Gene Beveridge is one of the top up and coming orienteers in New Zealand. He is also my clubmate, running for NorthWest Orienteering Club, and he lives pretty much just down the road. Gene’s Dad is responsible for a lot of the club mapping as well as for running a whole series of sprint races for Intermediate and Secondary Schools around Auckland. As a result Gene has access to a whole lot of sprint standard maps spread over North and West Auckland. These maps are individually very small and not suitable for a full length sprint race. However, combined, they could make a succession of shorter courses interrupted by drives between maps. This lead to Gene formulating a simple concept, try and fit as many sprint races on different maps into one day as possible. Thus, Sprint Auckland Day was born.
After a couple of false starts in the preceding weekends, where the event was postponed thanks to various circumstances, Saturday dawned with sprint-o in the air. Thankfully I had a free weekend to come down to Whangarei and I was a late addition to the crew racing. Gene had set all of the courses a couple of months ago when the idea was in its infancy, and couldn’t remember the details of the various maps making things fair. In order to keep it simple we were going to race without controls, relying on honesty throughout the day. We kept timing simple too. Gene’s girlfriend, acted as the timing official recording times throughout the day and keeping a running total while we all used heart rate monitors, garmins or watches to time ourselves individually. This all kept it simple and cheap. Even so, no one was looking to be holding any punches for the competition as everyone showed up in racing flats and plenty of nervous energy.
16 maps had been chosen. The first was the shortest and smallest of them all and was deemed to be the prologue for the day. “Gilbransen Road” is a map of Gene’s house and property. 1:1000 scale means that things come up very fast. The course was only 400m with 8 controls so very short.
Huapai Primary, Whenuapai Primary, Massey primary. 3 super tight races, seconds spliting runners. After four races and 3 different winners Toby sat in the lead. His super form at JWOC trials was no fluke and he had speed to burn. Matt was 2nd, having smashed the Huapai Primary course. I was 3rd with Michael and Duncan right on my tail. Jula lead the girls just over a minute back. Each race was 4 – 5 minutes long and had about 12 controls. This meant heaps of direction change and tight navigation around buildings.
Massey High allowed Matt to move up even more. This map was one of the more tricky ones with heaps of narrow gaps and repetitive buildings. From Massey we rolled to Swanson School and a quick morning tea break. Legs were still feeling good and enthusiasm was very high. Some Vitasport for the troops and some Aunt Betties creamed rice and I was ready to roll.
Liston posed a challenge for us, huge locked gates. An executive decision cancelled this leg. The legs were rewarded with a cruisy jog around the fields. My legs loved the recovery run as I pulled fastest time at the next leg over at Henderson Intermediate.I really liked this compact little map with heaps of little gaps between buildings. It was also cool to see the school orienteering noticeboard up in one of their windows. Gene said that Henderson are one of the keenest of the schools at the schools orienteering.
Next up was Rangeview. This is a small little intermediate in Te Atatu and was the last West Auckland stop for us on our loop. This was probably my favourite map. Though the map lacks contours it had an extra element added by height change and flights of steps in parts of the course. We finished this leg with the finish order still stable, Toby, Matt, Me, Michael, Gene, Nick with Jula and Angela close in the girls.
I didn’t catch the racing at Belmont, I was too busy cleaning up. By this point there were alot of tired bodies and alot more dawdling to cars after the runs. After Belmont we were across to Western Springs and the final race. Heading into the final race Toby still held his lead from Michael, Duncan and Gene all in a tight group. Toby took off first and exited the start left. The next starter, Michael took off right. I look at the map and instantly realised Toby was making a big mistake. Duncan and Gene went right too. Would Toby be able to hold onto his lead? Check back soon for final results and some maps.
Tom Reynolds 
OMG OMG OMG I cant wait!