay event. Before retiring to Birr hostel where dinner was already cooked!!

The evening was spent on lectures on how to analysis maps by Marcus Pinker (mapper). Before a talk on physical training.

The Connacht Champs awaited everyone on Sunday morning.

First of 11 CNOC runner into the forest was Pat Healy.

No winners on the cold Sunday morning... but its the taken part that counts!

(better get the skates on and start training!)

CNOC Results

M21L

3rd Ruairi Short

4th Colm Hill

6th Conor Short

W21L

3rd Ruth Lynam

M18

7th Brian Hill

W18

3rd Dee Ryan (DFO??)

W40

2nd Angela Lynch

M45

8th Peter Dobbyn

W45

2nd Eileen Hill

M55

5th Pat Healy

M60

2nd Billy O'Neil

From the archives

At the recent event on 3rock I picked up a number of old IOA magazines. There were two articles that caught my attention.
From Aug/Sept 1988:The IOF congress discussed making orienteering available for television by tracking competitors electronically through the forest. The Swedish O fed and and the IOF were working on an electronic tracking system that would display a runners position on a map shown on a tv screen, a moving blip will indicate the runners position and the computor programme will take into account topographical abnormalities like re-entrants from which a small tansmittor carried by each competitor may not be detectable by the tracking system.

Those attending the meeting were impressed with the idea "IMAGINE IT" being able to monitor the race in the forest as easily as that!

Then the sole russian delegate spoke for the first time weighing his words
"This is all very good but we tried it five years ago. We also had a transmitter linked to the runners shoe so we could tell when he stopped running"
Stunned Silence followed,
We have come a long way since then when we can watch live orienteering events around the world on the Web, imagine that...

From June/July 1990 Orienteering Nass held a very succesful series of four evening events followed by a BBQ ( A Nass speciality) at Blessington. Contrary to report in TIO46 about Nass and Curragh amalgamating, Eileen Loughman informs us that the two clubs are coexisting in harmony. When did they amalgamate after this ?

This coming weekend sees the Connacht Champs in Portumna and our junior mmembers will train in the Slieve Blooms before attending the event. Best of luck to all taking part.

LL Update

Today CNOCer's were racing around the forest in the Vale of Clara.
We had wins, loses, miss punches and a few 180s.

We had runners on all courses except for the yellow and orange.
If there are any reports from the days activities, please feel free to send one on!

At a quick glance, Pat H was 4th on Blue (did he map it?). On Brown, Ruairi changed clubs to DUO... chairman, try keep him on the straight and narrow. Best CNOC runner was Ruth Lynam with the two O'Boyles having a bad day at the office.On green, Dee Ryan was 2nd woman home (1st junior). While Caoimhe was showing people how its meant to be done on the Light Green coming home in 3rd place!
Slightly further back on the Light Green it was a Ryan battle as younger sister Laoise just got the better of older brother Sean - surely Sean will be able to bring his A game to the Curragh and set the order straight in the Ryan household.

The next event is the CROC out West. Best of luck to all our runners.

Also, the eagle eyed will noticed that the photo's are fixed and we now have a few good shots of our WOC finalist Niamh! (thanks to my techy team)

Niamh all smiles post WOC Long

Ive added this photo of Niamh (and her Mammy) at the world champonships,it took me ages so now i need help. I have photos but cannot upload them why, so all you techy orienteers out there HELP!!!!!!!! I dont want advice show me. frustrated web PRO

 

Senior Home International 2010

CNOC had the largest numbers on the Irish team at Southampton last weekend, I had to borrow the report from the Irish Senior blog which was submitted by Niamh. (Dont forget to submit articles to CNOC)

The Senior Home International was held near Southampton last weekend. After finishing ahead of Wales in 2009, the team were hopeful of repeating the feat this year. With a number of orienteers returning to the international scene, the Irish team was one of the strongest for many years.

A tricky relay in Pamber forest on Saturday saw good results from the men's team finishing in 7th and 8th position, with the team of Darren, Conor and Ruairi best of the Irish. In the women's competition, Faye, Olivia and Ros finished 9th. This meant that overnight, the Irish team was one point behind the Welsh. Relay results and scores.

The individual day dawned bright and sunny and team Ireland were ready to overcome the 1-point deficit. The courses were long and fast - M21 was 17km and was won in 80:58. Best of the Irish were Marcus Pinker 10th in M21, Aislinn Austin 12th in W21, Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan 7th in M20 and Olivia Baxter 10th in W20. The individual titles were taken home by England's Sarah Rollins (W21) and Graham Gristwood (M21) and Scotland's Hazel Wright (W20) and Ali McLeod (M20). Full individual results can be found here. The Irish M21's out-scored their Welsh counterparts but good performances by the Welsh, particularly in W20, secured victory over Ireland. Full scores are here. England took overall victory with a very strong team that included many of the British World Championships squad.

A good weekend was had by all and a big thank you is due to the organisers of this event. Also a big thank you to the Irish runners who competed. The 2011 Senior Home International is scheduled for 22nd/23rd October in south Wales.

Final Scores:
1. England 54
2. Scotland 48
3. Wales 24
4. Ireland 17

Leinster League Autumn series.

The third round of the Autumn Leinster league was held today on 3rock we had a small turn out of runners.
Storm clouds stayed away and did not deter the large numbers turning out.
We had no runners on the yellow and orange courses. On the Light green course Caoimhe O Boyle showed a clean pair of heels to all challangers winning in a time of 51.07.
Eilen Hill was our only competitor on the green course and finished down the field in 25th position after having a tough day on the hills. Ben O Boyle finished 17th on the blue course. We had all our big guns running on the Brown course with Colm Hill winning and Hugh Cashell finishing second. Senan O Boyle finished 11th and Tony Lawlor finished 16th. Brian Hill opted to run this event which proved to be a poor choice as he DNfed, there was some excuse after his exertions on powerscourt ridge run on Saturday in which he won the junior event.Don Shortt also had a poor outing by his standards as he also DNFed.
For the next event we will hopefully have our international runners back to score valuable points for the club. Some pre race planning should take place so that we can spread runners over all events and hoover up points thereby moving us up the league table.

I picked up some old IOA magazines at the event and will post some info on the site that may be of interest.

CNOC members on SHI Team

The senior members of the IOA will be attempting to emulate the feats of the junior team that
beat Wales in the recent Home International. They will compete this weekend in New Forest,
Southampton. The team is:

M21: Darren Burke, Gerard Butler, Seamus O'Boyle (CNOC), Colm O'Halloran, Marcus
Pinker and Ruairi Short (CNOC)
M20: Niall Ewen (CNOC), Conor Short (CNOC), Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan
W21: Aislinn Austin, Rosalind Hussey, Ruth Lynam (CNOC), Niamh O'Boyle (CNOC), Toni
O'Donovan and Faye Pinker
W20: Fiona Hill (CNOC), Olivia Baxter

Good luck to everyone competing.

