Sprintelopes are lightweight informal events featuring Urban style races around the streets of towns in East Lothian and other areas in and around Edinburgh on Wednesday evenings.
In 2025, ELO are contributing five races to the series – this is the second of them, around Musselburgh!
Orienteers of all abilities are welcome to join us on the day when we will have a range of courses to suit everyone including under 16s who have a course with no road crossings.
Vogrie Country Park is a woodland estate managed by Midlothian Council. The Tyne Water runs through the park in a steep sided valley which can provide a physical challenge. Vogrie usually hosts a Saturday parkrun and has a popular playground but its varied terrain and 12 mile path network make this a popular venue for orienteering, particularly for those new to the sport. For the more experienced there are plenty of ways to navigate between controls both on paths and off them!
Registration, start and finish are near the main house and we look forward to seeing you there.
Loose control descriptions will be available for the orange, red and green courses.
Sprintelopes are lightweight informal events featuring Urban style races around the streets of towns in East Lothian and other areas in and around Edinburgh on Wednesday evenings.
In 2025, ELO are contributing five races to the series – this is the first of them, around North Berwick!
Orienteers of all abilities are welcome to join us on the day when we will have a range of courses to suit everyone including under 16s who have a course with no road crossings.
Although online entries are now closed you can enter on the night.
Please note that Control Descriptions are on the BACK of the maps for the Long and Short courses.
We will have tea/coffee/hot chocolate available after the event!
As usual we thank all the competitors who braved the chilly wind and our large team who stage the event – especially Neil and Trina for planning courses and organising the event. And this time we also have to thank the many people who grabbed hold when the registration tent tried to blow away!
East Lothian Orienteers were involved in the East Lothian Schools Orienteering Festival held at Levenhall on Wednesday 19th February in conjunction with East Lothian Outdoor Learning Service.
Although there were only bulk entries from two primary schools, six schools were represented and approximately 120 pupils took part. There was some hot competition, although we did hear of one boy saying he took a bit longer than he could to stay out of school as long as possible.
In addition to the main competition there were a number of fun, orienteering-based activities and challenges. From all the reports we heard, all the pupils had a great time and we look forward to a bigger entry when the event returns next year.
Many thanks to all who came to enjoy a run at JMCP with most courses venturing into the woods for the first time since the sad depletion by Storm Arwen in 2021.
Special thanks to Jonathan and Andrea for planning and organising the event and to Jamie and Vik for arranging junior coaching beforehand. Jonathan planned an extra Red course for those who wanted to stretch their legs without a serious navigation challenge, and it was particularly popular on the day.
The catering table raised £50 for Mary’s Meals plus any donations made online.
We should like to apologise to those early starters on course 4 who lost some time at #1 due to the incorrect number on the loose control descriptions. We have considered voiding the course or removing the first two legs but having looked at the splits, we think that, with two or three exceptions, there was no significant impact on the results because of any delay you may have experienced. With apologies to those affected, we have left the results as they were at download.
For longer than most of us can remember ELO have put on a fun orienteering event between Christmas and New Year. As well as finding the controls there has been a puzzle to add to the challenge. A mass start, a social gathering and a lively prize giving have made up for a great way to work off some of the Christmas excesses.
This year’s Festive Frolic at Vogrie on Saturday 28th December continued the tradition in grand style. The Score course was a fair test for all and the Rainbow bonus was an extra challenge for anyone with spare energy.
Huge thanks to Sheila and her family for all their work on devising, planning and presenting this special event.
What a lovely place Vogrie is! I hope you all enjoyed your visit. Many thanks to the Rangers for giving us permission to hold our event.
Vogrie was closed last Saturday because of high winds so I was greatly relieved that the weather for the event, and for putting out the controls the day before, was very pleasant.
Apologies to those who lost time searching for control 29/189 which was found somewhere near 28/188. It had been moved some time after being checked around 9:30. I can only think that someone from the stables did not like it close to the horse field and hopped over the fence and took it but at least had the decency to dump it where we would find it.
Many thanks to those who helped, including Murray for help in putting out controls; Pete and Jamie on set up and control collection; David and Hanne on control collection; Jonathan on dibber issue and Andrea and Tim on computing. It would not have happened without a huge input from Robin, with additional help in many ways from Kirsten. Santa Panda enjoyed his view of people running hither and thither from his viewpoint between controls 2 and 4.
Thank you to whoever picked up the dropped compass and handed it in at download. The owner is very grateful.
Robin has added the following note about the results:
“There are lies, damned lies and … Festive Frolics results. The version available now has changed from what some of you saw earlier. We have gone through the splits printouts. Some of you missed partial rainbows and some of you claimed rainbows that included a control you had already used in another rainbow (often control 5). Control 30 was missing from your totals (my mistake in programming it). We haven’t verified the songs titles, although whether black is one of the colours of the rainbow is open to debate.
Sorry about the queue to submit your bonus claims. We have already thought about how it could be streamlined for another time (if we ever do it again!!)”
Many thanks to everyone who came to compete – including familiar faces, comparative newcomers and the cheery Cubs who seemed to enjoy their first taste of orienteering. Thanks also to the very many helpers and particularly to Neil for planning such well-received courses which made the most of the rather restricted area of Butterdean.
Congratulations to Emily Atkinson for the fastest time on Light Green against some very strong competition.
