Lagganlia

Qualifying for the Lagganlia tour has been one of the main focuses of the last few years of orienteering for me. It helped me learn many new orienteering skills and revise my existing ones, as well as meeting new people from all around the country. It was a truly brilliant week. Here is what we did on each day of the tour.

The first day of training was at Heathfield, a forest with varied types of vegetation, but with relatively good runnability in most places. It rained for quite a lot of the morning but had stopped by the afternoon. We mainly worked on the skill of pacing, doing several exercises to determine how many strides we took per 100m. We also worked on compass bearings. After finishing the exercises, we did a star relay.

On day 2 we went to Darnaway - an area that was used for the first middle distance of the Scottish six days. Darnaway also had a great variety of terrain, with some patches of quite runnable pine forests, well as some white woodland with large amounts of ferns. We focused on contour details with exercises focusing on both low features and high ones. We finished the day with an odds and evens relay that was very fun.

Before leaving the accommodation on the third day, we drew a sketch map of the course that we would be running when we got there. This was a good demonstration of how little detail you need to successfully complete a course, even in this complicated terrain. This day was on North Granish, an area which is partially open and partially forested. After completing the sketch course we did more short exercises, including a corridor that made you navigate to the control using only detail on the line of the control. We also did a distractions race in the afternoon, which included double-sided maps, and deactivated controls.

Day 4 was slightly less chaotic than the previous three. We started with the sprints at Glenmore Lodge and Badaguish, with a qualifier, a semi-final and a final. They were very enjoyable and fast, with everyone being on slightly different gaffles that we had selected earlier. After this, we went for a swim in Loch Morlich, which was cold, despite it being the summer. After warming up we went into Aviemore for some free time. Later in the evening we did some night orienteering which was highly enjoyable.

Day 5 was at Creag Beag, a heather covered hillside with forests surrounding it. It rained throughout the morning, which made training quite difficult, but this did not stop us from completing several exercises on this terrain which was quite different to what we had been running on for the previous 4 days. After lunch we did a peg relay in the forest below the mountain which was great fun. In the evening we did some geeking for the tour champs the next day.

On the final day we headed to Auchernack for the tour champs. This area has many large depressions that are very useful to navigate off. The southern part of the map is completely forested with slightly smaller contour features. The northern half is partially open, with a power line that is helpful in relocation. The course went relatively smoothly with a few small mistakes on a couple of the earlier controls. After everyone had got back, we returned to the accommodation for a fun relay that involved finding parts of a picture in the forest. In the evening, we escaped the lodges for a fun game of hide and seek with the coaches, returning just before midnight. A brilliant end to the week.

Thank you to Wimborne and SWOA for giving me grants to be able to go on this fantastic tour.

Monty Bratcher-Howard

  

Visit Wendy Carlyle's gallery of Lagganlia photographs on Flickr