Airienteers go racing in Dawson Wood

Report by Peter Jones (Airienteers)

Since the lockdown eased Airienteers have been running a series of Wednesday evening events – our Spring Sprint League. Run in local woods, parks and sometimes urban areas, they are designed to be simple to put on (A planner and someone to run SI on the night), accessible and cheap to enter (£4). Typically they include a ‘Sprint’ course – about 3k, with a good number of controls – akin to a Middle distance, plus an orange and where the terrain allows, a yellow course. We normally get between 30 and 60 people on an evening. We’ve restricted runners to 2/minute and have a 45 minute start window. Everyone pre-enters but we take payment on the night using a contactless card payment system. We use a restricted form of SI, at the Start, Finish and 3 random controls out on the course. The events are pretty simple but everyone seems to enjoy just getting out again. Dawson Wood was the last in our spring series, but our ‘summer’ series starts shortly, same format.

Further details can be found on the Airienteers (aire.org.uk) website.

Photos taken at Dawson Wood event by Wendy Carlyle (Airienteers).

Did you know? 
There are 120 orienteering clubs throughout Great Britain, joined together by Associations that make up British Orienteering. 

Keen to get involved? 
If you want to talk about how you can experience orienteering or how you can get involved, click here to find your local club who will be happy to help you get started.  

There are also University Orienteering Clubs across the UK.  Find out more about universities here or access the list of University Orienteering Clubs here.  Alternatively, contact British Orienteering's National Office by emailing:  info@britishorienteering.org.uk