The format of the JK

[EddieH]

Very enjoyable JK despite the cold.

The sprint wasn't wildly technical, however it was always interesting. The shapes of the buildings made it very hard to assess shortest routes. How people think that urban is more varied than Uni campuses I can't imagine. Sprint keeps you on your toes. Urban often has long stretches of pure running. Quite apart from the problems of fitting children into towns a long tarmac race is hardly likely to appeal to the majority of members that never do urban, nor those that find the whole weekend too long.

I am also neutral about the middle/long debate. One middle would make it far easier for some regions to put on a JK, and I really enjoy a well planned middle race. I do wonder how many people we might lose though.

The relay this year was brilliantly planned - perfect arena, excellent commentary - speakers not deafening but audible.

[graeme]

quite a few people ... who want to run against the elite.

Maybe. But for "less fit" people their alternative would be M21L ... which is longer than the elite!

The whole business of 21L and Short courses is nuts.

Obviously not everyone is fit enough/technically good enough to race the distances appropriate for the top runners, and of course the JK should make appropriate courses available. But the idea that we know exactly how unfit an unfit 45 year old should be makes no sense at all.

Similarly, it's great that we have a very short relay for the least fit people - but having done the extra work to put it on, it's stupid that we then ban 90% of people from running in it!

[andypat]

the idea that we know exactly how unfit an unfit 45 year old should be makes no sense at all.

me again?

I train harder and can comfortably run for longer than, say, andypat.

[Arnold]

The arguments against the Middle day seem a bit muddled. On the one hand we're saying people might no longer come because there's not enough orienteering. On the other we're saying there's too much orienteering already by Monday so many people can't cope with the whole weekend!

So how many people would you really lose? And how many new ones might you attract, who today think 2 longs is too much? For starters it would fix the 21Long anomaly where 21L is longer over 2 days than 21E.

There are always people who don't like change but that's not a reason not to change. I say we give it a try one year and see what happens! There could be some very cool new areas being used for the JK for the first time.

[awk]

What about a Saturday middle distance for all open classes (M and W), with 'classic' (because our course is not 'long') for the rest? You could even have 21L and 21S running the same middle, then splitting for the long day? (Having said that, I'd like to try middle for one year and see what the response would be).

[Tim]

Making Day 2 a middle distance and including the Day 1 sprint as part of the overall timing has a nice symmetry about it and would award the “best all-rounder” but it would make the weekend harder to justify for those, like me, who don’t want to spend the whole Bank Holiday weekend, on my tod, away from my family, spending money solely on myself. Sorry not to embrace all the new formats but I’m very happy to do two good classic races and that’s it.

[Sloop]

Ia anything actually broken here, that needs fixing ?

From my competitive old chap point of view, the current format is absolutely fine. Two back-to-back long races with added up times is a serious and very enjoyable challenge. Sprint is very different, also great fun, and correctly a separate thing (not least because travelling for the weekend may make it difficult for every contender to take part). As for Relays - yes they're great if you're lucky enough to have a competitive team, but mostly a bit flat and tired as a run but good fun to watch.

If people want to add the sprint to the overall, and swap a middle in for a long ... how is the overall result to be calculated ? Would you go for positions, added times, weighted added times eg. (sprint x 3) + (middle x 2) + long, or new-fangled ranking points ?

[graeme]

For starters it would fix the 21Long anomaly where 21L is longer over 2 days than 21E.

I don't see fixing an anomaly for 20-odd people as a compelling reason.
The fact is that middle races aren't proving popular. Even when we do one (I've organised two and controlled one), people opt to run up to get their hour's worth unless we prod them by making it part of a series with long races. There are still plenty of "colour-coded up to green" type events on small areas, presumably with normal "long"-type planning. These could be converted to middle, but people don't want to.

Only in Yorkshire do they seem to advertise standalone "Middle" - and at those events the majority of people are choosing courses which gives them over an hour orienteering - i.e. they're effectively converting them to the traditional/classic lengths we know and love.