Thanks for coming along to Levenhall Links and enjoying some autumnal East Lothian sunshine. It was the perfect conditions for some runners courses round the old ash lagoons in Musselburgh.
Many thanks to the volunteers, particularly those who were there at the bitter end collecting controls and to our planner Jeff Hodgson and the organiser Duncan Edmondson!
It was super to have refreshments afterwards and there was a lovely buzz of conversations both before and afterwards. Hopefully all our members who were helping / running in other events across the country this weekend had an equally enjoyable time.
There were a couple of hitches today but we hope they didn’t spoil the day for those affected – runners on Orange and the earliest starters on White. Orange, control number 5 wasn’t correctly located and one of the route choices in appeared to be more runnable on the map than it actually was on the ground. To be able to compare overall Orange course runs more easily we have removed control 5 from the overall results. The route choice analysis on Routegadget still includes this control so you can see how others approached it.
Planner’s Report
This proved to be an area with often long runs between the available identifiable features making it a runners course for the day. In some areas the vegetation had crept out considerably since the last map revision obscuring some fences and making certain routes more difficult to run than expected.
Apologies to runners on the Orange course that the vegetation encroachment made control 5 extremely hard to place accurately and then to find. However, overall it was good to receive positive feedback regarding the courses and some tricky route choice challenges.
A huge thank you to Duncan for organising and to all the helpers for making the day go ahead to schedule and safely and also for quickly responding to the couple of control placement glitches.
Today was an extra activity added to the club programme for the Midlothian Outdoor Festival, which is co-ordinated by the countryside rangers. The weather was perfect and Vogrie was looking wonderful. Well done to all the families who came along and participated enthusiastically, many for their first go at orienteering, and to Bonnyrig Scout Unit who also took part equally enthusiastically. Lots of people also had fun in the orienteering maze. Thank you to David for setting up and running the maze, and to Neil, Vik, Dermot, Jamie, Jenny and Robin for helping put out and collect in controls, run Start, run the computers and give help to first-timers.
Yellowcraig is a small but varied area with forest, sand-dunes and open grassland to challenge for new and experienced orienteers.
Orienteers of all abilities are welcome to join us on the day when we will have the usual range of courses and also a corridor course for training.
There will be entry on the day available – please come early to avoid disappointment!
Controller’s Report
We are sorry that there was a problem with the first control in Orange for the early starters. We should probably have voided the course and deleted all results, but we thought it was better to leave it – you know what you did.
Thanks to all those who came to compete and to the many helpers who made the event possible.
It was particularly good to see several first-time orienteers today – we hope you will join us again at our next event at Yellowcraig when we are back in our regular of the last Saturday in the month on 28th September.
Whitekirk Hill is a relatively new area for orienteering and boasts a variety of rock and contour features on broadly open hillside with picturesque views over East Lothian.
The majority of the paths are mown strips through the grass though they appear to be more permanent and there are many informal paths around the former golf course.
Parking for the event is at the Whitekirk Hill resort and we’d encourage you to make use of the excellent cafe which is there.
As well as the “usual” Saturday courses, we are offering a “no paths” version of the Green course which will allow you to test your navigation using just the contour detail on the map. There are plenty of catching features which should allow you to relocate and the main hardcore track round the site will be included on the map. You are advised to wear studded shoes for the Green and “no paths” courses.
We have ordered plenty of maps so entry on the day will be available – just turn up!
Sprintelopes are lightweight informal events featuring Urban style races around the streets of towns in East Lothian and other areas in and around Edinburgh on Wednesday evenings.
In 2024, ELO are contributing six races to the series – this is the sixth of them, around Prestonpans!
Orienteers of all abilities are welcome to join us on the day when we will have a range of courses to suit everyone including under 16s who have a course with no road crossings.
Start and finish is now just round the corner outside St. Gabriel’s Primary School, Prestonpans.
Sprintelopes are lightweight informal events featuring Urban style races around the streets of towns in East Lothian and other areas in and around Edinburgh on Wednesday evenings.
In 2024, ELO are contributing six races to the series – this is the fifth of them, around Musselburgh!
Orienteers of all abilities are welcome to join us on the day when we will have a range of courses to suit everyone including under 16s who have a course with no road crossings.
Sprintelopes are lightweight informal events featuring Urban style races around the streets of towns in East Lothian and other areas in and around Edinburgh on Wednesday evenings.
In 2024, ELO are contributing six races to the series – this is the fourth of them, around Haddington!
Orienteers of all abilities are welcome to join us on the day when we will have a range of courses to suit everyone including under 16s who have a course with no road crossings.
Many thanks to all those who came to take part and to the many helpers in staging the event. Particular thanks to Neil for planning the courses and his heroics with Tim in quickly fixing various timing issues.
It was good to have courses venturing into the woods for the first time since the storm of 2021. Now that most of the fallen trees have been removed the wood is beginning to show signs of recovery.
Sprintelopes are lightweight informal events featuring Urban style races around the streets of towns in East Lothian and other areas in and around Edinburgh on Wednesday evenings.
In 2024, ELO are contributing six races to the series – this is the third of them, around North Berwick!
Orienteers of all abilities are welcome to join us on the day when we will have a range of courses to suit everyone including under 16s who have a course with no road crossings.
