Two teams of MDOC juniors made the short trip over the Pennines to Leeds on 6th September, ready for the relay race on 7th September.
The Peter Palmer Relay Trophy is a National Orienteering Relay race, held once a year, in a different place each year. This year over 250 juniors from across the UK contested the event.
The race consists of 6 relay legs, of differing difficulty and length and suitable for ages between 12 and 18. A traditional feature of this race is that the first 2 and part of the third leg are in the dark, starting at 5 am, which makes running quite interesting even with headtorches the size of car headlamps.
Our "senior" team were 4th after the first leg, an excellent start, up to first by the end of the second leg, dropping to third then back to first after 4 legs. A nervous 5th leg left us in 3rd, followed by an epic run on the last leg, taking the lead in the last 400 m.
Total distance was 23 km and the winning margin was 8 seconds.
The Trophy comes to the North West for the first time ever, we hope to retain it next year.
Anyone interested in trying orienteering (basically running and navigating at the same time) should come along to one of the MDOC events - see www.mdoc.org.uk