East Midland Champs

[mikey]

Great race today.

Very well planned course and full on orienteering from start to finish. Cademan is a superb middle distance area now that the rhododendrons have all been cleared and the map was readable at 1:10,000.

[King Penguin]

Seconded.
The area near the start and end of the courses was somewhat boggy, with the best bits across the road.

[buzz]

Great race today.

Very well planned course and full on orienteering from start to finish. Cademan is a superb middle distance area now that the rhododendrons have all been cleared and the map was readable at 1:10,000.

I suspect I'm in a minority, but I thought the course planning (on the Brown at least) was really disappointing with the start in a pointless brambly bog, too many controls, controls placed so that longer legs were just path runs round the interesting bits and shorter legs just compass bearings.

There seems to be a trend for middle distance races to be just 'control picking' exercises which I don't believe is the intention of the guidelines.

I'm sure most people enjoyed the event as it's an excellent area and was well organised as usual by LEI, but I think the course planning could have been more interesting/challenging.

[eddie]

Going to have to disagree with that Buzz. I thought that was a class middle distance.

[Sloop]

Can't speak about the Brown, but I thought the Blue was very entertaining.
Didn't enjoy wading through the swamp to #1, but thereafter the running was fine.

On an area with so many tracks, any leg of more than a few metres is bound to have a "just run round the tracks" option. In our case, that wasn't always the right thing to do.

[buzz]

Thought I might be in a minority!

Here are the courses from Sunday for anyone who wasn't there...http://www.leioc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/index.php#140
The brown was 5.1km with 29 controls.

Perhaps I was a bit harsh - they're certainly not poor courses, everyone seemed to enjoy them and the planner is following standard practice in British middle distance races, but I do think the courses could be improved with fewer controls and longer legs that cut across the grain of the area rather than follow it.

As an example here's an alternative 5.1km course using just 16 of the controls from Sunday's brown course:

Start at 2 (to avoid the bog) then 23,19,16,8,13,11,10,14, 7,5,20,26,4,3,27 Finish

Ideally I would have included a couple more controls in the detailed areas and adjusted the positions of a few others.

Incidentally the women's course at WOC last year was 5.1km with just 9 controls (although that is an extreme example).

I noticed that the planner is the organiser for day 3 of the JK and also sits on the Mapping Advisory Group

[redpossum]

Thought I might be in a minority!

I noticed that the planner is the organiser for day 3 of the JK and also sits on the Mapping Advisory Group

I think you'll find he isn't one of the 'faceless MAG' but a member of the Events and Competitions Committee.

Here's the place to find out Who's Who:
http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/index.php?pg=21#Events

[AndyC]

The person concerned is one who I respect greatly as a planner and an organiser.