Duncan ArcherIf you haven’t been following you can catch up on previous news in 2024 review, then one in which So what went down in 2025? Ourea Events In September 2024 I joined Ourea Events, working alongside my friend (and mountain marathon partner) Shane Ohly. 15 months in, I’ve now experienced the full sweep of our […]
A blog post about getting to the Lipica Open 5-day orienteering event in Slovenia by train instead of plane! Why the Lipica Open? Slovenia is one of my favourite countries outside the UK for orienteering. The terrain is fantastic – intricate karst limestone formations leading to lots of rock detail and depressions (interspersed in places […]
I thought 2023 was a busy year with plenty going on and lots of change. Pippa took leave from Durham University to pursue a career as an outdoor climbing instructor and we moved from Durham to the Lake District. Read all about it in the 2023 blog! Turns out 2024 was another busy year with […]
In case anyone doesn’t know, I’ve changed employers and career! Short version: I left Microsoft (who previously acquired Metaswitch) and now work for Ourea Events. Long version: read on… 25 years in software engineering Half a lifetime ago in 1998 I joined Data Connection as a graduate software developer. At the time it was a […]
We moved to Kendal in the Lake District last May. See 2023 review for some background, but largely as a result of Pippa taking a break from academia as a professor at Durham University and moving to work in the outdoors as a mountaineering and rock climbing instructor. Initially we were renting while we found […]
I was the coordinator for the British Orienteering Champs weekend in April 2024 – long distance and relays. This is a reproduction of an interview I did after the weekend which first appeared on the British Orienteering news. How did the North East Orienteering Association come to plan the British Orienteering Championships 2024? Major events […]
As previewed in my blog post a year ago, this has been a year of change. Pippa had decided the stresses of academic life need not be forever, so she started an 18 month sabbatical to see if a life in the outdoors would suit her, working as a climbing and mountaineering instructor. In May […]
Many will be familiar with the OMM or Original Mountain Marathon (or, for those with longer memories, its predecessor the KIMM or Karrimor International MM). The two day event is held in late October each year, and teams of two compete over linear or score courses, carrying all they need for two long days of […]
After an inaugural annual review of 2021 I thought let’s do that again. So here we go… Orienteering has been somewhat selective this year. As I moved up to M45, I was super pleased to win the British Night Champs for the first time (and only my second ever British O champs title in any […]
My last couple of years have seen various injuries meaning I’ve never put in a solid block of training and had to watch with envy as people do personal challenges and chase FKTs, especially during Covid when there was no racing. However, the last few months have been good and I decided to have a […]