The Hunt is On.

Ever wonder how you could bring Orienteering to the masses. As we all know it is not a spectator friendly sport and not everyone knows what orienteering is,So heres an idea that we should sell to TV stations.

Imagine if two people take off into the hills with a map, a compass and a head start. The tracker is on horseback, armed with a local guide and an arsenal of forensic skills. The prey have 36 hours to reach a finish line some 40 kilometers away without getting caught. How they escape is up to them. It would be huge, in this reality TV world everyone seems to be caught up in, OK its not my idea but an American TV show that is now into series inits fifth year. This year they have got brothers and sisters, best friends and band mates, even a mother and son! Some got their training in the army, others from the street, but they all come up with new and imaginative ways to trick the tracker.

The prey are out for glory ... and Mantracker is out for blood!

I bet Shea and Colm could outrun this guy !!!!
Check out the website at http://www.mantracker.ca/

The JK is coming and we need you.

As I'm sure you're aware by now the JK is being held for the first time in NI next Easter (the weekend before the Irish Champs)

This must be the biggest orienteering event ever run in Ireland and they will need loads of helpers.

I (Don)have volunteered 10 CNOC’ers to help!


The helpers will get an opportunity to run either before or after helping.

Don will be in touch closer to the event and try to allocate tasks and times etc.

So what do you have to do contact Don ASAP as we only have 10 places available....

Questions,Dont ask me as i dont know, do you get free entry, free parking, meal voucher,transport,Hold one of the big hands that says park here, shout the start time , call the names, give out maps, stop people running who turn up late I DONT KNOW ASK DON. (I only write this stuff)

News update.

Ive been checking out all my usual sites to bring you up todate with all thats happening in the world of O and all seems quiet. The Irish team have recently been to france and you can find out what they have been up to by clicking here http://worldchamps2011france.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/first-woc2011-trainings-the-findings/

If you want to see extreme orienteering click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm8-SS10gkQ&feature=related but dont try his at home.

Anyone got any news or if you have been up to anything strange recently let us know.

Training Weekend.

Last weekend saw some of our juniors training with the Irish squad, the first session was held in the Phoenix Park where they were put through their paces on the time trial course the weather was good which meant the underfoot conditions were good, we saw some fast times with most improving on their previous best over the course.

In the afternoon the squad moved to the miners village in Glendalough where they ran a number of short routes to test their navigational skills, Butterfly loops and in and out the day finished with a short 2km relay of three per team. It was back to the hostel in Glendalough for an overnight stay, hot showers and hot food before debriefing and lights out ???

On Sunday the squad moved to Newcastle Demesne Co Longford and ran in the Leinster summer series where they all had good runs. (Check IOA for results)

Well done and thanks to all involved in organising the weekend, I can't name everyone for fear of leaving someone out, well done and thanks again.....

Update news.

Last weekend Shea and Colm ran in the Mourne Mountain Marathon bad weather and an injury put paid to the journey on the second day. They were both dissappointed in having to drop out having led their section by 27 minutes, but they live to fight another day and have learnt some valuable lessons. Check out colm blog..........

I have received a lot of photos from Ruth. I've tried to upload them but cannot find them as they are now out there in space somewhere. Hopefully they will relocate and come back to me then ill try again.

If anyone has any news or pics pass it on and we will put it up on the site.

Lost Orienteer
An orienteer was running along one day when he came to a wide river. Seeing an orienteer on the other bank, he called out "Hey, how do I get to the other side?" (he was from Dublin, and hadn't recognized the symbol). The other orienteer looked carefully along the bank to the left, then carefully along the bank to the right, thought a bit, then called back, "You are on the other side!" (I can get more)

Scotland, France, Emo and Everywhere in Between

The Junior Home International was held over the weekend of 10-12 September, based around Perth and Stirling in Scotland. On paper the Irish team looked strong and so it was proven in practice with a comfortable overall win over Wales to win the Judith Wingham trophy for the first time in many years.

Overall they did very well in the Relay. The boys were 8th, 11th and 12th and the girls were 7th, 11th and 13th. At the end of the day England, on 54 points, had a 4 point lead over Scotland. We were on 24 points, 8 ahead of Wales.

Mean while in Perth, Niamh O'Boyle was busy burning up the streets to finish in the top 10 of the Park World Tour behind the winner Helena Jansson of Sweden.

The next morning, Devilla Forest was the location for the long distance individual races. Here the forest was pretty flat with much fewer paths and subtle contour detail. The only issue here was the “white” areas were very rough with waist high heather and a network of old drains. Keeping a bearing was very difficult. The M18’s had a very long leg through the middle of the map and several of the lads chose to run the path to the east (some 3 km) which turned out to be as quick.

Again the performances were very good our best runner in each class were Caoimhe (7th), Niamh (Corbett)(7th), Áine (6th), Jonathan (4th), Jack (6th) and Séan (5th): strong across the board.

We ended up on 61 points well ahead of Wales 45. England, on 135 points, also had a very comfortable 16 point margin over Scotland. Full detailed results can be found here.

The entire Irish crew are shown below:

Cillín Corbett, Niamh Corbett, Laura Cox, Megan Getliff, Donal Kearns., Seán Knight, Róisín Long, Áine McCann, Clíona McCullough, Peter Meehan, Jack Millar, Colm Moran, Caoimhe O'Boyle, Cathal OCléirigh, Laurence Quinn, Jonathan Quinn, Deirdre Ryan, Conor Short, Alex Simonin, Andrea Stefkova, Jill Stephens, Mark Stephens.
(alphabetically - CNOC runner highlighted).

There are more reports on the event on the Irish Junior Squad page here and on the Northern Ireland OA site here. For runners routes on Routegadget in the individual race, see here. For more photos, see here.The JHI 2011 is due to be in Ireland in or around the middle of September.

Closer to home, CNOC held a "Non League" (the new fancy term) event in Emo Court. The race was planned by Colm Hill and controlled by Pat Healy. The event had a turn out of 65, with the Long been planned as a Longish Middle Distance. The courses were enjoyed by most. However, worry spread through the car park as the first starter wasn't back 90mins later... A big thank you to all who helped out on the day. From starts, car parking, control collecting, registration and dealing with the SI.

Last weekend SET organised a Mountain Bike Orienteering event - a few nice photos are located here. Senan O'Boyle was best CNOC finisher coming in in 4th position on the Long.

Also, CNOC have a few athletes off to the Senior Home International in a few weeks.

These include, Ruairi Short, Seamus O'Boyle, Conor Short, Niall Ewen, Fiona Hill and Niamh O'Boyle (in descending order of height).

Next week CNOC have runners travelling to a Pre World Champs Training Camp 2011 and World Cup Races in the Western Alps in France. Niamh O'Boyle is heading firstly to France before continuing onto the World Cup Final in Switzerland, while Seamus, Ruairi and Colm are attending the World Cup in France before they return home for college.

