Spey 2007 - Comments

[Becks]

Anagach not so good due to inadequacy of white area mapping: some bits were runnable, others much harder than the light green due to heather - route choice sometimes a lottery)

Not sure what your complaint is here - there was a big difference in white runnability before and after the road but that was to be expected. There will always be micro changes in how tough the vegetation is on any area, but without a doubt all of Anagach was white, and to start adding veg boundaries would have well overcomplicated an excellent map, particularly at 1:15,000. After ten minutes on the area and using a bit of brain it was totally possible to predict where the thick stuff was and plan route choices round or simply put your head down and run harder! Deal with it! Anagach was a superb area!

[graeme]

Anagach - route choice sometimes a lottery

Didn't think there was much. I'm much quicker on tracks than terrain, but whenever I went round I lost time (no long legs on M45 due to marsh and capercaillie planning constraints). Green stripes for heather would only make the map harder to read.

[andy]

I thought the Anagach map was really good, the 'light green' forest section in the south east was definitely correct and the white (in Anagach, not heathfield) was consistent.

Once you were over the road it was different, but it was a different bit of forest and it was still consistent with respect to route choices.

[PeteL]

Hocolite,

Problem with Courses 9, 10 and 11 Start Triangle was down to a glitch with the planning. It was agreed that 9,10 and 11 would use the 'White' Start lane to try to even out the competitors across the two starts and that the Start Kite would be changed from the Red Kite (as originally planned) to the White Kite. Unfortunately, this was not done and this wasn't picked up when the maps were checked by Planners/Controllers after printing. As a result, I went ahead with producing the signs to direct 9, 10 and 11 starters to the correct kite but they were, of course, wrong. Sorry!!

A case of creating a problem by trying to prevent one...

Completely agree about congestion - point already noted and I will recommend that Organiser's Manual for 2009 includes minimum dimensions for start area, including boxes and also that Planners are notified of these requirements when selecting Start locations.

[HOCOLITE]

Cheers Pete. I was a little confused and would have preferred the climb to red triangle but I doubt it would have made much difference to my run. I managed to go the right way but at the time didn't realise why it was odd.

[Mrs H]

Back to the bibs - the O-ringen ones have the race start times printed upside down - so you can read them while you are wearing them - along with the disance to the start each day - We have found this to be incredibly useful.

for me the sparkle went out of Spey 2007 when we got turfed off the camp site on monday- the alternative down at the event centre had all the disadvantages (shower queues) and none of the advantages (social) so we just ended up going to a commerical site instead, losing our camp site fee. Our choice i know but disappointing never the less. the only thing you can do about the weather is plan for it and hope you don't need to put those plans in place.

the ceilidh was great and I didn't think the drives to each day were at all excessive as the roads were so good. I never feel qualified to comment on the terrain or maps, they all seemed good to me!

[Homer]

Mrs H turfed off the campsite. Why??

I thought the whole event was fantastic.
My only slight complaint would be the queues on day 2. I missed my start as a result. Apparently I could have had a punching start if I'd bothered to go to the start but no one was advertising this at the event.
Looking forward to Perth 2009 already!
Thanks to all who obviously put hours of work into the event.

[Mrs H]

Mrs H turfed off the campsite. Why??

general drunk and disorderly beahviour and the fact that I could not persuade enough underlings to lie down in the mud and allow me to drive my campervan over them

I see that the Swiss O Week clashes with Perth 2009 - i wonder if that will affect numbers as I know it was much enjoyed last year.

[andy]

Mrs H turfed off the campsite. Why??

I think the campsite got so muddy that campervans were 'turfed off' as they couldn't get in and out anyway. The school was given as an alternative.

[SIman]

It has been suggested that I explain how the start times on the bibs came to be wrong.

The layout was based on the one used without any problems at Deeside2005. In changing it for this year the rightmost space for start times below the word "Day 6" was accidentaly moved very slightly up the page. When the data was inserted onto the bibs that space was filled with the first start time and the rest of the times went into the remaining spaces.

One pixel caused all the problems. If we hadn't been working to very tight dealines and spending too much time dealing with late entries we might have noticed the problem before the file was emailed to the printer.

The labels are printed from the entries/results database. If they were exported into other software it would be possible to print times upside down (although that wouldn't help the start official on the line check everyone was at the right time) and add, eg, the walks to start, However we felt that the possibility of getting two versions of the data out of step with each other was a risk we didn't want to take,

We promise that if anything goes wrong at Tay2009, it won't be the times on the bibs!

[HOCOLITE]

I saw a German Caravan being towed off mid week. Did they abandon their 6 days or find somewhere else. I also saw a Dutch Campervan being refused admission, were they given alternatives?
I don't know the answer to any of these but I think the campsite crew was far too small for an event of this size and when things got difficult they struggled to cope. Information was poor, perhaps an appeal for extra help might have done the trick.

[Roger]

Congestion at the start
Perhaps one of the organisers can comment, but were all the start times in a particular block loaded towards the front of the block? My times were respectively 9, 6, 0, 25, 1 and 18 minutes into the 40-minute block -- not what one would expect by chance. On the 0- and 1-minute days, the starts were deserted while I waited to be called up, then suddenly rather crowded. The officials were struggling to call all the names in time and late starters etc caused chaos.

Spreading the times out a bit more within the blocks would reduce the overcrowding and reduce the stress on the start team. It would also increase fairness -- although I thoroughly enjoyed my run through a near-deserted Inshriach (surprising, with an 11:20 start), having a fellow competitor popping out from behind one of the two boulders that you're running towards always speeds you up a bit. Assuming that the start times were indeed front-loaded, is this one for the wash-up meeting to consider?

Camerory - climb
I was surprised that I was so knackered at the end of day 5. True, much of the terrain had been hard work but I expected to find 7.2km 155m (M45L) a bit less wearing. So I counted the contours... and got 300m climb! Did the planners think that the 2.5m contours applied on day 5 as well as day 4?

[SIman]

Congestion at the start
Perhaps one of the organisers can comment, but were all the start times in a particular block loaded towards the front of the block?

This is a "feature" of the software used to draw the 21000 start times. It is one we are aware of but there was no time for manual intervention between the final closing date and the bibs going for printing.

[Zokko!]

I would like to echo all the positive comments made so far - we had a great week and really enjoyed all 6 areas plus the sprint and mtbo.

I have just one point about congestion - not at the starts but around the course 1 & 2 maps in assembly. It was great to have these available for the less confident juniors to inspect their course with adult supervision. Unfortunately there were also may other adults using these maps to check out their own start location and generally work out their first leg or two. Also the two maps were usually pasted up one above the other, leaving very little room for those trying to squeeze in for a look.

So my plea is to have a couple examples of these maps on display, or at least spread them out a bit. Not too high from the ground either!

[greywolf]

And another to echo all the positives already mentioned, and to add that as one of the lucky ones who went back to a warm house with internet access i was very impressed with how promptly the results and routegadgets went on-line. And i enjoyed Camerory, even if some of those unmapped "extraction lanes" were a bit confusing.

very few negatives, and most of them to do with my own orienteering inadequacies, my only complaint was that i found it almost impossible to make out parts of the 1:15,000 maps of Alvie and Anagach, my magnifying lens not working too well in the rain... i'm not convinced it was really necessary to use the small scales for a "holiday event", would have thought two sets of maps only adds to the complexities of organisation?...but anyway by next time i'll officially have joined the old folk with big maps, hurrah!

Anyway, thanks to everyone involved in the organisation, great job!