Planning at Attermire

[awk]

Well, it's the morning after the day before, and whilst many of the team who organised and participants who ran in the Northern Champs at Attermire yesterday have moved on to Langstrothdale today, I'm taking a bit of a breather, partly to sort out equipment.

It's a few years since I've been involved in planning a National Event and memory has slightly faded as to what a huge job putting on one of these events is. It also reminded me what a team effort it is. To underline this, and also to say thank you to them, I've listed below those who helped with the planning side of the event. That doesn't include all those working on the organising side, which, if I knew all the names, would be even longer. But thank you to:

My co-planner, Steve Webb - it's definitely a team job is this planning game;
Organiser, Guy Patterson - nobody will know the hours a National Event organiser will put in unless they see it first hand. Phenomenal;
Derek Allison the controller who showed remarkable calm and provided invaluable feedback at all stages; we planners both benefited enormously from having him as controller.
Tony Thornley, who organised all the map preparation and printing side (and provided the benefit of much of his experience to an inexperienced user of IT to prepare courses);
Steve and Alex Watkins, and Dave Walton, gatherers, obtainers, repairers and programmers of equipment and again providers of much technical support;
Chris Burden, Tony Carlyle, Graham Watson and Dave Shelley, who helped with staking sites and putting out boxes/punches/kites - a big job with 100 controls spread over 13 sq kms of high level moorland;
Rob King, Simon Brook, Graham Watson, Heather Phipps, Rob Kelly, Linda Kelly and Nick Green (who isn't even a member of Aire!) who helped collect controls, which meant we had them all off the area by 7.30pm;
Mike Cox, Guy Patterson and the stiles team whose job will not be finished until later this week. Some of those stiles are some 2kms from the nearest vehicle access;
Linda and Rob Kelly who took up the slack when the other member of their family was buried in planning work - there's a lot of brownie point catching up to do!

As to the planning itself, the feedback seems to have been generally positive, and thank you to all of those who said nice things. I also know that inevitably some things didn't go quite the way some competitors would have liked, and thank you to those who put that feedback so nicely! I would be grateful if people could use this thread to express their views: having been quite critical at times here in the past, I am more than prepared to discuss any issues people would like to raise!

[swat]

Cheers Andrew - I really enjoyed my course! Preliminary results are available on the Aire website here.

RouteGadget to follow as soon as possible (hint, hint).

[GML]

Andrew

I big "thank you" to you and all the team - I thoroughly enjoyed my course (M45S) on both Saturday and Sunday.

What I liked in particular on Saturday was that you had managed to put most of the controls far enough away from the crossing points that we actually had to navigate to them - it wasn't just a control pick (or at least not for me).

My only 'problem' was with the mapping around control 9 (166). This was a re-entrant with a stream in the bottom of it on that looked to me (reading the map on the run) to be on a steeper bit of hillside than that immediately WSW (the direction of approach). Turns out that the 'contours' that made it look steeper were actually form lines (two of them). Looking at the map afterwards I realised my mistake, and also noticed that there are quite a few other places on the map where a form line has been inserted between the contours over quite a long distance, without, to my eye, adding very much detail to the map that couldn't be surmised from the two adjacent contours. Something to be re-considered for future versions of the map perhaps?

My eldest son, running M18L, also found it difficult to read the detail on the 1:15000 map in a couple of places (e.g. around control 6, 132).

But just to emphasise, these were only minor issues with what was otherwise a hugely enjoyable event.

Thanks again.

[awk]

Thanks for the feedback GML.

My only 'problem' was with the mapping around control 9 (166).

I'll pass your comments on to the mapper.

My eldest son, running M18L, also found it difficult to read the detail on the 1:15000 map in a couple of places (e.g. around control 6, 132).

Interesting that one with young eyes found that area difficult to read - I certainly did, but then my eyes require an enlarged map (as did the others involved), and I thought that was the issue, given that 1:15k was used successfully last time. We did briefly consider having 1:10k for all courses, mainly because of this detailed area, but you should have seen the size of the 'all controls' map at 1:10k (almost A2)!

