Optimal distance for urban course lengths
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Re: Optimal distance for urban course lengths
I think all three pieces of planning software have their strengths and weaknesses. PurplePen is by far the easiest to use, but its relay functionality is pretty poor and it doesn't even support simple phi-loops, which has forced me to Condes more often than I would probably have liked. But it is free, so one can't complain too much.
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Scott - god
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Re: Optimal distance for urban course lengths
Well that proves its technically possible. I don't think most planners will have access to OCAD though, unless they are also mappers.Scott wrote:OCAD does both of those things, if you have used a standard symbol set and loaded a DEM.
I'm a regular Condes user. I use it on a laptop with a trackpad rather than a desktop with a mouse. I agree it is not technically complex, although I think there is too much clicking and dragging. Its fine for passing round a lake or OOB area in the forest but for a zig zaggy maze in the streets it could be slicker.Certainly in Condes it is trivial - just a few clicks to drag the route choice line round impassable objects.
Well I believe that the planners' instructions are unlike distance on open terrain which is measured as the crow flies, you measure height on the likely route choice (I do think that paradox is weird). So you would need to draw route choices on for the climb.Counting contours automatically is probably not a good idea as it is a bit subjective what to count. For example a steep hill on the purple that nobody is going to climb, or an essentially level contouring leg that crosses the same contour several times.
yes, but right clicking each leg to add it is a bit of a pain.Condes does keep a track of your manually entered climb for each leg and adds it up automatically for the courses
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Re: Optimal distance for urban course lengths
rf_fozzy wrote:pete.owens wrote:It does seem odd that the while the guidelines are flexible about how long the longest course should be they go on to precisely specify all the other courses as ratios of that course rather than retain the flexibility.
Course 1: length: "a piece of string"
Course 2: length: "83% of that piece of string"...
Because that's how all the planning rules and guidelines are written. As I understand it, they are based on the running speed of the recommended age classes that would be running the course.
Yes I know that is how the the rule s ARE written - I was just curious about WHY.
If the longest course was specified more tightly then it would make sense to have progressively shorter courses for older classes who wouldn't want to run that far. But if the longest course happens to be shortened by 40% it is already shorter than competitors entering courses 2 & 3 would expect. By all means have the flexibility on course lengths but apply that flexibility individually for each course
This is relevant to some of the points above: for example:
graeme wrote:Edinburgh 2022 was quite a good example of the challenge facing planners. There were two interesting areas quite far apart. I had the good fortune to run course 2, which visited both. Course 3 only visited one and spent time making up the distance in less interesting sections.
Which probably means that courses 4 & 5 were also good in that they could spend most of the time in one of the areas. The solution would be to use the flexibility to make course 3 longer (to visit both areas) OR shorter (to reduce dead running) rather than 67% of however long course 1 was.
King Penguin wrote:My perception (with no quantitative evidence to back it up) is that urban (as opposed to sprint) cources have generally been getting shorter, and I disapprove of this. I prefer a "classic" run time, not a "middle" which is what many seem to have become.
It is possible that some areas cannot support a 10km course which means that the longest course might be shorter than ideal for the M21s. But there is no reason to also reduce the length of course 3 to 4km to spoil it for the M60s.
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