Name: Helen Wheelwright

Age Class: W60

What other orienteering clubs do you belong to or have you previously belonged to?
None. I used to belong to running clubs: Andover Athletics Club, Romsey Road Runners and Team Solent. Ten miles was my best distance.

When did you start orienteering and how?
We met Shirley Moss, a keen SOC member, on a cross-country skiing holiday in Norway in 1998 and she persuaded us to try orienteering.

How often do you go orienteering?
Once a week or fortnight or more often if I can get off work on a Wednesday.

What do you enjoy about orienteering?
I love being out in beautiful countryside, especially when the sun is shining. But when it is pouring with rain it is also makes you feel good to just get out and go for it.

What is your favourite SOC area and why?
The New Forest. It is always an adventure to be in the Forest.

What is your favourite orienteering discipline/distance and why?
I like to do a Green course especially when the planner has planned some lovely vistas along the route.

Car parking or controlling? What's your favourite orienteering volunteering?
I like to be on registration so I get to put a name to people's faces.

What is the high point of your orienteering career so far?
Just to finish any course in one piece is wonderful but on paper my 1st in W60S in the Devil's Punchbowl last year was a high point.

What other countries have you orienteered in?
None, But I have run a parkrun in Stockholm, sailed a Laser in Greece and canoed off Vancouver Island!

What training do you do?
I do a parkrun on Saturday when not orienteering and I do circuits on a Wednesday night.

What one piece of advice would you give other orienteers?
Never give up!

What keeps you busy when you're not orienteering?
I teach German A level at Barton Peveril and that keeps me very busy but I have lovely students so that is ok.

What book are you currently reading?
The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien.

Anything else you'd like to share with your clubmates?
I am retiring from Barton in the summer so I hope to be able to devote more time to the club after that. I have recently qualified as Level 2 Club coach and hope to do more coaching.

For a bit of competitive fun, I've put together a league for SOC members based on the British Orienteering ranking points which cover Level C events and above. Like the official rankings, it is based on your six best scores but, rather than considering the last 12 months, it will only take into account those from this year. You can find the latest results here, under the Members menu of the website. They should update automatically on a daily basis but I'll also post news items with periodic updates.

Early in the year, the advantage is obviously with those who've attended the most events. At the time of writing, four people have attended three events with Jane Morgan topping the table. With the current highest score for a single event (Star Posts), expect Rob Finch to climb the table as more results come in.

If you hover over a result, it will show you more details, or click to be taken to the full results for the course. Results from the last week are shown in bold (only Anya, Kevin and Colin last weekend). The age-based rankings are based on categories <20, 21-34 and then in ten year age groups from 35 up to 65 and above. The M55+ and M65+ categories look to be particularly competitive.

Please send any feedback to webmaster [at] socweb.org (webmaster[at]socweb[dot]org).

Comments firstly from Gavin Clegg and secondly from Julie Astin.

Also see https://sarumo.org.uk/events/sarum-4-course-saturday-wessex-night-league/ for Denny Wood event

Three races to go, two of which are forest, including the British Night Championships and the final race of park and urban. Things are getting spicy [close]

In the Open League Alan has moved above Nick into second but only has four wins. In reality he has to win the last three races to take the title. Rob, with six wins needs to win just one more race for a full house and Nick with 5 wins needs just two more wins for the set. No movement further down until Peter Suba, up 1 to 8th. John Oakes is closing but is too consistent to make much more progress. Jason is up three places to 16th and is targeting a top 10 finish. No change between Jo and Becca with Jo just 40 points in front.

In the Handicap League Chris, with the best handicap score of the night at Canford, is up 79 points and has closed within 170 of Gavin. John Cook, as predicted, is up 98 points to 4th, only 13 points off third place. Rob Hick has broken into the top 10 with his best score of the season at Canford. Carolyn Dent, also with her best score of the season, is up 3 places and 178 points to 14th with the potential to spoil the triumvirate of Tereza, Jo and Becca if she runs as well in the last three races. 

From Julie Astin: " Amazingly, this was my first time at a Canford Heath WNL event - I seem to have been away every time before. As I result, I wasn't as familiar with the map as I should have been (and didn't check the sample map before I went out). I made a bad error in going for a control (70) in the industrial estate, thinking I could get out the other side and onto more controls. Wrong! So this meant a long run in and out just for 10 points. I then compounded this mistake by taking the wrong path when I got back up to the main road. My brain clearly wasn't in gear. Several more wasted minutes (I reckon a good 6 or 7). Even when I got to the underpass to get the first of the three 50 pointers I wasn't reading the map right - looking for the control (31) on the wrong side of the road. Apologies to the person who heard some very unladylike language emitting from my mouth at that point!!

Anyway, things got better as I met up with Olivia O'Malley who is a relative newcomer to the sport, and hadn't run since September due to a broken wrist. She was bit unsure of where she should go next so asked if she could come along with me. For the rest of the hour we joined forces and picked up the other 50-pointers and a few more 10's. I really enjoyed it and we had a nice chat along the way.

Although I was a bit dubious about Dale only planning 3 high-pointers and all the rest (35!) as 10 pointers, the results show that even the less fast runners could acquire a decent score. It was a great event with 48 competitors (including a few pairs, over 50 people). Now onto two forest events before the finale on February 24th at Queens Park. Let's hope I do better than my last forest venture....