From the other thread - next year's JK.
Day 1 - sprint
Day 2 - middle
Day 3 - classic/long (but 10% longer than normal JK classic/long
Day 4 - relay.
In case you've never been (unlikely for Nopesport types?)
This year's format is
Day 1 - sprint
Day 2 - classic/long (except elite who had middle)
Day 3 - classic/long
Day 4 - relay.
JK 2017 format changes - votes
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
You need a "haven't made my mind up if I'm going yet it's too early with too few details" option.
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
SeanC wrote:This year's format is
Day 1 - sprint
Day 2 - classic/long (except elite who had middle)
Day 3 - classic/long
Day 4 - relay.
No it wasn't. Day 2 and 3 give you the choice between long and short. Approx 1/3 people chose short.
I'm not clear whether the proposal is to change the short courses on day 2 to middle courses, and if so whether that will make them longer or shorter.
WOC2024 Edinburgh
Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
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graeme - god
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
I voted "no difference as I'm going anyway" - well plan to go anyway - it's still a long way off. But that's 'cos it's close by. If it was further afield, as 2015 & 16 were, I might well be less inclined to go.
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
graeme wrote:No it wasn't. Day 2 and 3 give you the choice between long and short.
Only if you are prepared to accept that you will not take part in the main 2-day competition for your age class (outside the elites), and will, if not running the long, not race against the best in your age group. It's not exactly an uneven choice. Even then, as you say, one-third chose the shorter option.
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awk - god
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
graeme wrote:I'm not clear whether the proposal is to change the short courses on day 2 to middle courses, and if so whether that will make them longer or shorter.
I'm guessing that in the spirit of middle events, you'd have to give short course runners short middles as well, but maybe someone from the events and competitions committee could clarify? This might be an opportunity to combine age classes on some of the short courses?
I haven't run many middle events before. Am I correct in thinking the format is basically lots of short legs so you have to keep concentrating? I guess this would make the straight route between controls the best option in many cases in places like the south east which doesn't have much complex contour detail? How do planners avoid routes between controls tracking up and giving a significant advantage to later runners? (These aren't rhetorical questions - genuinely wondering)
I will probably only have time to do one or two JK days, and personally prefer a long race, but could be persuaded to do the middle if it's good parking, small walks to start etc
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
I doubt the fastest runners will always be taking straight routes at Day 2 JK 2017 if the planners use the variety of terrain on the area.
IMO good middle courses should require a wide variety of techniques and lots of micro and some moderate macro route choices to deal with the runnability, visibility, complexity problems posed. So a course with just short legs requiring a basic compass bearing only would be poor planning.
IMO good middle courses should require a wide variety of techniques and lots of micro and some moderate macro route choices to deal with the runnability, visibility, complexity problems posed. So a course with just short legs requiring a basic compass bearing only would be poor planning.
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
SeanC wrote:I haven't run many middle events before. Am I correct in thinking the format is basically lots of short legs so you make the straight route between controls the best option
Sadly, this does seem to have become the understanding in the UK. Internationally, they just plan the best course on the given area. For the best UK middle I've run, see:
http://www.jk.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#52&course=1
edit... What's good about it?
Continuous change in style and runnability
Good longish legs with route choice
Control-pick sections
Most mistakes were made on 8-9. It's a difficult leg with lots of cliffs to push you off line, but the key challenge is that you just came in from a screaming fast moorland descent to a trivial control, and suddenly have to adapt style to know exactly where you are.
Last edited by graeme on Wed Apr 13, 2016 11:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
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graeme - god
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
That course seems very similar to the "short" course I ran on the same day, course 18, M45S. http://www.jk.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#55&course=14 . Did I run a middle race? Lovely course it was though.
I am confused about what exactly a middle race is. Is it the distance, is it the style, somewhere in between. So I haven't voted for my own poll
I'm sure if I go I'll enjoy the course whatever it is.
I am confused about what exactly a middle race is. Is it the distance, is it the style, somewhere in between. So I haven't voted for my own poll
I'm sure if I go I'll enjoy the course whatever it is.
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
SeanC wrote:I am confused about what exactly a middle race is. Is it the distance, is it the style, somewhere in between. So I haven't voted for my own poll
IMO (and Graeme, I'm sure will say different if he thinks otherwise!), it's a bit of a combination of both. First of all it's the shorter distance, which itself dictates some of the style, so that, for instance, you're unlikely to get a large-scale route choice leg. Guidelines suggest that the emphasis is more on sustained running through the terrain (although in areas of Scotland, Scandinavia etc., that can be achieved anyway on a long-distance course). I see it as a greater crowding of skills - more used in a shorter space - with more emphasis on finer techniques. But, as Graeme says, basically, planning the best possible course in that distance.
