The British...
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Re: The British...
32 controls on M45L course - yep, exactly a long middle.
From small acorns great Oak trees grow.
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Lard - diehard
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Re: The British...
Relays. Congrats to
Women's: 1.SROC 2.FVO 3.EUOC
Men's: 1.EUOC 2.ShUOC 3.FVO
Commentary said first wins of these trophies for both.
Women's: 1.SROC 2.FVO 3.EUOC
Men's: 1.EUOC 2.ShUOC 3.FVO
Commentary said first wins of these trophies for both.
- afterthought
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Re: The British...
Good Morning,
For anyone interested in evaluating course lengths, the attached may help you form your oppinions. My appologies to those in the most experienced categories - I should have reduced those courses further despite the recommended ratios. My hat off to Graham: I had thought that it would be low 90s - so the flagship course was in fact underplanned.
Some good guesses about course 8 having a particularly high number of controls, but in fact all courses were planned initially from the same scale map. The actual reasons are: course 8 was the first course to have 2 planners - Clive very sadly has had increasing problems with his eyesight and had to pull out about 2 months ago. About 1 month ago several areas were declared out of bounds by the land owner, which required some drastic replanning of courses 8-11 in particular, during which I should probably have started from scratch but that seemed highly disrespectful to Clive - I tried to preserve probably too much of his work. Nevertheless I believe that many competitors will have enjoyed the navigational challenges of those courses - I know that I would have thoroughly enjoyed them.
Have a lovely day,
yours,
Iain
ps: our appologies for the car park charges - the tracking was bought in at a cost of almost 3k following logging vehicles having wrecked the track up the field in the fortnight leading up to the event. Very many dedicated individuals also spent very many hours laying it and lifting it before and after the event. This choice saved you over 2km and 100m of walking each day.
For anyone interested in evaluating course lengths, the attached may help you form your oppinions. My appologies to those in the most experienced categories - I should have reduced those courses further despite the recommended ratios. My hat off to Graham: I had thought that it would be low 90s - so the flagship course was in fact underplanned.
Some good guesses about course 8 having a particularly high number of controls, but in fact all courses were planned initially from the same scale map. The actual reasons are: course 8 was the first course to have 2 planners - Clive very sadly has had increasing problems with his eyesight and had to pull out about 2 months ago. About 1 month ago several areas were declared out of bounds by the land owner, which required some drastic replanning of courses 8-11 in particular, during which I should probably have started from scratch but that seemed highly disrespectful to Clive - I tried to preserve probably too much of his work. Nevertheless I believe that many competitors will have enjoyed the navigational challenges of those courses - I know that I would have thoroughly enjoyed them.
Have a lovely day,
yours,
Iain
ps: our appologies for the car park charges - the tracking was bought in at a cost of almost 3k following logging vehicles having wrecked the track up the field in the fortnight leading up to the event. Very many dedicated individuals also spent very many hours laying it and lifting it before and after the event. This choice saved you over 2km and 100m of walking each day.
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Pingu - red
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Re: The British...
Thats interesting Iain thanks.
By my reckoning thats 2 out of the last 3 years at BOC where the courses for the older competitors have been significantly longer than with hindsight they should have been. We clearly find this age group difficult to plan for.
Any insights into why this is?
I would assume terrain has a lot to do with it?
What about climb? Is there "good" climb and "bad climb" for the over 75s? ie one or two steep bits versus a more gradual spread of climb.
By my reckoning thats 2 out of the last 3 years at BOC where the courses for the older competitors have been significantly longer than with hindsight they should have been. We clearly find this age group difficult to plan for.
Any insights into why this is?
I would assume terrain has a lot to do with it?
What about climb? Is there "good" climb and "bad climb" for the over 75s? ie one or two steep bits versus a more gradual spread of climb.
Orienteering - its no walk in the park
- andypat
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Re: The British...
graeme wrote:M21E BOC '93 on Brown Clee - 16.4km + 680m climb.
Which at gg's 2016 pace would have given a 96 minute winning time, just as required. Plus ca change
coconut wrote:M40L 1:15,000 9.2k 410m 25 controls
M45L 1:10,000 9.2k 280m 32 controls
and may represent a different planning philosophy.