[Darwin]

Enjoyed the event - thanks.

In reference to course 3, I found the first half interesting with good variety and a genuine route -choice on the long leg. Will be interested to see where people went here on Routegadget.

Not quite so keen on the second half, but I guess it was down to the quality of the terrain. The trouble with some of those controls down holes is that they are either very easy or nigh-on impossible depending whether you see someone else jump in in front of you or not.

I also struggled with the area around 166 and 162 for the reasons mentioned above. As on the BOC map the form lines were not helpful.

[swat]

RouteGadget now online for both days.

[Axel]

I really enjoyed the NE and what really made the day was the course length (55L) I believe for once I got value for my money!!!

Only wobbles I had were Control 7 (157), I stood near the top of the marsh but just couldn't see the top of the control so I went over marsh onto spur, looked back and then caught site of the control. I then done exactly the same at 14 (170) ran into circle couldn't see control went onto spur SE of control looked back to where I came from saw control.

Overall a good physical challenge and well worth the drive north.

DAY 2,

An excellent variation from the NE, more physical, tougher underfoot conditions and the need for more reliance on good compass skills for Controls 1,2 and 4. A bonus for me was the change of weather when the drizzle stopped at around 11.15.

My only problem was control 8(43) and looking at the times of my fellow competitors we all suffered there. On my first approach I ran past the control onto the long crag NW of control site. Found a control there, relocated missed control saw fenced area SE of control, turned back missed control again relocated at spur/reentrant west of control. 5 minutes later and about 15 competitors hunting for the control, someone stumble into the braken and into the pit. Are the pits mapped correctly???. 44 mins for my course was on except for my bogey control. However I thoroughly enjoyed the course, area and challenge.

Many thanks to both event organising teams for making it a memorable and challenging weekend.

[awk]

I really enjoyed the NE and what really made the day was the course length (55L) I believe for once I got value for my money!!!

Given recent comments about National Event course distances, I spent some time trying to make certain we hit the right range. Feedback from both Duncan Archer and Ed Nash (1-2 in the last NE on Attermire) plus my own running of a couple of dummy courses indicated that the M21L should be 13.5-14.0k this year, particularly given the feedback from the previous planner and other competitors that the area had been slower than expected due to lack of grazing during the last foot and mouth outbreak.

In the event, the M21L was about 5% shorter than we had originally expected; all other courses pretty much hit the ratios. What we hadn't allowed for was the slowing down of the area due to the replacement of sheep with cattle grazing: there are a number of projects going on to do this to reduce the impact on the vegetation and get back a bit more to 'original' Dales flora. This is a recent development, but has already had a big impact. The area definitely slowed up in the 6 weeks before the event (or I got slower!).

The result is that although M21L was shorter, it actually produced pretty much the target time, whilst the other longer TD5 courses turned out to be 4-6% longer than they should have strictly been. Because our controller (wise man!) had advised that the shorter TD5 should be slightly under the ratios because of the toughness of the terrain, they were about right.

All in all, it shows how important it is to get that M21L distance right - everything flows from it - and how difficult it can be to get it right. Given the comments at the end, it seems that most people enjoyed the 'fuller' distance, thank goodness. It might have been a wee bit of a different story if the mist had been down, as it had on numerous occasions when taping and staking.

[epocian]

Alex wrote
My only problem was control 8(43) and looking at the times of my fellow competitors we all suffered there. On my first approach I ran past the control onto the long crag NW of control site. Found a control there, relocated missed control saw fenced area SE of control, turned back missed control again relocated at spur/reentrant west of control. 5 minutes later and about 15 competitors hunting for the control, someone stumble into the braken and into the pit. Are the pits mapped correctly???

Interestingly they are not on the 2003 map - just one depression!

[Homer]

Well done to the planner and controller who ensured that all the controls were in the right place with the right code. After that essential, everything else is secondary and anything I write subsequently should be read with that in mind.

