It is possible to travel to orienteering races by public transport – but only if you live in south-east England – living in the centre of London helps a lot too.

Here’s how I’ve got to all of my recent orienteering races:

Of course, I’m not including the events which I failed to get to as I could get there by public transport and had failed to get a lift, or had never got there due to late trains, missed connections, etc…

I’ve been to a few events this year so far, but haven’t got around to writing about them yet…

One race I’ve started doing is the Bushy Park Time Trial. This is a 5 km trail race that happens every Saturday morning at 9am in Bushy Park – one of London’s Royal Parks, beside Hampton Court Palace. It’s a mass start, the course is along grass and paths, up to 400 people do it, and it’s free! It’s well organised, there’s proper race timing, photographers, and free drinks at the end! You even get a personalised email with your result, a few hours after the race.

The only problem (for me) is getting up early enough to get right across London for the start. But I’ve managed it twice now – last week for the 140th race and this week for the 141st. The first time, I broke 20 minutes, which was great and was way in excess of my expectations – running with a friend helped a lot for the pace-setting. This week I wasn’t so great, but I’m still pleased at running it in around 21 minutes.

Doing 5 km trail running is probably the ideal exercise for me to improve on my Park Race/Street Race orienteering skills. I’m planning on doing quite a few this summer, starting with the York Park Race at the end of this month, and finishing with the Venice Street Race in November.