People will go to the JK regardless, and I find it invidious to force on us format that cannot find support on its own merits. The contrast with Urban is striking - it's booming because its popular and fun, it doesn't need to be shoehorned into series with other competitions to get people to do it, and its bringing a whole load of cool new areas online. Urban has all the credentials we should look for in a format which deserves to be considered for the JK.

Despite having considered it, I still prefer the current format, though there is some merit in moving the relay to a day when everyone isn't rushing to get home.

[awk]

Only in Yorkshire do they seem to advertise standalone "Middle" - and at those events the majority of people are choosing courses which gives them over an hour orienteering - i.e. they're effectively converting them to the traditional/classic lengths we know and love.

Which events specifically are using? As far as I can see and recall, all those I've attended have seen the vast majority of people run the middle distance version of their usual colour (i.e. if they normally run Blue they stick to the middle distance version of it rather than running up to, say, Brown or Black).

[NeilC]

Which is pretty much what we are seeing with the 300+ entries for the SE/SC middle champs this weekend
http://www.fabian4.co.uk/start/list.aspx?EventID=824
Perhaps here though it's the lure of medals that's encouraging people to run the recommended course.

I very much doubt that changing day 2 of the JK to a middle race for all will have a significant effect on numbers. Personally I would be more excited about a middle race on a small but technical area than a long slog around an area similar in nature to day 3.

[Marco Polo]

Which is pretty much what we are seeing with the 300+ entries for the SE/SC middle champs this weekend
http://www.fabian4.co.uk/start/list.aspx?EventID=824
Perhaps here though it's the lure of medals that's encouraging people to run the recommended course.

I very much doubt that changing day 2 of the JK to a middle race for all will have a significant effect on numbers. Personally I would be more excited about a middle race on a small but technical area than a long slog around an area similar in nature to day 3.

For those of us who often run short, there is a difference between running usual colour and correct age group. Depending on fitness, I'd run short blue, blue or short brown at long distance events - which fits my age class- but usually short brown at middle distance which is the appropriate colour for my age.

[Arnold]

I find it invidious to force on us format that cannot find support on its own merits.

No one's forcing anything. Remember that in the last survey (2011) more people "agreed" with having a Middle / Long combo than "disagreed"!

[graeme]

No one's forcing anything. Remember that in the last survey (2011) more people "agreed" with having a Middle / Long combo than "disagreed"!

Actually, we were asked whether it should be considered. I agreed that it should be considered, just like I said above the urban should be considered. doesn't mean it should be implemented.

[rob f]

Looking at Graythwaite, a middle then classic, people are running up on the classic too. That may be the quality of the area.

[greywolf]

Actually, we were asked whether it should be considered.

which implies that 29% of those who replied were so stuck in their ways that they didn't think change should even be considered...

IMHO Middle and Long aren't sufficiently differentiated for the majority of GB O-punters. At WOC (& JWOC) level they are significantly different types of race: the men's Long race is ~3 x the Middle race (women's is ~2.5 x). Perhaps more importantly, elite competitors tend to have the physical ability to change gear for shorter races and the map-reading & navigational skills to cope with the higher speed and (in theory) greater complexity/rapidity of decision making.

In contrast, if you work through the ratios in the various BOF guidelines, for some age classes Long is barely 50% longer than Middle* (and that's when they're planned to the guidelines, and we know how often "long" races end up shorter than they should be). And the majority of orienteers seem to be rather one-paced physically, or don't have the skills to navigate at higher speed even if they could run faster
(I'm not sure if this is age-related, or just because over the years the sport has selected for slow-twitchers) so I don't think it's very surprising most folk seem to regard Middle races as a slightly shorter than usual pootle, and therefore somehow less VFM

* For example
M50 at a bog standard long race (e.g. CSC heat) guideline B says Blue course 56% of a Black course with an elite winning time of 67 mins. 67*56% = 37.5 mins
M50 at a standard middle race guideline C says Brown course 83% of a Black course with an elite winning time range of 30-35 mins. 30*83% = 25 mins, 35*83% = 29 mins
The long course for M50 is only ~ 30-50 % longer than a middle

Or another way of looking at it, most of the time, most folk are only running courses that would be middle race length for the elite...