I think that's all that has happened recently - if I'm leaving something out, write it up and email it on.

Stone Cross to Lug Relay

Last weekend, 9 hardy CNOC runners took part in the annual open mountain relay - Stone Cross near Tallaght to Fentons Pub at the base of Lug in the Glen of Imall. The relay is 3 legs, varying in lenght. The first is from Stone Cross to the Sally Gap, 14.5km, the second leg is from Sally Gap to Wicklow Gap, 17.5km and the final leg is from the Wicklow Gap to the Glen of Imall, 21km.
Now this sounds all very easy - just follow the trails! But if your talking to anyone who ran, trails is the only thing they don't come across. The CNOC runners had to battle through the early morning mist (and afternoon torrential rain) across mountain tops and crossing bog and peat hag filled saddles.

CNOC had a senior team, Niall McAlinden, Seamus O'Boyle and Colm Hill. The Junior team was Conor Short, Kevin O'Boyle and Niall Ewen and the Vets team was Bernie O'Boyle, Don Short and Ruth Lynam. All 3 teams ran with a battling attitude and all preformed extremely well giving the testing conditions.

Leg 1 had to battle up Seechon, Corrig, Seefingan before slogging up to Kippure and down to Sally Gap. For people that know Kippure, there is a massive areial ontop of the mountain. To give you an idea of the conditions, when standing beside the cables that hold it up, you were unable to see the mast. Niall McAlinden (currently writing a report) was only seen on the start line before he blitzed off to come home 7mins clear of the field. Conor had some naviational issues in the mist but corrected and came home 4th (?). While Bernie, who was running in her longest hill race ever, had a clean run and handed over to Don in the sheets of rain. All leg 1 runners in and accounted for.

Seamus took full charge of the race on Leg 2 increasing the lead from 7mins to 15mins. He's currently writting up a report for me. On this leg the runners had to cross Carrigvoher, Gravale, Duff Hill, Mullaghcleevaun East Top, Mullaghcleevaun, Barnacullian Ridge, Stoney Top, Tonelagee before collapsing at the Wicklow Gap. Kevin had a blinder of a run, and now seems addicted to the open mountain races. His report is here. Don, been sent out in apocalyptic conditions ran clean, gaining some time to unleash Ruth on the last leg.

On 3rd leg, which had to go up Turlough Hill, Conavalla, Table track junction, Camenabologue, Cannow Ridge, Lugnaquillia and Camerahill before a 2km descent to the finish at Fentons pub. Seamus let Colm out 15mins in the lead. He ran a controlled race. His report is here. He ran clean and fast, almost taking the leg record to bring our first team home in first place by 52mins.

Kevin unleashed Niall who chased Aonghus O'C the entire way up until the Lug summit, before mist hindered him and he was forced to take the scenic route home through the Glen of Imall firing range. (Someone else went over Slievemeen!) Ruth ran clean (no surprises there) on the last leg to take 3 teams and bring the team home as First vets team.

All in all it was an extremely successful day for CNOC at the Premier Open Mountain Relay in the country. The orienteering season is soon apon us with our first event been held in Emo on the 12th of Sept. I'll do my best to find a few photos and put them up as soon as possible.

Once again well done to all teams. Results available on imra.ie

CNOC in top 35 at WOC.

Congtratulations to CNOCs Niamh who had plenty to cheer about in Grannasen ski-centre Norway. Both Niamh and Nick Simminon (Cork)were Irelands two Long distance finalists at WOC both had great runs in front of the thousands of spectators.

Niamh finished in a fantastic 34th place in her race. She put all her Trondheim training to good use and ran a clean and strong race, coming through the arena with a very tough last loop of 1.5km she was in good shape and continued hard right to the end finishing in style to the delight of all her supporters.

The 9.9km womens race was won by the unstoppable Swiss runner Simone Niggli who captured her 17th World champs gold medal.

Then it was the mens turn with Nick one of the earlier starters we could follow his progress through the forest with the excellent television and tracking coverage. Nick too had a strong race and performed admirably in what will surely be the first of many World champ finals for him, coming home in 39th position.

The home favorite Olav Lundanes was eventual mens winner, the 23 year olds first gold.

I had to pikie this from the IOA website as all my reporters have gone to ground somewhere in the northern forests, maybe there is no web or mobile signals if this is not the case there will have to be a good explination as all the fans left at home have been checking google and Skype to see if anyone puts their head up.
WE NEED PHOTOS PICTURES ARE BETTER THAN WORDS ??????????????

Maps and Route Choices

As we all know we have route gadget to share our routes with. However, with GPS's becoming a regular accessory for your average orienteer, it is now possible to upload just your route to your map using software called QuickRoute.

At present CNOC have a large gathering in Trondteim, Norway. Some excellent programming by Seamus O'Boyle has now enabled them to upload there maps with routes from trainings to CNOC's own map data base!

The map data base can be found here . If you also want to add your own maps to the archive from races or training session in Ireland or anywhere else in the world drop me an email and we'll sort you out.

Niamhs Blog

Ive not had access to a computor for the past few weeks so thanks to all for undating and sending me mails, the following is an update from Niamh and her travels, Hugh dont forget to send me some photos.I may have problems with some of the links attached and some of the graphics may not display, so Ill have to wait for my technical gurus to return to help.

My summer blog part 1: Preparation for competition

This summer I was lucky enough have the chance to live in Scandinavia for 2 months prior to the World Orienteering Championships. The 2 big competitions on my 2010 calendar were:
• Borlänge, Sweden (World University Orienteering Championships, WUOC)
• Trondheim, Norway (World Orienteering Championships, WOC)
so I seized an opportunity to try and get out and do some orienteering specific training. I’ll try and share the preparation with you now and in the next blog, after WOC, will reflect on the WOC and WUOC.

2010 progress before leaving for Scandinavia
2009 was a good year of progress for me – a stepping stone on the way up. Unfortunately, about 2 months before WOC2009, I got a stress fracture in my foot and couldn’t run for 3 months. The focus switched to 2010 and after a few months of swimming, I was able to re-introduce running slowly. I now have the utmost respect for swimmers as life in the pool was fairly solitary!

The aim for 2010 was to get back running and as fit as possible over the winter/spring months, not really focussing on orienteering but rather on fitness. For the first time, I was also doing some strength training, as the terrain in Trondheim for WOC was heavy underfoot and would need leg strength to get through it. I also wanted to avoid sickness and injury, something that I managed from October to June, great! A few cross-country races early in 2010 gave a good indication that I was getting strong, with 30th place in the National Senior Inter-Club (30:23 for 8km, gps distance said 7.7km!) after a hard week training and 7th in the National Intervarsity Cross-Country (8th, 17:29 for 5km, gps distance measured at 4.85km) after an easy week. A few of the fantastic IMRA hill races confirmed that I was running well and it was time to start thinking about the summer and orienteering. Orienteering-wise, the Irish Championships, always a highlight of the season, in Northern Ireland was a mixed bag. I mispunched in the sprint, a brilliant tricky course with lots of controls, impassable objects and changes in direction, but more than made up for it the next day when I won the (rather short) classic distance by over 7 minutes. The JK held in Devon was also a mixed weekend, with a solid run in the middle distance to finish 3rd but a poorly executed classic distance left me in 4th place overall in W21E.

