This week’s O-News February 2nd-9th

First of all, a reminder that the 3ROC AGM is next Friday, 7th February, at Ballinteer St John’s GAA Club, Grange Road, at 8 pm.

Next week has a variety of activity: a primary schools event at Santry Demesne on Wednesday, a Dublin by Night event at Hollywood, Co. Wicklow  (I know, I know, it’s not “Dublin”!) on Saturday and a Leinster Spring Series event in the Vale of Clara on Sunday.

The night event is the second last of the series (our event on Saturday 15th is the last) and start times are 6 to 7 pm, but night-O isn’t really suitable for beginners (or under 16’s for insurance reasons). There are two courses, 2.2 km and 4.1 km: details here.

Sunday’s Leinster League event is being run by Dublin University Orienteers on one of Wicklow’s best and most varied areas: mixed coniferous and deciduous forest with rock and contour detail on the banks of the Avonmore river between  Laragh and Rathdrum. Some of the area has fraughan and heather-covered ground in the forest, like Scotland: good preparation for the 2015 World Championships. The usual colour-courses (from easy Yellow to very difficult Brown) will be on offer and it’s open to everyone, not just orienteering club members. Start times 11 am to 1 pm. Look at the IOA Forum for more details.

Next weekend is also a training weekend for the Senior Squad in Wicklow, taking in a day’s orienteering on Scarr/Kanturk Mountain, then the Hollywood night-O and finally the Vale of Clara event.

If you’d like a run on Saturday morning, try one of the Park Runs at Marlay Park, Griffeen Park, Malahide Castle, Ardgillan Park  or St Anne’s Park: all of them also have O-maps. See Parkrun.ie for details.

The weekend of February 1/2  also had a range of activitites: the Ajax DBN night event on a new map of Rockbrook Park School gave us a lovely little night Sprint event with 3ROC’s Eoin McCullough and Colm Moran 2nd and 3rd on the Long and Mary O’Connell again 1st on the Short course. If this isn’t too confusing, Ruairi Long planned the Short course and Ruairi Short won the Long Course; Ruairi Long also planned the Long course which Don Short didn’t finish …

Eoin and Colm went on to run the IMRA Three Rock mountain race on Sunday, finishing 4th and 10th, while others  opted for the Setanta street-event on a new map of Shankill where M16 Kevin Cunningham was a close second on the Medium course. See the courses and results here.

See you all at the AGM on Friday! For details of how to find it, see the club facebook page here.