One reason I'd like to see a Middle on the Saturday, is that it would provide an opportunity to run a genuine long distance on the Sunday (I wouldn't want to try doing 2 back-to-back in a four day festival). I'm aware that even for some of the older classes (including, indeed especially, my own, at M55), I had to compromise courses at Kilnsey to keep them down to the ratio/EWT. Another 10-15 minutes running times would have made a fair bit of difference (and, anyway, should a genuine long distance be longer than the current unreduced-for-the-JK guidelines?). On the other hand, I'd have struggled to give the M65s a stile-free course. (I have to admit, too, that those courses starting at the south start felt more as if I was planning middle distance style courses - it was hard to get the longer legs in for instance, although I tried!).
Which may beg the question - that there may well be a sufficiently significant difference between long and middle distance at elite level in terms of distances etc. to create sufficiently different courses - can this be done as effectively as the courses get shorter, and if there is a limit, where is it? I certainly see it remaining possible, and to my mind attractive, at M55.
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awk - god
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
The main guideline for a middle race is that it should be "consistently technical". Which doesn't mean control pick but it should mean a more technical area to start with, and no route choices with long path options. Whereas long the focus should be more on route choice and the physical aspect.
The control density should also be higher, but not too crazy. In my view 20-25 controls is a good aim for both middle and long.
But of course the difference between middle and long becomes smaller the shorter the course. If a long course is only supposed to be 6k it wasn't going to have a lot of route choice to start with.
The control density should also be higher, but not too crazy. In my view 20-25 controls is a good aim for both middle and long.
But of course the difference between middle and long becomes smaller the shorter the course. If a long course is only supposed to be 6k it wasn't going to have a lot of route choice to start with.
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
Just out of interest (since its been an unanswered query previously) does middle distance, in terms of a standard event, only apply to the TD 5 courses, or TD 3 and above? It cant apply to TD 1 and 2 in any meaningful way.
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
Here's a challenge for those people who understand middle.
Here's a course used for (I think M50 or M45 short amongst other age classes) at JK 2013 in the Chilterns, which will be more similar to JK 2017 than Ulpha Park. Could this course be described as a middle course? The routes crossing the valleys and ridges look like they will have a short bit of path running. If this is not middle standard, what specific changes would you make to make it middle standard?
http://www.jk.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#38&course=18
Here's a course used for (I think M50 or M45 short amongst other age classes) at JK 2013 in the Chilterns, which will be more similar to JK 2017 than Ulpha Park. Could this course be described as a middle course? The routes crossing the valleys and ridges look like they will have a short bit of path running. If this is not middle standard, what specific changes would you make to make it middle standard?
http://www.jk.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#38&course=18
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
awk wrote: - can this be done as effectively as the courses get shorter, and if there is a limit, where is it? I certainly see it remaining possible, and to my mind attractive, at M55.
I feel M55 is getting toward the limit of where things are possible. I think the two aspects of a middle course are:
1/ control pick, which I define as a section where each leg is too short to be difficult, but the challenge is one of processing (mapfolding, maporienting, description reading remembering which leg you're on...) to keep up with what comes next.
2/ longer legs, to break concentration and force a change in style, and reward runners for making time to plan ahead.
The first becomes difficult as you get older. You're looking for ~1min legs, and in many terrains these legs are so short for the older classes that it just becomes one feature to the next.
The second is slightly different from long: in the middle you're testing execution and concentration, more than picking the best route. Probably you only have scope for one long leg, and you don't want to make a single route-choice decision THE decisive factor in the whole course.
Middle is particularly problematic at the JK, where sheer numbers of people mean you just run from one honeypot to the next. Another reason why the JK is a particularly bad choice is the required control density soon means every feature has a flag on it -
you navigate by asking "what feature is that on" and a critical (but undesireable) factor is not being distracted by the wrong flag.
Exacerbating this is the apparent desire to use "smaller areas". I agree with arnold that a good middle course will have a similar number of controls to a good long. This implies a doubling in the control density - something with which most areas cannot cope.
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Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
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graeme - god
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Re: JK 2017 format changes - votes
andypat wrote:
Just out of interest (since its been an unanswered query previously) does middle distance, in terms of a standard event, only apply to the TD 5 courses, or TD 3 and above? It cant apply to TD 1 and 2 in any meaningful way.
For information/interest, we are staging two Middle days at this year's Croeso multiday in South Wales and were faced with similar how-to-plan-Middle-across-all-age-classes problems.
What we will be doing is as follows:-
• The TD1/2 courses should be conventional White and Yellow
• The TD3 course remains at Orange as competitors are still learners.
• The TD4 course (M/W14A/16B) has Middle characteristics but without going to TD5. The winning time is not 30-35 minutes as for the Seniors, but the same 20-25 minutes that JWOC has.
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