2010 Results:
National senior cross-country interclub championships, hosted by Donore in the Phoenix Park: http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/results-inter-club-2010-senior-women.pdf
National intervarsity cross-country championships: http://sindar.net/iuaa/results/meet/178/#Points-Overall%20Team%20Competition
IMRA races 2010: Camaderry (Colleges champs): http://www.imra.ie/events/view/tab/results/id/794/
Fairy Chase (30th Anniversary Race): http://www.imra.ie/events/view/tab/results/id/743/
Brockagh: http://www.imra.ie/events/view/tab/results/id/745/
Jan Kjellstrom, Devon: http://www.siresults.co.uk/2010/JK/overall/w21e.html
Irish Orienteering Championships: http://orienteering.ie/results/FullSIResults.php?1498#W21E

Leaving for Trondheim
I was due to leave for Trondheim, where Mike and Catherine had generously offered accommodation, on Thursday 10th June. On Monday, June 7th I ran in the Flora Women’s mini-marathon, running a new 10km PB of 39:18 (previous best was 42:30) and raising €1000 for Barretstown Gang Camp, an amazing association that works with seriously ill children and their families (www.barretstown.org). On Tuesday, 8th June I managed to submit my PhD thesis, 466 pages of anti-cancer drug-related research. I was unsure until the very last few days whether I would be able to submit it before I left, or if I would have to wait until I returned, but it was in! No time to think about it – had to start packing and before I knew what was happening, I was on my way to Norway with a bag full of orienteering kit. I had some ill-effects from the 10km – a sore underfoot – but a trip to the physio (my long-suffering physio, Aidan Woods on Pearse Street – he’s great!) assured me that it was nothing serious and a few days rest would be fine…

The Trondheim Open
Arriving on the Thursday, myself and my brother Seamus had about 18 hours to settle in before our first competition. The Trondheim Open was held over 3 days and to be honest, I was still in a bit of a daze for the whole thing (this daze was to last a while…!). My foot was still a little sore, but improving daily and I couldn’t resist the enticement of a 3-day orienteering event. A sprint on Friday was fun (map below), with a middle distance on Saturday and a longer distance chasing start on Sunday. The maps for the middle and long are available here (http://www.multiresults.net/gpsseuranta/TrondheimOpen/) with GPS tracking, though I wasn’t wearing one. In the middle distance, I was doing well until number 9, where I dropped 3 minutes. Ditto for the longer course on Sunday, where I dropped 5 minutes on number 8 with a horrible error leaving number 7 the wrong way. Lessons learned and wasn’t worried at this stage of the summer at all. It was just wonderful to be out orienteering!



The Nordic Orienteering Tour
This was a new concept in the World Cup for 2010. I won’t go into it in too much detail but basically it is aimed at raising the profile of orienteering by increasing coverage, etc. The bit that mattered for the athletes was that it incorporated 3 races in 3 countries over a 10-day period, coinciding with major races like Jukola and O-Festivalen. It was an interesting idea and an Irish team of myself and 5 males were to compete in it. The first race was in Finland and, well, you can view my GPS track for yourself (http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/20100617mcD/). It was a mixed middle distance-sprint distance race, and the middle part was a disaster. It has been a long time since I made such a silly error, and I can’t even figure out a reason for it. I was running along the high bank from 13 – 14 when I saw some huts, and try as I might, I could NOT locate them on the map (of course they were there!). I was thrown by this and took way too long to relocate. Rusty map skills… The positive that I took out of the race was that I got over it well and completed the sprint part with no hiccups, and was in 33rd part for the sprint part of the race.

After this, it was time for Venla and Jukola. Unfortunately I was picking up a cold, which got way worse after my Venla run. Not good for stage 2 of the Nordic Tour, which was being held 3 days later in Stockholm. It was nearly gone by then, and I managed a good, consistent sprint race to finish 44th. Unfortunately it wasn’t fast enough to qualify for the next round (top 30 – was 45 seconds down on qualifying). The sprint finals were held in Gamla Stan (The Old Town) in Stockholm but there are no maps up on the net for this part of the tour.

The final leg of the tour was in Norway at O-festivalen. Another sprint race, not part of the World Cup series, was held on Friday and the World Cup chasing start on Saturday. The terrain was rocky and tough, and I didn’t see anyone out there, so it felt very alone. After all this, I was really looking forward to going back to Trondheim!

The Nordic Tour was fun, but for me it came at the wrong time. In hindsight, I hadn’t done enough orienteering prior to it and would have benefited far more from staying in Trondheim and recovering from the craziness of the month before I left, with writing up and my 10km road race. The Nordic tour involved a lot of travelling, and I can understand why a lot of orienteers chose not to include these races in their schedules for 2010. It also ended up being quite expensive, and if it were not for the hospitality of Andrew in Stockholm, would have been even more so. I don’t think this Tour will be an event that I’ll be aiming for in the next few years. Having said that, it was fun travelling and staying with the Irish team.

The Irish selection races, Verdal
There was a one-week gap between the end of the Nordic Tour and the start of the Irish Selection races. During this time, most of the Irish team travelled up to Trondheim to get in some terrain work. It was a great week of team bonding! And it was fantastic to see so many of the guys going for the team. The only disappointment was the number of girls – only myself and Ciara made the trip, and we were staying in Trondheim anyway for the summer. This was good in one way, as the top 2 were guaranteed selection! Because of this, there was no need to taper and I could train hard in the week before the races. However, increased competition can only be a good thing and hopefully in the future, when some juniors start coming through, competition for the women’s team will be just as intense as the men’s.

