Third Challenge - British Orienteering Championship

There is a countdown to the start. -4 minutes: Reset your Emit brikke and confirm your name to an official; I do this like a seasoned professional. -3 minutes: collect your control description sheet; the numbers and symbols might as well be in ancient Egyptian, concern grows. -2 minutes; Review a map of the area that doesn't show the control points; I squint and angle my head hoping this is a magic eye picture and an image of a map as I know it will jump out at me. -1 minute: move to the start line and enter the forest on the 4th beep; [I think] beep [I've made] beep [a big] beep [mistake] BEEP. I run to the bucket that contains the marked map of my course and then into the forest because that is what everybody else is doing.

If I had stopped for 5 minutes and got my head straight, if I had looked at the map properly and taken a bearing, if I had practiced using a compass before the event, then I would still have been standing at the finish tent confirming my retirement two hours later. I would hope, however, that I would have found more than 2 of the 29 control points on my course.

At the risk of stating the obvious the British Orienteering Championship is simply too hard an event for launching an orienteering career. As I ran around this dense, uniform wood the last words I heard the commentator say as I made my way to the start line came back to me "this is a technically very challenging course". I recalled the derogatory comments I had been making to Adam about how the other competitors appeared to come from that section of society that has bog brush hair, wear socks with sandals all year round and where couples sport matching orange wind breakers to Tesco, even in summer. The assembly area looked like a tented village in which these people, fed up with being mocked by our materialistic, celebrity conscious world had escaped to openly discuss train spotting, folk music and weaving your own clothes. I had stepped into their world like an invader believing I could conquer it without understanding it and now I was lost, pathetic, weak and in need of saving by those I had scorned.

"Not stopping, British Championship" was the staccato response of the competitor who looked like Gordon Brown's less stylish little brother when I asked for him to point me to the way out. I now realise that somebody who trains hard to complete events like this should not expect to stop and help some novice who patronisingly thought it would take no more than having the right equipment but at the time I could have punched him, if he wasn't moving over the slippery lichen faster than me. I tried to follow some children on the assumption that their course would not be very long and so they would be near the finish area soon. The suspicion this tactic would have aroused was irrelevant because they bounded on into the forest and vanished like startled deer. I had images of search parties being sent out and Mr Brown finding me, angry I caused him to miss both his personal best and the Antiques Roadshow.

Finally, after an hour and a half of running blind I managed a rational thought. I just needed to head south to meet the main track. I started to walk in the direction I was confident was south, remembered I had a compass, checked that and turned 180 degrees. Soon I was back at the tented village watching pensioners, children and elite athletes crossing the line in triumph. I saw the support being given by those who had come to cheer on friends or family and heard the banter between competitors from all over the UK (and some from even further afield).

Was this a failure? I confess I feel unfulfilled. I allowed myself to get distracted by other competitors rather than do my own thing. I did not do myself justice but failure? No. This was about competing rather than completing. Success was finding the second control point within 5 minutes of finding the first by using the map and compass properly. For that 5 minutes I was an orienteer. Success was discovering the level of skill and dedication required to succeed in a sport that is more challenging than most but lacks glamour and, correspondingly, credibility amongst the public as a whole. Success was having an unforgettable experience. So, thank you to the British Orienteering Championship. I don't plan on demeaning your prestige event again. I will also continue to judge the man on my commute home because of his stain spattered Captain Kirk tie but I will at least realise that he has talents I do not know about and maybe one of them is being able to find control point 3.