@andypat The older courses (planned by Clive) spent more time going round and round the tussocky bit and the random felling, which is much rougher than the fast woods where Iain took the elite. The elite paid for it in extra climb, but that is factored in in the scaling. Also Pingu didn't help his cause by excluding short course winners from the stats.
PS Good call on the parking/tracking.
PPS Nice splitting method on M21E
PPPS Why was women's short relay so much further than advertised? Our W40 team switched to a "shorter" course!
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: The British...
That winning time "hit rate" is pretty good! You can't get them all right as there are too many random factors involved. And you didn't have it easy as previous Brown Clee BOCs used a mixture of fast and tough terrain, whereas this time was mostly tough. So not that much to go on.
I do however think it would be nice to have some long courses with way fewer controls and more route choice. Even on my course 4 there was no real route choice even with "only" 25 controls on 9k. The terrain constraints, and choice to keep the southern bit for the relays, I'm sure didn't help but there were some options for example going directly from control 3 to 7 on c4.
I really don't think you need more than 20 controls on any course at a long BOC except M21E. Maybe one of the future years can go back to basics (but then please no whingeing that it was "too easy"!!)
I do however think it would be nice to have some long courses with way fewer controls and more route choice. Even on my course 4 there was no real route choice even with "only" 25 controls on 9k. The terrain constraints, and choice to keep the southern bit for the relays, I'm sure didn't help but there were some options for example going directly from control 3 to 7 on c4.
I really don't think you need more than 20 controls on any course at a long BOC except M21E. Maybe one of the future years can go back to basics (but then please no whingeing that it was "too easy"!!)
- Arnold
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Re: The British...
Arnold wrote:I really don't think you need more than 20 controls on any course at a long BOC except M21E.
I agree with you, but I don't think controls are the right measure. Even on a BOC course, there should be scope for technical sections with 3-4 short legs. What is essential, to my mind, is to have long legs with route choice. On my course (9), homer's longest split only 4:33. Even my leisurely peregrinations were all under 5:33.
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: The British...
andypat wrote:By my reckoning thats 2 out of the last 3 years at BOC where the courses for the older competitors have been significantly longer than with hindsight they should have been. We clearly find this age group difficult to plan for.
Any insights into why this is?
Looking at Ian's courses, they are, if anything too short, and certainly not too long.
Most people make the mistake of thinking that the criteria for JK/British courses is the estimated winning time. In fact, that is not the case. The rules clearly state that courses should be planned to a certain ratio based on the M21E course, which is the only course to be planned to a time (Appendix B, 2.7.1)*. The rules (Competition Rule A, 7.1.8 ) then go on to state that estimated winning times are given purely to give guidance as to what the winners should be able to achieve. These are not targets for the planners!
So, with Ian planning a base course that proved 5-10% shorter than desired, but with ratios that were pretty much spot on, he did, in fact, plan courses that were, if anything, on the short side!
The problem lies more with the rules: the relative strength of competitors falls off with age, and steepens after M/W55, so when the terrain gets tougher, then the differences are even bigger - the rules don't allow for this. It was one of the reasons why, at Kilnsey, I was content to allow the ratios to, if anything, be slightly longer for some courses - the terrain itself was relatively benign for older runners.**
* The rules for the JK are rather more ambiguous than the British, and allow for the W21E to be planned to a time too. I took advantage of that ambiguity.
** Two classes that are clearly wrong (at least at the JK) are M40 and M16. The M40 ratio is too long, and the M16 ratio is too short. I tried to compensate, and still got an M40 that ran over the EWT, and an M16 that ran under (I blame the winner for an amazing run! Second was in the time range).
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awk - god
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Re: The British...
awk wrote: the relative strength of competitors falls off with age, and steepens after M/W55, so when the terrain gets tougher, then the differences are even bigger
I agree with the first part of this but if you can find any quantitative evidence to support the second part I'll be surprised ...
I've tried a few times in the past to find such evidence, my methodology being to take results from multiday events where the same people compete each day and looking to see how well the winners' speeds change with age class. I've found very little connection between the ratios of these speeds and the varying physical nature of each race.
As graeme wrote in a previous post, a much bigger factor is the variability of terrain physicality within each course
The older courses (planned by Clive) spent more time going round and round the tussocky bit and the random felling, which is much rougher than the fast woods where Iain took the elite. The elite paid for it in extra climb, but that is factored in in the scaling
So I think it is a myth that, for the class leaders at least, speed ratios are stretched more when the terrain is tougher. I can find no hard evidence to support this.