The races themselves were fun. The sprint on Friday was fast and furious, and not very technical, mostly based on route choice (which way would you go? – see the course here: http://www.ntoku.net/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=9&&kieli=). I was most pleased with my middle race. In the races since arriving in Scandinavia, I had been making unacceptable big mistakes, so the aim for this weekend was to forget about the pace I was running at and get around without any major mistakes. I managed to do this in the middle distance and only had a small loss of time, managing to beat some of the Swedish girls who were using it as their WOC selection race too. In the long on Sunday, I didn’t stick to this plan and lost a lot of time on number 3, and some more time with not being aggressive enough.
Routegadget middle: http://www.ntoku.net/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=10&&kieli=
Routegadget long: http://www.ntoku.net/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=11&&kieli=
In the guys, Andrew won the middle selection and Nick won the long. The Irish WOC team was selected shortly afterwards and can be seen here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irish-orienteering/message/7659

And so, to summarise!
The trip has been a little crazy in terms of travelling around, so that’s something I’d like to reduce when preparing for a big event in the future. After the Irish selection races, I had a bit of time to breathe. I did some travelling with Hugh in the western fjords, including a hike on a glacier, incredible. I’ve been doing some training in the Trondheim area and getting some runs in too. It’s time for the 2 big aims of 2010: the World University Champs and the World Champs. I’m down in Borlänge in Sweden for the World University Champs, and unfortunately as I write this, the long distance is in progress. Food poisoning hit me three days ago, and although I’m recovered, I decided last night not to run the long distance. It was a really tough decision to make, but definitely the right one. Even if I could get around the long, I’m not here just to get around – I want to do well. Getting around the long and risking the possibility of wiping myself out again for the sprint and middle (Wednesday and Thursday) would have been silly. I learned my lesson at Venla that I shouldn’t run whilst not feeling well. So as hard as it is to sit out the long distance, I can go into competition tomorrow knowing that I’m fully fit and ready to go. Looking forward to it!

There will be blog updates about how myself, Nick and Colm are getting on here in Borlänge and also from the World Champs. After the World Champs in Trondheim, where I’m running the sprint, long and relay, I’ll let you all know my own take on the competition phase of my summer. A big thanks to Mike, Catherine, Ruairi, Roisin, Murray, Aidan, Jim, Ruchika, Hugh and the O’Boyle clan who have all helped me immensely along the way. Till then, happy orienteering!

Summer Update!

This post is slightly all over the shop - so much has happened that I'm confused about it, if i'm wrong, fell free to correct me

Well the summer is well and truly here and we all know that as people are vanishing left right and centre to go to all the competitions abroad.

Niamh and Colm are in Borlange for the World University Orienteering Championships. Seamus is still in Norway preparing for his WOC Sprint. While Short's are preparing for a European assault - to include: Oringen (sweden), World Masters (switzerland), WOC Tour (Norway), its also a Junior Squad Tour, i think, and Lake 5 day (England). I think CNOC have a few others headed over to the Lakes 5 Day so hopefully we'll have a nice gang at it.

CNOC International Selections (that I know of/can remember)

JWOC - Conor and Niall. That finished a 2 weeks ago, look at the IJS website for reports etc
WUOC - Niamh and Colm. Website here
CISM - Colm. Website here
World Masters - Ruth and Don (I think). Website here

and the big daddy of them all

World Orienteering Championships in Norway.

Seamus - Sprint and hopefully the Relay

Niamh - Sprint, Long and Relay (probably followed by sleep, or more orienteering!)

Looking at websites, I noticed that Ruairi has gotten himself onto the reserve list for Super Elites or Eliteseren at Oringen. For those not in the know - its the most insanely competitive competition class in the worlds biggest multi-day orienteering race in the World!! and by big I don't mean our CNOC summer series event where we had +200 people.... This event is closer to +15,000 people!

Well done to those who have finished and best of luck to everyone else who's summer is only getting under way.

I'll try get reports from everyone at some stage or another so check back regularly.

To keep the blog surfers happy, Niamh as written up a bit on her summer so far, its located on the Senior Squad Page

Message from the Chairman.

Our summer series has come to an end and was, I believe, a good series of challenging orienteering for the serious orienteer, and a fun family series for the not so serious ones. Helped in no small way by the excellent weather we had unprecedented turnouts. What may have seemed like a well oiled machine pumping out events was in fact a group of dedicated souls barely managing to keep the fires at bay.
At Donadea the download box failed and the event had to be reconstituted from the SI boxes. For the Curragh Lumville when over two hundred people took part. We ran out of maps, SI Cards and even entry forms. Hillwood at least went without a hitch possibly due to the fact that the event was run by Orla, Ollie & Billy, all army personnel! . At the Curragh Sunnyhill, a traveller wedding threatened the event when they took over the parking area but fortunately departed just days before. Also one of our control putterouters forgot to put kites on some of the stakes and I erroneously accused a group of young lads of stealing them. How they could possibly have found them I never stopped to consider! At Hollywood I dished out the wrong maps to the short course competitors, who ended up doing 4k. To compound this, the events that I had the evening before loaded onto the computer had mysteriously disappeared and all had to be re-entered on the fly.
All in a days work for the many of us who helped over the series. A big thank you to you all and to all who supported our events.
I took in the last of the controls at Hollywood forest yesterday and when I spotted a negative imprint in a bog, of what looked uncannily like Finn van Gelderens lower half I felt it was all worth while.

Summer Series - Hollywood

Last night we had our annual barbie in hollywood and it didn't rain!!

We had 128 runners (so more showed up as a few ran with only one si card). This final event took place in a score race format. Conor Short, fresh from his Chemistry paper took the honours in his home forest with Colm hot on heels. First female was Hazel Thompson.
From what I heard from the forest, Caomihe O'Boyle had the best "vault" of the night. A 10 out of 10 clearing of the gate in front of a big crowd as she took off to finish a credible 23rd.

A little map bagging mistake meant that the short got the adventure and the adventure got the short - apologies about this but sure wasn't it an adventure anyways :)

The Adventure was won by Karen Duggan (SET), not use if she wanted it but a win is a win is a win.
The Short was won in 27:56 by Clodagh Moran (3rock) with 5mins to spare.

Following the event we had the food prepared by Marlena, Rosemary and Denise - A big thank you from everyone goes your way.

Once we had all been fed and watered, CNOC Chairman, Don (aka the boss) gave out the prizes and people were awarded with CNOC Buffs!!

A great evening was had by all - roll on the summer internationals

We currently have 3 of our members abroad at internationals, i'll get reports asap

Summer Series Final Results

With the four scoring results over the winners have been decided
The league table can be found here
Its slightly edited so planner got points to encourage people to plan.

Over the series we had over 250 runners. This was probably due to the beautiful weather that has greeted us every Tuesday evening.

Congratulations to the winners, commiserations to those who didn't preform as well as they would have liked and a big thumbs up to everyone in between.

Next week is the best* event in the year - our Score Event (short and adventure courses also avaiable) in Hollywood followed by a BBQ!
For those that don't know, a score event is one where you have a set amount of time, usually 50mins to collect as many controls as you can. Different controls are worth a varying amount of points. The winner is the person who collects the most amount of points in the 50mins - if your over, your points get deducted per minute late. Time keeping, knowing your own abilities and planning are essential skills to excel at this format.
This event would be a perfect warm up for Setanta Wicklow Rogaine or an Adventure race with an element of orienteering invloved!

From what I hear some of the forest has gone through some clearing so we now have access to new sections of forest. Don and Ruairi have planned so don't run off at the start like a headless chicken!

See you all Tuesday evening

Sunnyhill

A very successful event was held on the curragh this evening in beautiful weather conditions. We have one more event in the series to be held in Hollywood next Tuesday, this event will be followed by a BBQ.

Donegal Three Day.

