British Championships 2004    Simonside,  Northumberland

Whilst sensible people were tucked up indoors watching the Six Nations Rugby on TV,  runners from Airienteers had to cope with gale-force winds and driving rain at  the British Orienteering championships held on the fells of Simonside, near Rothbury in Northumberland. The Start was fully fifty minutes walk from the Somme-like conditions which prevailed in the car-parking fields, which meant that runners were soaked before they even began their courses!
Most of the longer courses had the first few controls in the steep-sided forests before emerging onto the wind-swept fell-tops, where long legs provided some interesting route choices for those who still had their wits about them.  Running against the wind was like treading water, running with the wind was like bowling along under sail.  Nevertheless, many club members had good runs in highly competitive age-group classes, with two juniors becoming British champions.  Florence Haines won at W10 level, whilst George Stevens won the M14 class by almost six minutes!  Meanwhile, Ruth Jones (W45) and Peter Haines (M50) just missed out on victory, both coming second in their respective classes.       The full Aire results were as follows :

M12.  (3.5km)       9^th   Robert Kelly
M14   (5.6km)       1^st    George Stevens  40.26 
         5^th  Ben Gill (70.58)                       
M16   (7.9km)       4^th  Hector Haines  (61.20)   
        10^th Jack Wood  (68.05)                     
                          20^th  Alistair Everett  (78.51)
M18  (9.3km)        5^th   Joe Mercer  (68.45) 
         7^th   Ben Stevens  (69.00)
                           27^th  Daniel Holmes  (86.53)
M21  (12.6km)      19^th  Matthew Burden  (123.11)
M35  (11.5km)      21st  Steve Watkins  (93.22)
M40  (10.6km)      11^th  Steve Webb  (78.42)
                           28^th  Ian Marshall  (97.49)
                           31^st  Tim Boden  (99.37)
M45  (9.2km)        31^st  Nicholas Jones  (82.59)
                           37^th  Peter Jones  (87.33)
                           48^th  Chris Wales  (98.37)
                           55^th  Robert King  (106.40)
M50  (8.9km)         2^nd    Peter Haines  (64.12)
                           34^th  Tony Carlyle  (84.39)
                           35^th  Martin Gill  (85.01)
                           41^st  Graham Stuart  (88.01)
                           43rd Dave Chapman  (88.51)
                           55^th  Ken Patterson  (97.57)
                           58^th  Gerry van Hee  (99.44)
M55  (8.0km)        11^th  Frank Kew  (75.11)
                           20^th  Tony Thornley  (77.58)
                           42^nd  Ian Hill  (84.55)
                           64^th  Chris Burden  (99.02)