An Unexpected Victory

Richard Parkin placed 1st in M55 at the British Night Championships in the Lake District, just 3 seconds ahead of Alistair Landels. Marcus Scotney was 2nd in M50. Both reflect on their experience …

Richard: I’ve written before about night orienteering being my favourite form of the sport. Only at night does the discovery of those orange and white flags feel like an achievement; in the light of day I expect to find them, in the darkness, where everything seems so much less substantial, I merely hope. Especially pleasing then to win the title of British champion earlier this month.

It was an unexpected victory. I’d been in contention the year before at Moors Valley Country Park near Wimborne, and climbed the podium several time before that, though never close to winning gold, but the field attracted to his year’s championships in the Lake District was strong and I wasn’t as fit as I might have been, but night orienteering is a great leveller, as someone once said, and it seems that my rivals all fell down.

How did that happen? To put it simply, I had a decent run and no one else did. My race was full of hesitations, deviations, micro-regrets, but it always under control and I didn’t miss. 

The plan was to treat it like a daylight event. Often at night it pays to take a more secure route along a path or line feature, but here the forest was runnable and the course was designed to keep you in terrain. So I went as straight as I would have done in the daytime, relying on compass and aiming a little above most controls—the only time I chose caution was an error (of 10-15secs).

I had some good technical preparation and I think this made a huge difference. There aren’t many opportunities to practice proper night orienteering in the East Midlands so set up a few loops on Longshaw’s main estate about the only place nearby that you can run fast and straight on a bearing. Marcus Scotney, John Duckworth, Nicky Hart, and I braved the cold one might in January. This was so much fun I went out again a few weeks later to complete the courses. The sense of enjoyment carried over to the main event.

Have fun out there, kids. You never know what might happen.