Thanks to Dee for the following report..


Last weekend the annual Irish 3 Day event was held near the beautiful Lough Eske in the Bluestack Mountains. There were mixed feelings over returning to the challenging area as last year’s Irish Champs; for some it was a weekend of fantastic victories while for others the most vivid memories of that weekend were the pouring rain the dense fog the waist-deep marshes and the long haul to the start.
Just over a year later however everything was different. Saturday dawned warm and sunny, with not a breath of wind turning the wind turbines visible from the start. The event centre was at the local Community Centre, with a steep 1km walk to the start at Benson's Hill. Starts were not until 4 in the evening, meaning all the orienteer’s been relaxed and ready to race. All of the eight courses were very technical and of middle distance, but due to the blistering heat were surprisingly tough. The terrain was a fabulous open mountain with undulating hills, very intricate contour detail, many horrible marshes but very few tracks. Rock features were very useful for navigation.
CNOC performed well, with many good results on some very competitive courses. Among them were Ruairí Short and Séamus O Boyle on the Men’s 21 Elite course, in fantastic 4th and 7th places respectively. On the women’s Elite course, Orla Jennings came a close 4th, with Eileen Loughman 8 minutes behind her in 5th place. Caoimhe O Boyle finished her course in a fast time of 24 mins in the W14 class, winning her first place. I (Deirdre Ryan!) won myself the W16s course with a few minutes to spare, a surprising but very pleasing result! Beginner Regina Kelly finished 6th on W21S while Ollie Clear came 3d on the M35s course, only a few seconds away from 2nd place. In the highly competitive M50s CNOC swept away first and second place, with Sennan O Boyle coming in less than two minutes behind Pat Farrelly. Don Short came 7th on the same course. Finally, Bernie O Boyle cleaned up the W50s with an easy win.

Sunday morning came too soon, and once again too hot to be running in. There was a longer 2km trek to the start, with longer and with more climb. Day 2 started at Croaghmeenare, circling around some beautiful lakes and gruelling hills. Once again, courses were technically difficult only today they had physically challenging thrown into the mix too.
CNOC collected a few more victories- Seamus 2nd on the Men’s Elite while Ruairi dropped a few places to number 8. Unsurprisingly Caoimhe retained her lead among the W14s. I lost a few minutes but came in a happy second place on my course. Ollie clear ran to 2nd on his course, with Pat and Sennan once again battling for first and second place. On the same course Don Short came in 8th place. Bernie widened the gap between herself and second place again, winning easily.

Nerves were running high on Monday morning as people tried to mentally prepare for the stressful Chasing Start at 10am. The winners of each course set out first, with the remaining competitors starting later according to the total time they trail. The first person over the line on each course was the overall winner of the weekend. At the start at Bensons Hill on Monday morning adrenaline was pumping and I for one was super nervous, starting first on my course. Courses were the longest yet, but almost luckily the sun stayed hidden all day and temperatures remained in the high teens. The area was the driest of any of the days, with many of the marshes having dried up a bit throughout the weekend, so terrain was more runnable today than the previous days. Out on the course, orienteer’s had to concentrate on their own race and remain completely unfazed by the many other hectic competitors out on the mountain, be they on their own course or not.
In the overall results at the end of the day, Seamus finished an amazing 4th on the Elite course, with Ruairí on his heels in 5th. Orla finished 5th on women’s elite with Eileen in 6th. Caoimhe won an overall 1st place in W14. I made stupid navigational errors on my course losing my large lead (and then some) but coming 2nd at the end of the day. Ollie Clear kept his second place in M35. One of the highlights of the finish line were two CNOC men Sennan and Pat fighting for first place on the run-in. The exciting sprint finish ended with a joint first place!
Minutes after the prize giving as everyone was making their way towards the cars, the heavens opened for the first time all weekend- lucky!
Overall the 3 day event was thoroughly enjoyed and well organised (thanks to WEGO!), with great orienteering opportunities on great new terrain. Hopefully CNOC will return next year to retain all of our titles!

Site update

Thanks to our friends in the IOA we have made minor adjustments to our page. When CNOC results are loaded up onto the IOA website they will automatically upload onto our site.
Clever or what..........
Well done to everyone who ran on Scarr last Tuesday we had Nine runners (yes Nine) in the event and two in the top five. The next run will be on Sorrell Hill on Tuesday next.
Best of luck to everyone going to the 3 Day in Donegal, dont forget reports and photos for the site.

Tree Down!

CNOC's third event was held in Hillwood last night with the planner, controller and controller putter outs consisting of Ollie, Orla and Billy.

By my calculations there was a grand total of 119 people out but giving the number of families that were running on the one SI card it was probably more. Without the usual scout troop and military buses coming from the Curragh this event still had a bigger turn out than last year (only 95 runners took part last year).

Some of the forest was nice and runnable, some a bit scrappy, some with a few falling trees (tree down, 3 events done :) ), some sections covered in Blue bells! People made short work of the physical forest with some impressive times been posted.

Reports from the forest were that Gerard Butler set a fast first time until the CNOC juniors/seniors? (perhaps immature is the best word) took off.

Seamus went out one minute in front with the pack consisting of Conor Short, Niall Ewen, Ruairi Short and Colm Hill going out "le Mans" style.

What I do know for definite is that Conor was first to the first control and after that its the usual stories from the forest. I'm sure one of them will have something up on a blog at some stage.

CNOC's top runner on the Medium was David Cullinane in 4th place. Finishing less than 9mins down on the course winner David Healy. Dan Morrogh and Meave O'Grady made up the rest of the top 3. Top junior was Caoimhe O'Boyle finishing 12th over all.

On the short course, Sean Kearns took the honors but was closely followed by brother Donal (both FIN). Top CNOC runners were the Kelly Family - finishing up 12th.

Full results are available here

Splitsbrowser here

Winsplits here

Routegadget here (Draw in your route!!)

Updated League Table here

If anyone has any photos please email them onto me - or race reports!

Next up for CNOC is the Irish 3 Day in Donegal.

I know the numbers won't be as high this year with injuries, Leaving Certs, Junior Certs, College work, Work and a few other suspect reasons for people not travelling the distance (imra, rock climbing tut tut tut).

Good luck to all members who make the travel north and good look to the rest of them in exams.

The end of June is Jukola (7 person Relay starts at 23:00)- its always a good nights entertainment.

Did someone say CNOC team?

And finally.....

CNOC's next event is on the Curragh on June 15th.

Seamus O'Boyle is planner so it should be tricky.

I'll have more info on this was we get closer to the time.

Hill Wood

On Tuesday evening is CNOC Summer Series Event number 3.

Where: Hillwood, Monasterevin.

When: Tuesday 1st June.

Type of Terrain: Hillwood is a lovely runnable forest only 10 minutes beyond the Curragh. Map sample available here

Start Times: 17.30 to 19.30. (We are starting earlier than usual to cater
for all those people that arrive before the event organisers do!)

