Event Spotlight: Race the Abbeys 2023

From 10–11 June 2023, Roxburgh Reivers Orienteering Club held Race the Abbeys in the Scottish Borders, within the historic towns of Kelso and Jedburgh. Both days included an elite sprint competition in addition to the usual urban classes. Here, Ian Maxwell (Event Co-ordinator), Rob Cranston (Organiser), and Lindsey Knox (Treasurer and Computing) share their experience of putting together a fantastic weekend of orienteering.

We initially set out to put on a single urban event in Kelso with the aim of getting it into the UK Urban League. We already had part of the town mapped and we enlisted a professional mapper to do the rest.  The event then grew into “why not put on a smaller race in Jedburgh the day before” and give the weekend a name. This snowballed yet again when Ian Maxwell proposed the idea of having a World Ranking Event Sprint within our Urban events with planning input from those who will be planning the World Champs in Edinburgh in 2024. The thinking was that this might prove attractive to competitors from the rest of the UK and further afield with an eye to 2024.

Being a very small club (49 members, not all active ones)  almost all of the experienced people have to play major roles and on the day we called upon friends, family members and from other clubs and beyond to help. The event grew to one in all of the main British Leagues with a double WRE thrown in on top.  Ian Maxwell took on the role of co-ordinator (the punishment for suggesting the WRE !) as well as planning on his home turf of Jedburgh, Andrew Armstrong likewise in Kelso, Rob Cranston held up his hand to be Organiser, Lindsey Knox took on the computing/entries side of things plus doing various Kelso map corrections such as updating the map to ISSprOM2019-2 and providing advice/prompts in various measures. Robin Strain ELO was enlisted to hold Lindsey’s hand in case of computer problems on the weekend (which there were).  Two Edinburgh students (Joe Hudd and Joe Sunley) took on the late requirement to update and extend the club’s existing Jedburgh map and did a good job on this.  Paul Caban INT agreed to control Kelso, Ian Pyrah ESOC likewise Jedburgh. We made up a simple logo which we used on all publicity etc.

RR have a couple of members who are enthusiastic social media people, Bridget Khursheed and Karen Maxwell, and although it’s a bit of a dark art for most of us whatever they did appeared to work as Race the Abbeys popped up in various websites and Facebook pages which no doubt resulted in a good entry of about 275 people per day.

Ian Maxwell and Lindsey Knox both attend a fair number of overseas urban races, which do seem to put more effort into the presentation than many UK events, and were keen to put on a good show to make the event a memorable one.  Others chipped in with ideas and we ended up with trophies, personalised bibs, courses going near the Abbeys as far as possible, ample adjacent parking, quiet nearby parking for people who prefer to avoid the normal noisy one, additional optional urban runs for elite runners, handy toilets, contactless timing Finish, live results, good prizegiving (thanks Paul McGreal), maps to current specification, a Finish commentary on Day 2 at Jedburgh where runners were seeded, a leaders “throne” at Jedburgh (i.e. a handy bench).  Ross planned a very scenic Start by the River Tweed for the elites at Kelso, Graeme likewise an interesting start through Jedburgh Castle.  And of course the club arranged the superb weather for both days – it’s (nearly) always sunny in Kelso and Jedburgh!

Lorna and Colin Eades INT were in charge of the WRE Start both days and Robin Sloan RR set up the urban races both days which gave continuity and also avoided having to repeat instructions. John Tullie helped put out controls early on both days. All helpers who wanted a competitive run were able to do so.

Results in the Elite Kelso race: Top 8 men all within a minute with top seed Yannick Michiels from Belgium winning in 14:52, Jonny Crickmore 14.56, Peter Molloy 15.02.  Women: Alice Leake 15.12, Grace Molloy 15.50, Charlotte Ward 16.23.  In the non-elite urban races there were a lot of different errors on all courses so it was trickier than it appeared.

The Elite Jedburgh race:  Again tight in the men’s race with 40 seconds separating the top 7. Yannick Michiels 12.26, Chris Smithard 12.28, Nathan Lawson 12.33 with the women’s race also close (top 7 within 1 minute) Grace Molloy 13.45, Charlotte Ward 13.53, Chloe Potter 14.11.  It was good to see some older non-elites tackling the Jedburgh sprint.  The urban races had lots of difficult route choices, no chance for competitors to relax, plenty of group discussions at the finish. 

We’ve had many nice comments and emails since the event:

Quote from an experienced urban competitor who attended. “ Race the Abbeys had the best atmosphere of any event I have been to in the UK, it was almost like one of the big European events”.

"Many thanks for the “Race the Abbeys” pair. An excellent weekend, and a chance to explore two historic towns that I am not familiar with. As far as the orienteering goes, Kelso was good, and Jedburgh was fantastic!"

"It was a huge success - fabulous venues, great courses and you couldn't fault the weather (maybe tad too hot!)."

"I wanted to say thank you for the whole team for a great weekend showcasing Orienteering at its best. The courses were great, locations beautiful, organisation brilliant. We know that it takes a lot of effort from everyone so just wanted to pass on our appreciation."

What would we do differently if we do it again?

Have a co-ordinator who knows what’s going on with both events – Ian Maxwell had to avoid knowing anything about the Kelso courses, maps or Start/Finish due to his daughter running in the WRE which was also a GB selection race.

Some things could be standardised across both events better, had the co-ordinator known what he knows now.

Have plain bibs for the top 10 elites on Day 2 which they use instead of their Day 1 bib.

Lindsey tried to accommodate everyone but be more strict about late entries and changes of entries as they caused hours of work in the few days leading up to the event.

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You can learn more about Roxburgh Reivers Orienteering Club by visiting their website or follow them on social media via Facebook and Twitter.