Following a successful Scottish Students Weekend, we hear from EUOC, this year's hosts of the competition. James, one of the competitors, shares a round-up of the weekend, while Euan, the event planner, offers insight into the event's organisation.
Hear from James at EUOC, for a round-up of the weekend:
As the uni semester hurtles by, the Scottish Students provided a breath of fresh air as students from across the country met for a weekend of orienteering fun! This year’s edition was in the tough and atmospheric forests of the Trossachs, with the long distance above the shores of Loch Katrine and a relay in the fast oak woods of the Falls of Leny. Our team from Edinburgh was joined by friends from Aberdeen, Stirling, Napier, Heriot Watt and Strathclyde.
After an early wake up and some last minute packing the weekend kicked off with a long distance on Masterplan Adventure’s map of Loch Katrine - a new area for me. Despite some last minute felling the organisers put on cracking courses that put experienced runners and newcomers alike to the test, with a good mixture of long legs across tough slopes and speedy loops through gorgeous woodland. Everyone finished tired but glad to have been out on such an epic area. Strong performances all around gave Edinburgh a slight advantage after the individual but scores were tight going into Sunday.
But first some much needed food and showers at the nearby Aberfoyle Village hall, followed by a group trip to the pub where much pool was played and friends old and new had a great chance to catch up in the warm and dry. One of the best parts of Scottish students is the atmosphere - it’s great to get a weekend away from the city and relax with everyone.
Sunday brought some rather heavy showers although spirits were high as we headed to the lightning fast forests by Callander. I was lucky to run in the mass start which provided great head to head racing - always fun in a quick area with well gaffled courses. The unique format of green, light green and orange legs meant that every runner counted and there was some impressive performances from newcomers to the sport, especially given the wet conditions. The strong teams fielded by the top three universities gave Edinburgh a slender win over Stirling who just edged out Aberdeen for second place. It was great to see the scores so close after a long weekend.
Huge thanks to the organisers for putting on another brilliant Scottish Students in less than ideal conditions - I’m already looking forward to trying to defend our title next year!
Hear from Euan, the event planner, on behalf of the organising team (Alex, the organiser and Frank, the controller):
On a whole the weekend was successful. Despite numerous challenges, some our own doing but most not, we managed to organise two fair, challenging and fun events on high quality terrain with good mapping and planning.
Despite being experienced orienteers, we, other than Frank, were a fairly inexperienced organising team which inevitably led to some things being done slightly last minute. However this was all manageable. Thankfully, we had decided to hang controls on Friday afternoon as this gave us a chance to make adjustments to the courses after discovering copious felling in the area. We had to delay starts by half an hour on Saturday due to additional things that needed checking, adding to the time that it took Frank (the controller) to check controls. Other than this, the day went relatively smoothly and seemed to be enjoyed by most despite some issues with map printing.
Originally we had planned to hang controls for the relay on Saturday afternoon but this proved infeasible (without cracking out the headtorches) so we had to postpone this to the next morning. The next day the relay went well, everyone got round in very respectable times and seemed to enjoy it despite torrid weather.
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