Event organiser: Orla Jennings

Planner: Oliver Clear

Controller: Billy O'Neill

How to not get lost on the way to an orienteering event:
Hillwood is located in Monasterevin town. Travel south on the M7 and take
the exit for Monasterevin. Cross the motorway and turn left for
Monasterevin. Just as you come into Monasterevin take the left turn R417
South sign posted Kildangan / Athy. Hillwood is on your right hand side.
The event will be held in the last carpark on the right.

(so that's straight, left, right, left, straight, left, straight, last car park before bridge on the left...Ohh sorry I meant the right!)

Courses Close at 20:30 to allow our young energetic juniors pick them all up - as much as they love NightO, I don't want to be waiting around.

Course Descriptions:

Short Course 2.4km 8 controls
Medium Course 4.3km 15 controls
Long Course 5.8km 23 controls
Adventure Run 3.7km 9 controls

Hope to see ye all there.

By the way, CNOC League Tables are located here

Current leaders in the race to the BBQ are Ruairi Long (M12) on the Short course. Seamus O'Boyle (M21) on the Long course and Tony Joyce (M40) on the Medium.

End Note:

I almost forgot - don't forget to hit follow to stay up to date with all our latest news! And I will say again, if anyone has any article of interest, send them my way. I try to keep the blog as updated as I can but there's only so much work and research one editor can do.

Some interesting links to keep people entertained/distracted with exams starting/finishing....

WorldofO Fantasy World Cup here

Orienteering maps from around the world here

Curragh and Donadea and Brockagh.

This is a bit like Bublin Bus you wait all morning nothing happens and suddenly a whole fleet arrive to take you to your destination.
Shea has been busy at the keyboards and gives us two reports for the price of one. Brill stuff I think Ill tape a camera to his head for the next run and put it live on utube, it will be huge....
Read it and learn how to orienteer and next time you meet him theres more going on in his head than just numbers he really hates to loose.
Donadea Report
Curragh Report

We also seven runners in the Brockagh Hill race on Wednesday night.

Colm wrote up a highly one sided report available here.

Very good runs by both Seamus and Niamh.

(I'm getting tired of congratulating Niamh!)

CNOC Summer Series..

We ran a very successful event last night on the Curragh with over 170 runners taking part. Colm was our course planner for the event. I will post a full report later. The camera was at the event but the photographer forget to take pictures if anyone has any pics send them on.

Results are available on the IOA website (I dunno how to link it Help someone)

Our next event will take place in HILLWOOD near monasterevin this is a lovely mixed woodland and the Bluebells are out in full bloom see pictures above.

Race Report

Niamh got back to my reply for an expansion of "ah, sure, it was grand". I was tempted to edit out her little slip taking the wrong track - makes orienteer'ers look bad Enjoy!

And so to expand on my 'ah sure, it was grand' description of yesterday's hill race!

I was toying with the idea of running a hill-race for a while. The majority of my training has pretty much been on the flat, and if I'm running at the World Champs in Trondheim, I'm going to need to get up those hills. The 30th anniversary race seemed like a nice one to go for. Circuit training in the army gym at 8 the night before mightn't have been the best idea, but Saturday dawned bright and sunny and I decided to go for it. The race plan was simple... get up the hill as quickly as possible and be careful coming down.

From the off, it was a flurry of feet and fairy wings. Narrow track just after the start slows the pace. There's something slightly surreal about having a topless guy in a pink grass skirt running up a mountain ahead of you. Steady pace, up up up. Off the top of the 'boneshaker' and through by the masts, everything going ok. Running along the edge of the forest... hmmm... don't remember this on the map of the route. After about half a kilometer, no tapes for a while, I realise that we are on the lower track. Looking ahead and behind me, it's a stream of people all having missed the turn up to the right. Nothing in it but to keep going and cut up later. Luckily I didn't go too far down this parallel track, as happened a few of the leading group (they ended up descending and having to climb again, shudder!). Looking at my GPS route afterwards, we covered only about 150m extra. Hit the top of Two Rock and back down, along the marked route this time :-) Quick glance behind me. That was the training session - now just get back to the start with no injury. The descent was rocky in places, and I had to keep re-focussing instead of letting my thoughts wander. Two guys blasted past me about 700m from the finish, woah, no chance of staying with you two! Looking at the results this morning I realised that they were two of the leading bunch that had gone wrong, they had some descending speed. In to the finish and hurrah, safely back and to top it off, a nice boost by being first woman back. As it was the inter-club championships, and there were no other CNOC women running, I ran with Ros and Mirjam on the Trinity team and we pulled off a second place.

It was a spectacular day, sunny and bright, and IMRA had lovely 30th ballons along the route and food in the pub afterwards. Congrats to them on 30 years of existence, and hopefully many of the runners that were out yesterday will be there for the 60th anniversary race :-)

If anyone has any race reports/reports/comments/thoughts on anything CNOC related or our new website- email them on to me

O Boyle takes another win!

Niamh O'Boyle once again showed she's a class act as she put runners to the sword in the 30th annaversity of the first Irish mountain race. The race was a recreation of the original route held in Ticknock (3rock) in 1980. Straight up to the summit and straight back down. The runners set off from the lower carpark and went along the Dublin Mountain Way track before heading straight up the bone shaker, a rocky track favoured by down hill mountain bikers. Its steep and rocky, a technical runners dream.

Niamh was first female in a time of 31:19, finishing a credible 13th overall! Apparently there was a whole host of runners who took an extra few km, including Niall McAlinden (CNOC!) finishing in 21st.

In a quick interview with Niamh a short time after she crossed the line, I asked her how was her race, she was pretty blunt saying "aah, yea, it was grand" and that was the extent of the conversation.

Remember, on Tuesday night - the 2nd CNOC Summer Series race takes place on the Curragh.

First start is 18:30 at Lumville House, just off the M7. What better way to spend a glorious sunny* evening, than racing through the intricate furzes bushes on the flat* Curragh plains

(*sun and flat can not be guaranteed)

Our Next Event.

Our next event in the CNOC Summer Series will be on the Curragh on Tuesday next(25th May) with the start at Lumville house. Starts 18.00 to 19.30.

Exit the M7 at exit 12 and head for Kilcullen. Follow the signs for Lumville.

Planner Colm Hill.

Long 8.7 km. Difficult.

Medium 5.2 km Difficult.

Short 2.4 km Easy.

Adventure run 3.7km Easy.
Invite your friends all welcome.

Donadea Event

CNOC held a very successful event last night in Donadea. There were four courses,Long, Medium, Short and an adventure course. Eileen Loughman was the course planner,Controller. The courses were well planned and avoided the rougher terrain.
We ran out of Maps for some course such was the demand.Unfortunatly at the end of the event our software crashed but Ruth downloaded the data from all the SI boxes to save the event results (WELL DONE RUTH TO THE RESCUE AGAIN)
Results are available here
Shea will have report up soon when he is back on terra firma and I will link it.

