The dibber diaries

The ground was becoming boggy, and this water-filled ditch was surely that blue dotted line on the map. That meant I had gone too far. That meant I had missed a control that was so close to the fence the two map symbols were touching. How could I have missed it? Answer: By running along the wrong fence. I turn and look south. I can make out two fence posts and then nothing. I look at the map. An intact fence and, just to the south, a broken one with the control. I had wondered about the slight turn in the fence going the opposite way to that on the map. This explained it. Up to that point, the “Birthday Bash” celebration course hosted by BASOC in Dulnain Wood near Grantown-on-Spey had been going better than usual. Not perfect, of course. I remain inexplicably incapable of sticking to a bearing. I always go left, to the point that now I follow the bearing and then look to the right. Is it because of that broken bone in my left leg I never got properly fixed? Or am I turning my wrist? Wh...

This was something new. What looked like a field of knolls spread out before me, and I was actually jogging over it. What’s more - and it might yet prove to be a one-off - I think I was enjoying it. I am getting used to this idea of leaving the path - even if I remain wary of my weak and damaged ankles. And the number of controls on which I was happy with my navigation probably outnumbered those on which I would like a re-do. I recognise re-entrants now, and knew that the safest way to find a boulder behind a strip of green was from the other side of the green. The course on - and around Ord Hill on the Black Isle - still held plenty of frustration. Looking at the results, I am bamboozled that anyone could find the controls so quickly, as if the purple line on the map printed itself onto the actual ground for them but not for me. Boulders and crags remain my nemesis. They all look the same, and if there is one there are dozens. The mistake I made spending so long clambering around this...

A dibber in one hand, a compass and map in the other hand. So far so normal - but I was actually running. Yes, runnin g. It felt amazing. Was th is what everyone had been going on about, the magical buzz I had seen on faces when they emerged tick-covered and scratched from their courses?  The Dufftown Scottish urban orienteering league event was my first attempt at urban, and urban meant streets. A few woods too in this one, where I dutifully got lost, but the street parts were so much fun. There is nothing to beat seeing a little orange and white flag hidden behind a bin in the nook of an old school building. What a feeling! Run in one way just where the hedge finishes exactly as promised on the map, and back out through the open gate to the car park. Superb. The big drama of the day announced itself to us as we stood on the start line. Control 219, we were told, might be where control 224 should be - or it might be fixed by the time we got there.  It is exactly situations li...

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” says my daughter. “But did you actually look at the map?” It’s a Wednesday evening and I have just finished a mistake-riddled light green course on a hill above Inverness. Reflecting afterwards, I dredged up a piece of advice I heard recently: always have three points of reference . Your compass counts as one. So simple. The first control is usually a mess while I try to click my head into orienteering mode. This time, all points of reference were wrong - my compass, a trail that shouldn’t have been there, and the vegetation boundaries. I ignored the warnings, turning a 75 metre stretch of flat open woodland beside a fence into five minutes of confusion.  Things didn’t improve much from there.  Control 5: I followed the compass but ignored the contours, going steeply up and steeply down an unnecessary hill.  9 minutes Control 7: I decided the compass was ‘close enough’, and ignored the mismatch of vegetation colours. 8 minutes Control 12:...

Picture a relay. There is a track. Sprinters with impossible nails are charging forwards even as they reach behind for the baton. Relays are about power and speed. Okay, so I knew there wouldn’t be a track at an orienteering relay. This was the British Relay Champs at Bigland in the Lake District, and I was ready for each leg to take a bit longer - maybe 10 minutes or so. You would still have to find the pesky orange and white flags, but they would be on prominent display. Relays are power and speed, after all. I have been staring continuously up a hill for 40 minutes, waiting for both my teammate and my daughter to charge down it from their first legs. It seems this relay is more about waiting for your turn to get lost in the woods. My back is sore from craning my neck (must work on core strength) and the sun has surely burned my Highland winter skin (must wear sunscreen). I am so over the idea of opening the map that is taped closed in my hand and setting off on my own leg. But I’ve...

What does that person have wrapped around their lower legs? Neoprene? Kevlar? Looking around at the other competitors waiting to start the British Orienteering Champs at Grizedale in the Lake District, I see calf protection is a common choice. My own calves are clad in thin socks. Apparently I can expect them to get shredded today.  The whispered conversations around me are all offering the same advice. “Stay out of the dark green.” Staying out of the dark green is pretty much my orienteering strategy. Since starting orienteering in fact, I would go as far as to say yellow is my new favourite colour. A very long and silent five minutes in the starting boxes ends when I pick up my map. It is shades of green - minty fresh or forest hell. I try to stay out of the dark green, but it finds me anyway. By the third control I am snapping branches with every step and ducking under the thicker ones, moving through the forest with all the agility of a stone statue. Twice I am yanked backwards...