People running about looking at maps… what are they doing?

A while back quite a few people were out running looking like they were following, or trying to follow, a route on a map. They each had a map and were running as individuals rather than a group following one person with a map.
However they were running down every back alley of houses, even some people’s driveways. Trying to get through from one bit to another. It was if their maps showed a vague direction of where they were going but not the exact route. It was strange as there were roads and pavements that would have taken them the route they seemed to need to go, but they were trying other indirect routes
Talking to a colleague who lives in another part of town and they’ve seen a group doing this too.

As they had maps, I don’t think this was a hashing run. Orienteering perhaps?

Extreme Pokemon Go tournament

geo caching? surely not in folks drives etc.

Beats me why anybody would run if they own a bicycle.

Sounds like urban orienteering.

Maps to the star’s homes?

Got any famous people near you?

Casing properties to burgle whilst getting a bit of healthy exercise

Sounds like Urban Orienteering

Beats me why anybody would run if they own a bicycle.

Absolutely this

There’s a thing in west sussex called “beat the street” (Just Googled it – it’s nationwide)
I bet that’s it..

DrP

I was a army cadet instructor and I used to send cadets out with a load of grid references in the village, goodness knows where they ended up, but they all got back!

geo caching?

wouldn’t be that with a map

they’d be rummaging about in the undergrowth with a GPS

orienteering in an urban area sounds odd

I was a army cadet instructor and I used to send cadets out with a load of grid references in the village, goodness knows where they ended up, but they all got back!

I had to warn a bunch who were walking up the local waymarked DH tracks a few weeks ago. There were three or four bunches on the hill, all heading in different directions. I thought of helping a few who were vaguely lost at the top of the trails, but it’s a small hill and they couldn’t get too lost. (Although, just to throw a random thing in, there have been stories about yetis up there since I was in school, so they may have been eaten. Yes, yetis on a small hill surrounded on two sides by a city, in south Wales. Very weird!)

in south Wales

Well….

Casing properties to burgle whilst getting a bit of healthy exercise

Our local newspaper had warnings to householders in the area about codes left on properties to indicate which were ripe for burglary, police giving advice and everything. Next week there was an embarrassed apology from the local hash group as it was their navigation symbols left on gateposts etc. 🤣

Our local newspaper had warnings to householders in the area about codes left on properties to indicate which were ripe for burglary

This is a constant on Facebook around here. Beware of somebody (normally a ‘foreigner’ of some description) knocking door to door for some random reason. Once they’ve worked out if there’s no dog in the house they’ll leave some sort of mark to come back later to burgle it. Or, occasionally, if you own a dog they’ll leave a mark to revisit and steal the dog.

It’s not like most houses have got numbers on, or maybe names. They could just remember which houses to break into…

Its definitely orienteering. The kids and I did an event recently in our village, local club organised it. It was great fun, There was a sprint course around community woodlands, approx 4 – 8 mins of running and a longer course around the village, about 15mins of running.

Will be some kind of street league as others have suggested. Get involved!

#runeverystreet

Possibly. Salomon did a bit of an advertising campaign recently, US runner decides to run every street in San Francisco, actually a great way of getting long runs in, close to home, and relieving the boredom.

Popular thing in that lundun.

Urban Orienteering..

Plot lat/long, can’t use phones or gps.

Good fun, I did one a couple of years ago.. surprising what you find down some back street in the City etc..

Our local newspaper had warnings to householders in the area about codes left on properties to indicate which were ripe for burglary, police giving advice and everything.

Did they go to the effort of illustrating this story with a photo?

We had it along our road recently.

Initially thought it was a really poorly organised terrorist attack but no… Urban orienteering. Go figure.

I’ll go with Orienteering then. We’re in a fairly new development too, which might not be on maps hence the extra randomness.