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Pacemaker Interview : This edition's interviewee is Duncan Archer, a former British Junior Squad member who after three years at Oxford joined the club in early 1999. He has been training officer for the last year. Duncan's first orienteering event was the White Rose in 1988, when his aunt and uncle (Sue and Robin Harvey of IOF presidential and mapping company fame) took him and his brother along. "I did M10A. On day one I got completely lost (although I was happy when Sue told me the course was way too hard) and took a couple of hours, but I finished and still didn't come last! On day two I got the hang of it and came fifth-ish." Duncan and his brother Matthew persuaded their father and then both parents to come along to orienteering events. Duncan remembers that "the best thing was probably competing against my brother (and beating him although he is two years older). I guess I enjoyed the sport, being outdoors etc., right from the outset." Although he continued to beat his brother and win Badge and National events, he missed out at other major events. " I have never risen to fame in either the British or the JK. My highest place is probably 3rd in the JK at Clumber Park, where after coming 15th on day one, I came 3rd on the second day. I came second at the British School's Championships about four times, but never won. My best domestic result was probably winning the Junior Inter-regionals when I was 17, but I tend to forget it as everyone made lots of mistakes including me." Asked if his meteoric rise to fame was marred by any disasters Duncan admitted that he was "once out for about three hours on a green on a dreadful CLOK area called May Beck (which has since been renamed to attract more people!). I went round and round in circles for ages, with little or no concept of how to relocate." Despite the occasional lapse Duncan joined the North East Junior Squad in 1990 and the British Junior Squad in 1993, going on tour to Faskally in 1990 with Ian Marsden, to Sweden in 1992 and Norway in 1995 with Sian Challacombe. On tour at Lagganlia in 1991, Duncan managed to "run off the end of the map one day - I don't really know what I was up to!" Sue and Keith Marsden, who ran this tour remember this incident and have indeed dined out on it for some years. Duncan hinted that many of the stories from his tours with Oxford University OC, to Italy, Sweden and the Czech Republic, were not repeatable. After a couple of beers, he did reveal that after the last day of the Czech 5-day event he became involved in a vodka-drinking race, which with vodka at 30p a glass, knew few bounds. After others had surreptitiously poured their drinks into his glass, he reports that he was last seen running towards the woods. It was at the varsity match in Fontainbleau, that Duncan had his finest hour, winning the course by a considerable margin in extremely complex terrain. After Oxford, Duncan moved into software development, a career that he describes as "fairly interesting and which leaves enough spare cash and holidays to jet off to orienteering events." He also plays squash, rock climbs, and goes hashing, either in London, or with the Enfield Hash started by Tim Hall. Duncan claims that although he lives in North London, he joined Happy Herts because "HH's forests seemed closer than LOK's and although Epping is my closest area I fancied a slightly larger club than whoever owns Epping." The choice was also affected by getting lifts with Tim Hall, with whom Duncan works, until he had his own car. As he tends to go to multi-day events with friends from JOK or OUOC, Duncan feels that he is not always part of the HH social scene, but says he "would always be interested in club jaunts off to foreign parts, perhaps for the British Champs next year in Ireland?"
Inadvisably, I asked Duncan how he came to be training officer. In the interests of freedom of information I reproduce his response verbatim. "Someone called David Saunders came up to me at an event and asked if I would like to be on the HH committee. He said the jobs of training officer and something else were going. I showed some interest and said I would think about them. The next time we spoke he said 'so which one have you decided on? ' " Duncan says that he varies his orienteering style to suit the terrain. "Down South I use quite a lot of compass and pacing, in from paths or across vague bits of forest. Where possible I use contour detail, but still tend to keep my compass handy. Occasionally I run off in the vague direction and usually end up getting lost." Asked what sort of terrain he prefers, Duncan thought he was better on technical terrain and did less well, relative to the same people, when running fast along tracks. "I probably performed best in the Varsity Match in Fontainbleau, but I also did really well on the 1995 tour to Norway in some quite fast forests without any paths in sight." I asked Duncan if he missed having other good orienteers in his age class in the club, to compete with or to run together in relays. He said this was "not really a problem as there are plenty of speedy runners in the South to compete against at Badge events". Although he would like to be in more competitive relay teams, "there are only a handful of clubs in Britain where you have a chance of doing really well as a team. Usually I am happy to set off on first leg in the pack. That said I have not been in a top relay team since running M/W17- for CLOK." So what are Duncan's ambitions. He is very modest, saying only that he wants to continue running elite while at M21. "I get inspired going to World Champs and watching, but then read the reports of just how much training and commitment you have to put in to get to the top. It is not something I am interested in doing at the moment. The odd trophy here and there is always nice - my best source of trophies has undoubtedly been the White Rose with some 10 mugs in a lesser number of White Rose weekends." Duncan recently added to his trophy cabinet when, eschewing the eight-hour trip to the British Elite Champs in Aviemore, he won M21L at the Belgian 3-day. |
