JK 2006

Starr and Mike are running in the JK - Britain's largest orienteering competition. Several thousand participants actually! Great terrain, great courses and lots of people. We ran into some friends from the US and Starr ran into Julian Birkinshaw who we haven't seen for years. So many people to chat to and like orienteers Worldwide - very sociable. "Where is Golden Horseshoe OC based?", several people asked... and from that a discussion would begin. (Interestingly people knew about HKF but had never heard of GHO).

Today was the JK middle distance on an open moor hillside (see photo below). The race was excellent with two spectator controls on the elite course and also a view of other parts of the race course from the finish area. An excellent announcer kept everyone up to date on all the action. Britain has amazing depth.

After the disaster in Sweden, Mike's goal was to be within 10% of the winner. He was certainly on track for that until he lost 2.5 minutes on a control hung very low in some tall grass. He ended up 22nd and just under 6 minutes down (about 20%). Starr also had a great run in W40. 40? Yes, it is 2 months and 2 days to the big day for Starr.

Finally did we say that the atmosphere of the race was awesome? Well it was! Pure dead brilliant (as some Brits would say). No gimmicks, no unnecessary hype, no trash talking and other dumb crap - just awesome terrain, awesome map, awesome course and great athletes = great competition. No wonder the UK has so much depth in all categories. Like Vicky Whaley mentioned to Starr "You go to a race like this and you gotta do more". It was a welcome change from North America.