Scottish Night Championships runners get to eat cake and urban runners storm around Musselburgh
This year’s Scottish Night Championships gave everyone the opportunity to practise their headtorch orienteering skills prior to the British Night Championships this weekend. East Lothian Orienteers kindly hosted the event at Balgone Estate, just south of North Berwick.
The weather as ever in February was chilly but kind to those braving the night to fight for victory. Thanks to James Grant Sutton and Balgone Pumpkins there was complimentary cake and hot chocolate even if it was a few months too late for any pumpkins! It is a well known truth that orienteers will always stand around and socialise if there is cake on offer!
Not the biggest forest but rumours are that it was delightful with barely any undergrowth which made it very runnable and the shape of the ground, even for the less experienced night orienteer, was easy to see. That said the planner had not made life easy by including a map flip to avoid forward planning. There were some opportunities for fast path running in between the blocks of forest and some decisions to
make about whether you went round the path or straight through the forest. For some, there was no opportunity to rest, as towards the end of the course there was an area of technical contours and crags with limited visibility which gave scope to make some errors and lose precious time!
Prize giving was held in the assembly promptly after the results were ready. Medals were awarded and trophies presented to our new Scottish champions. Congratulations to everybody that took part and a huge thank you to East Lothian Orienteers whose valiant efforts allowed those willing to travel to have a run at night followed by the second Scottish Orienteering Urban League (SOUL) event of 2025 in Musselburgh the next day. Thank you to the Saturday planner Duncan Edmondson and organiser Michael Atkinson with those other East Lothian Orienteer volunteers with Fredrik Forsberg from STAG for controlling the event. The Atkinson family clearly need very little rest as Michael was up the next day organising the SOUL event which had been planned by juniors Joel and Emily Atkinson and controlled by Crawford Lindsay of Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club (ESOC). Thank you to all involved and by the looks of everyone’s faces Sunday proved to be a fun and fast paced event.
A few photos of the night can be found below. Results from Scottish Night Championships can be found here and that of the Urban League event on the SOUL page here.
