British Long / Relay Champs 2014

[DeerTick]

Was anyone else puzzled hearing a whistle being blown on Saturday? Frustratingly it was only going about once every minute so was difficult to locate which direction it was coming from.

Yes, a couple of our competitors were caught in two minds about that.

AP

[Duncan]

How about a thought for those who completed a Championship Course, and received no BOF points...

Here is a thought - the points have been calculated according to the rules for rankings. I suspect you are either referring to a course with fewer than 10 ranked runners (rule 5.1.1) or runners younger than top year M/W16 (rule 2.1.3).

[greywolf]

and AFAICS the only athletes on the top courses for their age groups who didn't get ranking points were all the under 16s, who as Duncan says are excluded from the rankings by BOF, 2 W80 (Eileen Bedwell & Ursula Oxburgh) + 1 W90 (Jean Velecky). Hopefully their medals were adequate compensation for the lack of ranking points

[graeme]

He didn't specify ranking points. Maybe he meant people like, er, Claire Ward and Duncan who didn't get any UKOL points?

Is it true someone protested against INT winning Open relay team because they let an M16 cross the road?

[Sloop]

I've just read the officials' comments on the results web site. I'd like to congratulate Alan on his planning and I don't think he should beat himself up so much.

Course 11 was one with surprisingly long times, but IMHO, made just about the best possible use of the area, and was well worth the long amble to the start.

However, studying the splits, you can see that the first three legs caused problems to almost everyone whereas thereafter things were much more stable - which to me suggests the issues didn't lie entirely with the runners.

I think it was the combination of low visibility, extremely slow "running" and unexpectedly selective mapping that did the damage around #2 and #3. The feature for 208 (big boulder above crag above green blob) you would have expected to be immediately recognisable from somewhere close, but that was absolutely not the case - whereas it was the case for another close-by control (re-entrant between 2 massive crags). Because moving around was so slow, you couldn't easily get to see a bit more and so you couldn't easily re-evaluate what you were looking at.

[graeme]

I The feature for 208 (big boulder above crag above green blob) you would have expected to be immediately recognisable from somewhere close,

It was perfectly visible from somewhere close, unfortunately the centre of the circle wasn't "somewhere close". This is very evident if you look at the routegadget GPS tracks, and if you have the 91 map you'll notice the feature used to be three contours further up the slope, just where the GPS tracks find it.

As Alan carefully put it controls were on the correct feature . This is true, but...

but that (M50) was the best orienteering course I've ever done in the North East

and the sponsors were happy too

I don't want to go on about BOC, this stuff happens, and self-evidently it wasn't bad enough for anyone to protest. But if they aren't going to fix the map for next time...

[andypat]

The map is remarkably different to the 2009 NE champs map in this specific area (the one linked to the BOC website). The 2009 map is much clearer to read, although this doesnt of course mean it better represents what is actually on the ground.

[PhilJ]

out of interest which course and number was 208 on e.g course 1 number 4, routegadget does not show the codes.

[Duncan]

Course 1, control 20.

[DJM]

M/W50+ winning times - were they too long?

A geek's answer ...

It's possible to estimate what might have happened had (a) the winners made no errors, and (b) the course length ratios had been exactly as in the BOC Rules. Let's call this time the Ideal Winning Time (Ideal WT).

Condition (a) can be achieved by assuming the winner had run all of the fastest splits on the course, and Splitsbrowser allows this to be achieved directly. The second (b) is also straightforward - scale the winning time by the ratio BOF CLR:actual CLR.

Doing this gives the table below which gives all M/W50+ premier classes (except for those where there was insufficient data to do the estimates) and includes M21E for course comparison purposes. the second column gives the target range for winning times and the third gives the Ideal WT (as defined above).

class CRWTC Ideal WT
M21E 90-100 96.9
M50L 60-70C 62.3
M55L 60-70C 65.1
M60L 60-70C 67.2
M65L 55-65C 57.6
M70L 55-65C 67.9
M75L 55-65C 64.6
M80C 55-65C 64.5
W50L 55-65C 60.4
W55L 55-65C 69.6
W60L 55-65C 66.5
W65L 55-65C 64.5
W70L 55-65C 63.7
W75C 55-65C 75.9

The four Ideal WTs in red are those which are outside the target range, and three of them are only just so. Even the infamous course 11 (M60L) now comes within the target range - the winner's "errors" amounting to about 12.4 minutes here.

Conclusion: the Planner was pretty much spot on in judging the terrain speed for the best of each age class. Deeper analysis shows that long times were mostly due to large errors of winners but also, on occasions, due to courses being longer than the target lengths - for instance, both M70L and W55L appeared to be 11% over-length, no doubt for good reasons!

[DaveR]

Course 1, control 20.

Also
Course 9 #5
Course 11 #2
Course 15 #5

And yes, I missed it too, but at least part of that was my fault plus visiting a very large unmapped boulder in the white forest to the E of the control.

Anyway, minor grumping aside, my course seemed a good use of the area, and didn't seem too long to me - I should just have been faster.

[EddieH]

I also enjoyed reading Alan's comments and don't think he should beat himself up. If there is a problem it is that the course ratios don't reflect that oldies run slower in rough terrain than the elite.

As others have stated it is the incompetence of most and particularly us M60s that made the course look so long.

Having a look at the old Callaly map this one looks like a MASSIVE improvement. I just disagree with the boulder height criteria that were adopted as I have already stated.

It was fantastic to go to a major British race with very little idea what to expect - what a pity we can hardly ever do that. Ironically the last time it happened at the British was in the south east

[DJM]

If there is a problem it is that the course ratios don't reflect that oldies run slower in rough terrain than the elite.

Do they? My analysis above doesn't back this up at all ...

[andypat]

If there is a problem it is that the course ratios don't reflect that oldies run slower in rough terrain than the elite.

Do they? My analysis above doesn't back this up at all ...

Strictly speaking it does, but then you dont need analysis to know that [quote="DJM]oldies run slower in rough terrain than the elite.[/quote]

[PhilJ]

not being a mapper (tried it once, didn't like it!), are there rules on what size a boulder must be to be included on a map (1 x 1, 2 x 2 etc), or is it relevant to the specfic area, so if the area has lots of technical terrain and lots of boulders only the "major" ones are mapped and the others left off. So it is objectified mapping from the experience of the mapper? I have planned many events and quite a few times found myself questioning why one boulder is mapped and the one say 10m from it isn't, size/visibility etc seems the same.

Is there a rule of thumb (apologies if not directlty related to the british long/relay champs topic).