Salisbury City Race

[Tatty]

Many thanks to SARUM for a great event today. Super planning, lots of intricate areas in the schools interspersed with longer legs. Thanks to Andy & Liz Snell. Really good to have got permissions for all those schools. A great assembly area, warm showers and great hot food all added to the atmosphere of the day. Well done to all the Club.

[Knee Deep Mud!]

Second the comments on a good event. Thanks Sarum. Nice mix of terrain - streets, footpaths, parks, gardens, churches, schools. Intricate bits in the schools (particularly Godolphin), and long (up to 1.2km) route choice legs. Managed to keep my feet dry getting to the control on the island, only to get them soaked going through a flooded underpass twice.
Onsite catering was good - best chocolate cake I've had for ages
Not sure about the showers - they were sub arctic when I used them

[awk]

I'd echo the praise and thanks - a great mix. A lot of work must have gone into this with all the various permissions for all the different places - plus all the extras like the Photo Trail etc. Much, much appreciated.

Thanks also to SOC for today's November Classic. It's been too long since I was last in the New Forest, and it was glorious to run through such a fast, runnable, beautiful woodland. Dare I say my course (Blue Men, M55) could have done with being a kilometre or so longer?? But that's mainly because I was enjoying it so much!

Coupled with an afternoon round the White Horse and Uffington Castle, a day exploring Jane Austen country, and a morning in Salisbury Cathedral (stunning), it's been a fab few days in Wiltshire/Hampshire.

[haloite]

Some Photos from Salisbury City Race

[jonesy]

Many thanks for a great event. One of the best urban races this year.

[SJC]

An excellent weekend, although like awk I felt the November Classic courses were on the short side. A winning time of 44 minutes on the M60 course is somewhat less than expected.

Is this caused by attempting to adhere to some sort of colour coded guideline rather than using the old fashioned method of just numbering the courses and planning to the right length for the age classes running them ? The colour coding hardly simplifies things when standing at the start and trying to work out which of the four Blue course maps to pick up, so perhaps it is time to drop the colours completely for large events like this.

[frostbite]

Is this caused by attempting to adhere to some sort of colour coded guideline rather than using the old fashioned method of just numbering the courses and planning to the right length for the age classes running them ?

No.

According to the guidelines the height adjusted course length of the Blue course should be approximately 56% of the height adjusted course length of the Black. It was actually 53%, which is acceptable but on the short side. According to the guidelines Black should be planned to be won by a top elite runner in 67 minutes. It was won by Ed Catmur in 62:50. So the Black winning time is about 6% too short. On top of that, Ed is a very good runner but is not at the level of the top elites. At the JK he was 15% slower than Matt Speake. So overall, according to the guidelines, the Blue course should have been 28% longer. Would a 56 minute winning time have been acceptable?

(I take no responsibility for the accuracy of my sums)

The difficulty comes in judging what a top elite runner might be capable of. It is probably easier for the planner to judge the length of their own usual course and apply the ratios relative to that. Whichever the planner has done, they have misjudged the distances.

I agree with you about the multiple Blue courses though.

[IanD]

Great event. MSV course very good (although WUV less enchanted with hers).

Just one little caveat. We spend a lot of time trying to persuade people to abide by the rules. Such as going around vegetation mapped as not-to-be-crossed even when there is a gap which is physically passable. This isn't just pedantry, often repeat access depends on the rules being obeyed.

It was a shame therefore that one control on many courses could not be legally accessed, it was on an island completely surrounded by not-to-be-crossed water. Physically easy (for most of us) to jump across, but that's not the point.

[afterthought]

I felt the November Classic courses were on the short side...Is this caused by attempting to adhere to some sort of colour coded guideline

Frostbite gives a good analysis. It is not the guidelines. As well as Ed's run he might have pointed out that a (very good) M16 (0.84 of elite speed), the Swede, Simon Hector, ran the black (recc time 67 mins for elite winner) in 63½ mins - [edit] 16 mins too quickly.

Nope has discussed course lengths quite recently:
http://forum.nopesport.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14015
See the chat about the recent Welsh Champs which were similarly short.

As Frostbite says it isn't always easy to find a comparable event which an elite runner has taken seriously. Here the best might be the 2010 SHI. A simplified view (using just length, not height adjusted length) might use the 4.75 mins/km achieved (Alasdair McLeod, then M20), which would put the black at 14.1 km (or 1½km longer) so blue would then be ~1km longer. That course was called short brown.

Broadly, Sunday's lengths, like at the Welsh, whilst neither out of line with most people's expectations, nor with what is commonly planned, are short of the guidelines. If the course lengths are advertised beforehand, as they were for the Classic, you can always enter the course you prefer - but of course other people your age might not (and I know that is important to many.)

[graeme]

If the course lengths are advertised beforehand, as they were for the Classic, you can always enter the course you prefer

That would assume that you, knowing only the course length and what the area was like a few years ago, have a better idea of how long it will take than the planner and controller do. Despite them knowing where the courses go, what the terrain is like now and (one might hope) actually having test-run.
Unfortunately, such arrogance is often not misplaced

[awk]

If the course lengths are advertised beforehand, as they were for the Classic, you can always enter the course you prefer - but of course other people your age might not (and I know that is important to many.)

More to the point, this was a UKOL race - so quite a few people were there to compete in their age class.

I want to emphasise that I thoroughly enjoyed the course. My point about distance was as much to emphasise how much I did enjoy the course.

But in answer to your question, frostbite, I would have had no problem with a 56 minute winning time - indeed, sounds about right to me.