Brother and Sister win Leinster Champs.

We may have a new website but that does noot stop me from bringing you news from around the world, the following article appears on the IOA web page. Im sure they wont mind me copying it to promote the sport and CNOC two birds with one stone.
In a remarkable double, CNOC brother and sister Shay and Niamh O'Boyle took both the men's and ladies titles at last weekend's Leinster Championships at Carlingford. On probably the most challenging/daunting/intimidating orienteering area in Leinster, Niamh had a comfortable 12 minutes to spare over second place Rosalind Hussey (Fermanagh/DUO) with CNOC clubmate Ruth Lynam third.
Due to a glitch in the results system the full results are not to hand at present, but watch this space for an update.(Im still waiting for a report from some of our runners at the event)

A number of runners had travelled the day before to Slievenagore in the Mournes to run the NI Series race there, followed by Igor Stefko's micro-O in Kilbroney, across the Lough from Carlingford. No doubt this was a good preparation for the rigours of Slieve Foye, where there are few linear features, lots of contours, crags and marshes, but very runnable underfoot - picture West Cork at an angle of 45 degrees. Trina Cleary, who always relishes the opportunity of planning here, kept most of the courses in the north-eastern part of the area, with long legs across the hillside interspersed with shorter legs up and down, posing a range of navigational problems which caused many a rueful shake of the head at the finish line. "If only, if only!".
Conditions were perfect for running on the day, though a bit on the chilly side for the officials standing around, in marked contrast to the first event on the area, the May 1993 Irish Championships, when the upper parts of the mountain were covered in thigh-deep snow.
The long walk from the Foy Centre in carlingford to the start/finish area was a good warm-up/down and the centre provided changing, parking, toilets and food. It is probably true to say that the citizens of Carlingford weren't even aware of the dramas unfolding on the steep slopes overlooking the medieval village, but the orienteers certainly went home knowing that they had had a good day out.
Results are available here, routegadget here, photographs here. (There is a problem with the results and routegadget at the moment - JMcC 15th May 2010)
Incidentally, I have been trying to remember if a brother and sister ever won the Leinster Championships before: possibly Justin and Carey May back in the early '80's? Maybe someone will help me out here and let me know!



Ambassador for Sport
Did you know that Dublin is the European Capitol of Sport for 2010? Sports organisations were invited to nominate people as ambassadors of sport for the year and our own Ruth Lynam was nominated as an Ambassador for Sport for Orienteering.. Since being made City of Sport, Dublin City Council have reportedly tried to close down three swimming pools in the city because of lack of funds, though they have received a stay of execution until after the summer.
Ruth is pictured above with the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Emer Costello, and boxer Bernard Dunne. The honour does not, however, entitle Ruth to park on double yellow lines, graze her cattle on St. Stephen's Green or enjoy the freedom of Guinesses brewery.
Dont forget our summer series starts this Tuesday first event will take place in Donadea. Bring your friends and dont forget your camera.

Leinster IMRA Champs.

Today IMRA ran one of it Leinster Championship events in Wicklow consisting of a loop of the Glenmalure valley, taking in Clohernagh, Lugnachoille, Camenabologue, Conavalla, Lugduff, and Mullacor.

CNOC had three runners in the event, Colm Hill, Ruth Lynam and Don Short. From the start the route followed the zig zag track to Arts Lough. This track eventually became a rough firebreak. Unfortunately none of the available maps showed the end of the zig zag path accurately, therefore a very short section was marked on the ground with tape to bring runners through the correct gap in the trees to gain access to the open mountain and track to Arts Lough. Here there was an orienteering control kite fixed to the fence adjacent to the South East end of the lough. Runners had to visit and punch this control to mark their race number.

Departing the lough in a South Eastern direction they had to climb the natural ramp in the land leading up to Clohernagh. On reaching this point the Clohernagh summit was obtained due west, it was then a stamina test up along the broad ridge to the summit of Lugnaquillia.

From Lugnaquillia the runners headed north to Camenabologue.

From Camenabologue the next checkpoint was at Conavalla. A direct route offered easier navigation but a more circular route closer to Table Mountain provided easier running ground.

The next checkpoint was Lugduff summit. From Conavalla careful navigation was again required to gain the correct spur leading to the Lugduff ridge.

From Lugduff they ran southeast along the ridge towards Mullacor, the final summit of the race.

It was then a steep descent from Mullacor to the track junction in Ballinafunshoge Woods. From here there was many options to take before another orienteering control kite had to be visited and punched. Following this control, it was a break neck sprint to the finish down a series of rough switch backs.

Ruth and Don opted for an early start, unsure of how long it would take them. A group of five set off an hour in front to lay down footprints for the chasing pack. The main race started at 12:00 with the sun high in the sky. It was an ideal day to spend raceing in the mountains. From the start Colm was up towards the front as the runners made their way towards Arts Lough, the pace was an easy one with the runners chatting about the latest outdoor gossip. This climb was only the warm up. From Arts Lough the race took off with the front runners increasing the pace to split the pack, Colm was first to summit on Lug with the chasers, Peter O’Farrel and his flat mate Niall McAlinden in hot pursuit. A steep descent and clever route choice kept him in the lead for most of the run but it was Mullacor where the race was decided. Peter went straight for the safe Wicklow way route off the summit while Colm chose the obvious route on the map, straight through the fire break! It was the choice of the fire break which cost him the race as the firebreak disappeared and he had to follow the stream surrounded by green (orienteering descriptions). He emerged from the wood in second place, which he held to the finish an excellent result after 25km and 1370 metres of stamina sapping climb.

New Website.

Welcome to our new site again, It appears to offer more scope than our previous site which collapsed when we used up all our allotted space. On the right hand panel you can find out info on whats on and pics of club members. You can also follow us by clicking on follow us. On the top of the page we are linked to both Colm and Sheas blogs if you have a blog and want members to know what your at let us know and we will add it. We are only interested in Orienteering, Hill running keep your social life out of it. Theres a link to Twitter which we can update from events if you are not traveling and wonder how members got on and last but not least we have a facebook page, I can't see much interest in that but its there and knowing my luck it will probably take over as Bill Cosby said “I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.”
Let me know what you think or if you have suggestions for improvement contact us.

Leinster Champs

The Leinster orienteering championships were held in Carlingford Co Louth on Sunday last. In what was ideal weather conditions and a tough course CNOC runners did well. Our best win of the day was Deirdre Ryan who won the W16 event this was just reward for all the effort she has put in during the year. Well done Dee. Seamus O Boyle won the M21Elite from a very competitive field. While Niamh O Boyle won the W21Elite in style. Caoimhe O'Boyle took the W14 title, Bridget Lawlor took the W40 title. Bernie O Boyle was second in the W50 event.

Apparently I can put in new pages, so I'll see where the this site goes . . . Onwards and upwards. The switch is here!!