I think it would be interesting (and useful for future planners on this and similar areas) to have a debate on the fairness of using depressions as control sites.
Some of the depressions used were absolutely fine. If you can navigate into the feature using accurately mapped features then there is no problem at all. Where I have a concern is where the only technique possible to find a control is by accurate compass and distance judgement.
This is a valid technique, but allowance needs to be made for some inaccuracy. I remember once being told that you can only expect to be within 10% when following a bearing, ie if following a bearing you can expect even a good orienteer to be as much as 10m off line after 100m. If this is the case, then where this is the only way to find a feature, the control (or ideally the feature) needs to be visible from that distance.
With this in mind, I thought one or two controls on my course were a little iffy, thereby introducing too large an element of luck (eg the chance of seeing someone in front nip down to punch). The worst offender was probably control no.172.
What does anyone else think?

Please AIRE don't take this as criticsm. I can see planning on this area must be very difficult given the obviously large number of constraints. Without using such control sites it would be virtually impossible to use the northern slopes of this area. I'm just trying to start a debate which will hopefully benefit us all in the future.
Thanks to all involved in the event, your hard work is certainly appreciated.

[seabird]

How to place kites in sunken features in otherwise comparatively featureless terrain is a very fine judgement. An inch or two in height can result in the control moving from being hidden unless you are on top of it, to being visible from a very great distance.

Personally I think it is fairer to tend towards the latter option if there are no easily identified attack points at a reasonably close distance.

In areas like Attermire and Langstrothdale there is no option than to use sunken features in many places, but kites do not necessarily have to be placed at, or near, the bottom of the feature.

[bedders]

Homer, I agree that the use of depressions was questionable, and during my run I was fuming that they'd used such 'bingo' controls. However on reflection afterwards, I decided that these controls were actually perfectly reasonable, and just required a different technique to that I'd been using for the rest of my course. The major difference with my 23 (121) and 25 (172) was that you really had to read the control description. With 121, I came to the rocky pits slightly to the left, which if I'd planned ahead, would have been an excellent catching feature. And with 172, someone pointed out to me that you could have used the large re-entrant over the road to position yourself correctly on the slope.

All-in-all I thought it was a brilliant course, the toughest one I've done since M20E at the JK, and like Axel says, I really feel I got my (Dad's) money's worth.

[GML]

Interesting that one with young eyes found that area difficult to read - I certainly did, but then my eyes require an enlarged map (as did the others involved), and I thought that was the issue, given that 1:15k was used successfully last time. We did briefly consider having 1:10k for all courses, mainly because of this detailed area, but you should have seen the size of the 'all controls' map at 1:10k (almost A2)!

I don't think the map scale needs changing given that most of the map is absolutely fine at 1:15k. Rather I suspect that the 'correct' solution is to simplify the mapping in the most complex areas. If this means that you can't use some of the features in such areas as control sites then so be it - to my mind it is still the right solution. If the level of map detail necessary to navigate to such sites is more than can be readably accommodated on a 1:15k map then those sites shouldn't be used - use larger ones (in the same area) instead.

[SJC]

I agree that the use of depressions was questionable, and during my run I was fuming that they'd used such 'bingo' controls. However on reflection afterwards, I decided that these controls were actually perfectly reasonable, and just required a different technique to that I'd been using for the rest of my course.

I wouldn't disagree with the fact that the controls could be navigated to, all be it they would require a much more careful approach to hit them accurately.

The real 'bingo' nature of them was that if you were lucky and someone was standing in the pit or depression then the only navigation required was to get to the right bit of the map. You could then hit the control at full speed. This is what makes such control sites unfair, and why I believe they shouldn't have been used.

[EddieH]

It sounds as though GML has brought up the perennial problem, but surely not provided the right answer. When the map is being printed at 2 scales it should ALWAYS be surveyed for the smaller scale so that no feature is unreadable, and so that older eyes can manage the larger scale.