- DJM
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Re: The British...
It would be hard to judge from event results given the variability of terrain in any one event. However indirectly, it's well documented that strength loss accelerates in older age. I also remember somebody taking a look at running speed ratios between terrain and path, how far round it's worth going, and finding that generally for older people the round routes can be longer than for younger (and this would affect trying to judge from events where older runners may be compensating for rougher terrain by being prepared to take longer routes round). But again, can't quote chapter and verse - Scientific Journal of Orienteering perhaps? Or just some work done on training camps?? I may be relying on anecdotal evidence there.
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awk - god
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Re: The British...
graeme wrote:PPPS Why was women's short relay so much further than advertised? Our W40 team switched to a "shorter" course!
The programme shows women's short grouped with W60 and M/W70 at 3.1-3.2km but in fact it was the same course as W50 & W18 at 3.9-4.km. We have a W70 who agreed to substitute for an injured runner on Women's short who is not amused.
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Re: The British...
awk wrote:It would be hard to judge from event results given the variability of terrain in any one event. However indirectly, it's well documented that strength loss accelerates in older age. I also remember somebody taking a look at running speed ratios between terrain and path, how far round it's worth going, and finding that generally for older people the round routes can be longer than for younger (and this would affect trying to judge from events where older runners may be compensating for rougher terrain by being prepared to take longer routes round). But again, can't quote chapter and verse - Scientific Journal of Orienteering perhaps? Or just some work done on training camps?? I may be relying on anecdotal evidence there.
Compare runners from different courses that run the same leg, and see how the ratios vary with the terrain? From a single event you would not get enough data, but if this was collected over a period of time it would build up. When I did this for Dunalastair I only used the top 3 or so runners to exclude navigational errors.
This would take human input though - software could look at result files and extract which legs are shared etcetera, but judging the type of terrain takes someone who was there.
- Rosine
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Re: The British...
OK so I guess what I was saying is...
Appendix B says:
If you look at the British Champs rules, nowhere does it say that the course length ratios are mandatory. It just says that the EWT are for guidance only.
Is it a case of what takes precedence - the rules of orienteering or the rules of the British championships? Could the British champs rules be clarified to help planners give older competitors a chance?
Appendix B says:
rough terrain has a greater effect on the running speed of younger and older
competitors than of M21s
older competitors are significantly affected by steep terrain, particularly
downhill
older competitors find dense tree growth more of an obstacle – suppleness
decreases with age
There is no magic formula for allowing for these variables.
If you look at the British Champs rules, nowhere does it say that the course length ratios are mandatory. It just says that the EWT are for guidance only.
Is it a case of what takes precedence - the rules of orienteering or the rules of the British championships? Could the British champs rules be clarified to help planners give older competitors a chance?
Orienteering - its no walk in the park
- andypat
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Re: The British...
The rules clearly state that courses should be planned to a certain ratio based on the M21E course
I can see nothing in the rules that state this, only that "These notes should be read in conjunction with Appendix B: Course planning."
Appendix B then goes on to say:
2.7.1 For certain events and competitions the required lengths of courses are defined in terms of course length ratios relative to a base course.
2.7.3 Applying the course length ratios – points to watch out for:
- M21 (or Black) probably uses the whole area. The shorter courses use only part of it, and this might be more or less runnable, or steeper/flatter, than the average
So the course length ratios aren't an a absolute, and in this case the M21 course did use more runnable terrain than the shorter courses.
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Re: The British...
So to quote myself (and risk a slow descent into madness...)
Seems like the rules are being interpreted differently with some of us seeing absolutes and some seeing 50 shades of grey (Uh oh I feel the madness already)
Would it be worth some clarification somewhere in the rules to ensure these VIPOAPs get a test that is fair and equitable with their ages?
andypat wrote: We clearly find this age group difficult to plan for.
Any insights into why this is?
Seems like the rules are being interpreted differently with some of us seeing absolutes and some seeing 50 shades of grey (Uh oh I feel the madness already)
Would it be worth some clarification somewhere in the rules to ensure these VIPOAPs get a test that is fair and equitable with their ages?
Orienteering - its no walk in the park
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