Phoenix Long O

[AndyC]

As Freefall hasn't done it may I remind you all that the Fourteenth Montane Phoenix Long O Saturday/Sunday 22nd/23rd August, 2009 guaranteed entry closes at Midnight tonight. ( Short Courses have some time before you need to respond)
http://www.newcastleorienteering.org.uk/phoenix/ph2009in.html

[Freefall]

Freefall thinks there are still some entries left - prizes have now been collected from Montane and are very nice including Featherlite smocks, gilets, Bionic Ts etc. It's a great area this year and we promise it is nothing like Kielder. Barrowburn Tearooms do very good cakes too and there is lots of pleasant camping.

[AndyC]

And Freefall should know
I'm holding him (well actually O_runner) to the promise that I won't spend the event entirely chest deep in bracken and heather and that he has made the same weather arrangements that he made for the JK

[Freefall]

Look forward to seeing you up there - £1,000 worth of prizes waiting to be won. Visited the area yesterday - very nice but watch out for potholes, sheep and a sheepdog on the road. Managed a puncture

[AndyC]

Colin,
am I right in thinking that the closing date for entries for the main event is Midnight tonight?

[Freefall]

All good things shall come to pass. There will probably be about 15 maps left over but we should have the ability to print off some non-waterproof copies on the day if there is a late rush. I understand there may be some room left in the bunkbarn and there is plenty of good camping ground. See you there!

[Freefall]

Thanks to all who turned up for the Montane Phoenix - well done to Duncan Archer who won the A Course by a margin of an hour! It was a great weekend, enjoyed by us as the organisers, planners etc as well as the competitors. The tea and cakes from Barrowburn tearoom went down very well. Terrific weather on Saturday, more challenging in the rain on Sunday. Any feedback on the event would be most welcome - format, dates, venue etc.

Colin Matheson
Organiser

[Duncan]

Great weekend in my opinion. But I would say that, having won (there is probably a good correlation between people who whinge about races on nopesport and people having bad runs in those races....)

• Tea & cake was a nice idea on Saturday.
• Nice Montane prizes (and even if you had to part-buy them out of entry fees, the entry fees didn't seem unreasonably steep to reflect that).
• Camping adjacent to start/finish is a good thing.
• You only had just enough "capacity", so to speak, with one portaloo...
• Fine to have a map with all controls overprinted, and then control descriptions to tell you which were on your course. I presume you did this to save printing costs or hassle or something. Some people decided to join up the circles before running off; I decided it wasn't worth it and just put the control descriptions in a holder and worked it out on the way.
• Terrain was pleasantly runnable and had good route choice potential. I didn't do Deadwater Fell 2008 but I heard it was rough underfoot. Whilst the Cheviots are only so big, and a change of location is nice sometimes, my preference would be to rotate round the nicer areas more often than visit the nasty areas. One idea: maybe it is too far for some to get to, but there looks to be some good terrain just NW of where we were (over the border in Scotland)

My only real gripe is that on Sunday, starting first in the chasing start, I had to wake up about four of the SI boxes as I was first to visit them. I probably lost 4 seconds total over three hours. If someone could have jogged round them that morning and woken them up, that would have been good. Only kidding....

[LostAgain]

Great event. Weather favoured the leaders, chasing start entrants probably did not find themselves in the rain day 2.

Very happy you were able to include the Juniors albeit separated out from the main event. If you could now incude them on the main courses then it would be complete, particularly as Juniors had the fastest times on both the C (individual & pairs) and D.

We did not go last year because there was nothing for the juniors, so cannot compare.

You'll have to organise more events since you obviously have a diect line to the weather Gods.

[Freefall]

There is always the question about do we do this as an FRA event or as a BOF event which attracts bigger levy. If we up the prices that is one way around things but would we still get the fell runners and FRA publicity? Would we put off fellrunners if they thought it was an orienteering event? How about A and B pairs classes - would that be of interest? We didn't make any money this year as it happens - prizes, loos, maps, tea and cakes, Fabian 4 fees, SI hire, minimal expenses pretty much used up the entry fee. Just hope we didn't make a loss! It's a lot cheaper than OMMs, LAMMs or Rat Races so maybe we need to close the gap a bit.

[ba-ba]

I only found out about this the week before it happened, so couldn't plan getting up there, but I'll hopefully remember to look out for it next year.

[AndyC]

I only found out about this the week before it happened, so couldn't plan getting up there, but I'll hopefully remember to look out for it next year.

Note to Freefall there!

(from the last one off the hill on Saturday but at least that way the planner fetches your tea and cake for you!)

[Freefall]

It wasn't too much trouble as organiser as I had such a good team helping. Thank you for the kind words!

[bac0990]

As a matter of interest, did the finish circle on day two cover a crossing point on the uncrossable boundary to the north of Shillhope Law?