British Nights weekend

[Arnold]

Hello

I know you guys probably don't care much for night-O, but the British Nights are coming up in less than 3 months in Edinburgh.

Seems like it should be a cracking weekend - Street O on Sat afternoon, Night Champs, and Regional on Sunday morning.

However information is very thin on the ground - like exact start times, terrain types, courses etc - does anyone have a bit more info??? Graeme?

In particular start times would be good to know so that flights / trains can be booked from further afield. The Nights website says "start times will be appropriate to the time of year" which is nice but not very helpful - surely we can predict sunset ahead of time and add one hour which seems to be the general rule?

Thanks!

[andy]

It is going to be an excellent weekend!

There is some preliminary information on our website about the night champs:
ESOC Website
If you require more information the organiser has added his contact details to the above page. As for start times, the organiser(s) obviously haven't had a need to work it out yet, which may not be helpful for you but as you have a need, I have worked it out for you! A simple google search gave me this ... so about 6pm sunset, so just after that for first start. As it's a championship, enter yer age class

As for the 'street O' it's actually the Scottish Sprint champs and will be 'early afternoon'. This event is about 5mins drive (although I guess if you're flying this doesn't help if you haven't hired a car, but I'd recommend not doing airport-event-event-hotel-event-airport for this weekend without a car) from the location for the night champs, so very easy to do both. There will no doubt be a range of courses but given the area and nature of the event there won't be much difference between them save control sites and route choices.

The event on the Sunday is an ELO SoSOL on Gullane Dunes. SoSOLs are usually ~10.30 to ~12.30 start times (give or take half an hour) and will have white-brown courses.

Andrew

[graeme]

? Graeme?
Thanks!

I guess Andy answer most of the questions. Anyway, I'm not the organiser so I'll just speculate.

There's a 5-mile Road Race from King's Buildings Campus on Saturday, just in case two events in a day is a bit half-hearted. We'll start the sprint race after that, so you're looking at 1-2pm. Plenty of time to travel up on the morning. KB and Dreghorn are both accessible by public transport, two buses from the airport will get you to the KB event via city centre inside an hour (they're very frequent), one bus from the station in 15mins. a taxi will be ~£25 and half an hour.

Gullane (Sunday) is on public transport if you're patient (see below). It'll take about an hour to get from there back to the airport by car.

Terrain: KB is a university campus, lots of paths and buildings to run around. Sprint Champs will be a one-off race with a 12-15 minute winning time. If people ask nicely I'll lay on a warm up on a fun but irrelevant area across the road.

Pentlands is a big steep grassy/heathery hillside. Mainly open and good running, with a few pockets of generally unpleasant woods (one really nice bit). Easy if you know where you are, hard to relocate. Its fairly well lit by the city lights.

Gullane is a fairly extensive dune area - ideal practice for the JK. There used to be some fabulous wooded dunes, but I don't know if the trees are still there.

Overall, definitely one of the best two events in Edinburgh early next year.

[Godders]

Pentlands is a big steep grassy/heathery hillside.

complete with 12 Highland Cows roaming about.

[Arnold]

Thanks both. Fair enough I could have figured out the sunset time but not necessarily the start times and the rest. Also experience from Mytchett this year shows that you need to allow an hour after official sunset for it to get dark - so I'd expect starts from 7pm.

Does sound like a great weekend - would be great to get some more extensive info / exciting flyer up somewhere so more people know about it!!

[DaveK]

Sounds ideal training for the Harvester - with two accompanying events - over the weekend of 8th/9th May, slightly further south in East Sussex. Details at -http://www.saxons-oc.org

[EddieH]

Dave, I hope that means that you'll be coming to try to repeat your British Night Championship title in sub 5 minute kms many years ago.

[madmike]

don't think he will unless they've ironed the contours flat. Those are mountain highland cattle roaming

[Arnold]

One more thing on Graeme's comment about the Pentlands. Seems to slightly defeat the point of a night champs to choose an open area that is well lit by a city, no? Maybe to attract more people who would otherwise be scared by a dark forest?

[andypat]

I odnt know - last time I was there I got lost in amongst the ditches for a good 5-10 minutes in the daylight!

[SIman]

Gullane (Sunday) is not on public transport. It'll take about an hour to get from there back to the airport by car.

Gullane is a fairly extensive dune area - ideal practice for the JK. There used to be some fabulous wooded dunes, but I don't know if the trees are still there.

Overall, definitely one of the best two events in Edinburgh early next year.

Graeme is wrong about public transport. Gullane is served by service 124 of FirstBus.

Some of the wooded area has been cleared in preparation for the relentless spread of golf courses but the whole area is definitely worth a visit (or several). On-line entry will be offered shortly.

This is going to be a great three event weekend.

[Angry Haggis]

...and cheap train tickets for this weekend have just gone on sale now. Currently £33 return from London via the East Coast website.

[Spookster]

The British Nights is tomorrow. Can someone in Edinburgh tell us if the Pentland Hills are currently snow covered?

[Bill]

The organisers sent out this yesterday by email via oentries to all competitors:

Start times have been posted on Oentries and are between 1900 and 2015.

Compass Point will attend the event, for supply of night and day orienteering kit.

Please note that the terrain is covered with snow at the moment, ranging from an inch or two in the lower parts to eight inches or so on the higher parts visited by longer courses. The weather is good and parking is on hard standing so the event is definitely on. However, it will be cold so waterproof cagoule and whistle compulsory.

[andypat]

Check your junk mail if you didnt get it - mine was in there!