I saw Frodsham again today. I couldn't see the gullies, crags or thickets, but I knew from the motorway junctions, rivers and towns that THAT forested area was where I'd run the day before. Seen from 10,000ft (or should that be 3046m?) over the Cheshire plain, Frodsham Forest is FLAT!!! Brown competitors, who had more than 10% of that altitude as hill climb, will not agree.

Well, we finally did it! Second overall and a place in the Trophy final. Put it in your diary now, 19th October 2008 (previously advertised as 18th), Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield.

If you haven't already taken a look you can find the results at www.deeside-orienteering club.org.uk. Take time to analyse your splits and admire the graphs of your performance. Very colourful.

I have extracted the PFO results and listed them in score order. The 13 scorers at the top and, to spare your blushes, if you mis-punched you're not on the list at all! (see link below)

The CST scoring system is rather quirky, but designed to allow everyone from Orange to Brown to score points. Brown & Blue Men (Large courses): max 3 to count. Scores 100, 99, 98,
...
All other courses (Small courses): max 2 to count. Scores 100, 98, 96,
...
Top 13 scores (up to the maximum of each course) to count to final team total.

Team scores: ERYRI 1272, PFO 1263, SELOC 1226.

Here's a thought - instead of looking at what a fantastic score we got, turn the result upside-down. The maximum possible team score is 1292 (the sum of all the top scoring places). Now subtract the team scores from the maximum - this gives the total points dropped. Dropped scores: ERYRI 20, PFO 29, SELOC 66. Looking at it this way it is easy to see that if 3 PFO runners had displaced 3 ERYRI runners ahead of them we would have improved by 6 points and they would have declined by 6 points! So near to an outright win!

We couldn't have done that on Blue Men because we scored a maximum clean sweep congratulations to Alex, Liam and Danny. Commiserations to the Blue Men dads who tried to keep up and couldn't. But think on't - if mums and dads (car and mini bus drivers) hadn't been there then neither would the maximum points scorers! I calculate that we would have been 3rd behind both ERYRI and SELOC if the junior passengers hadn't made it to the event. We'd still have 13 scorers to count but from further down the results table.

Collectively everyone deserves praise for turning out on a nasty day, to help the club progress, with special congratulations to all scorers young and old.

Sutton Park is flat and fast, compared to Frodsham, comparatively speaking. We'll need to be sharp on our navigation. Get training!

How about a spot of night training at Tockholes on 19th January? First starts 6:15PM.

George Crawford-Smith
PFO Team Coordinator.

Click here to view just the PFO results in a table

Click here to see the overall results