British Middle Distance Champs

[LostAgain]

greens tend to have 15 legs of 600m

Don't let Mharky plan any greens, 15 x 600m = 9Km
They make them tough at Edinburgh....

[geomorph]

As DJM said, it's not just a Green course (anything but!),

Can you enlighten us then?

I'm looking at M21 routegadget. Looks like a decent area, and good planning. Including pretty much the longest legs you can possibly fit given the nature of the terrain. But if a planner presented this to me as a green course, I''d be quite happy with it. What's wrong with it as a green?

Maybe some of the shorter courses dont have the significant route choices and changes of technique? What else?

Surely the only real difference between a green and a middle elite is the density of controls. Whilst the BMDC Men's elite did not have quite as dense a set as we lowly mortals (1per 210m vs 1 per 175m), perhaps a green would have had 1 per 275-300m (as previous events there had done). Maybe if I were a planner then I would have broken up course 1 leg 3-4 (500m) with two more controls.... but that's why I'm not a planner.

I was impressed how close the planners got to the recommended winning times, though apart from Clive Hallett on course 3 the older men tended to be significantly slower on 3 and 4. Youngsters on 4 were right on time.

[Homer]

though apart from Clive Hallett on course 3 the older men tended to be significantly slower on 3 and 4.

That's not because the planner got it wrong, it's because we were rubbish!

Well done to the planner for an excellent job on what I thought was a slightly 'iffy' map (particularly the contours). I was impressed by how well the top elites coped with it. I think LEI should have taken the opportunity to get a top class professionally produced map of their excellent area. That would have been a great legacy.

Otherwise a brilliantly organised weekend.

[mharky]

Don't let Mharky plan any greens, 15 x 600m = 9Km
They make them tough at Edinburgh....

i meant 300, honest!

[EddieH]

I ran at a HOC club champs where the planner "meant" the courses to be normal Reality was somewhat different with overall winning time of about 90 mins, and the yellow (which everyone ran) taking the elite over half an hour

[madmike]

Likewise Eddie - I ran at a club champs in 2008 where the planner meant 6.6K but delivered 9.9K

[awk]

As DJM said, it's not just a Green course (anything but!),

Can you enlighten us then?....What's wrong with it as a green?

I think most of it has already been said, but just to answer your question myself: personally I think there's nothing wrong with it as a Green (rather the opposite - I wish green was more like this more often), but there is currently a difference between the definitions of Green and Middle Distance. As your quote points out, the Green definition puts just as much emphasis on 'significant route choice' as on fine navigation, i.e. it's a definition that more closely equates to the traditional classic style. Middle distance, whilst retaining route choice, has a stronger emphasis on fine, high intensity navigation throughout. And this is what was achieved very successfully yesterday.

What I would personally like to see is the BOF definition of Green distance courses changing (which includes S classes) to more closely equate to the middle distance style, so that there isn't this difference. It probably won't happen for S classes as they are often somebody else's L class, but it would be great to see the Green courses being something other than a truncated Classic and developing a style of their own.

[graeme]

i meant 300, honest!

As in 6.5km, 230m climb, 22 controls and a run in you mean ?
http://www.od.routegadget.co.uk/od/reit ... d=3&kieli=

Or 4.8km, 16 controls plus two on the run in ?
http://www.woc2008.cz/files/images/scon ... _MEN-B.gif

[SeanC]

I don't think anyone from the other Kent club has used this thread to shamelessly plug the South East middle distance champs at Blean near Canterbury on the 6th Sept. The SE sprint champs is the day before (new gg map of Kent Uni). Some of you will never have ventured into this corner of England. It's a great place for a late summer weekend break - lots of touristy things nearby. For seaside accommodation slightly trendy Whitstable is only a few miles away, or there is the event campsite at Blean Wood or Kent Uni rooms.

Back to the topic, ish. Blean suits the middle race format because it's runnable and there's plenty of great features, but in more bog standard forests round my way you often need some longer "route choice" legs to get through the grotty bits, so I guess you couldn't advertise your green courses as middle distance in this case?

[DJM]

Graeme asked about the difference between Green and Middle ... so here goes (quotations are from IOF Competition Rules):-

Legs: "consistently technically difficult" for Middle whereas Green will have more variation in technical difficulty in practice especially as a large number of British Green courses rarely exceed TD4.

Route choice: "small and medium scale route choice" for Middle whereas Green (as with Blue, Brown and Black) should have significant route choice, including one or two long legs. This is an important difference: long legs are reserved for Long courses and should have no part in Middle races. Having relegated myself to Green courses recently, I recognise that not all meet the long leg/significant route choice criteria ...

As has been said already, this difference shows up (crudely) in the average leg length which maybe halved when going from Green to Middle.

Terrain: "technically complex" for Middle, ideally consistently so, whereas Green will have some technical complexity (if the terrain allows).

I think that only a small minority of British areas, particularly those in the southern half, meet the Middle terrain criterion above whilst, at the same time, they are acceptable for Green courses. Of the areas I know directly, Leith Hill does, Cademan/Thringstone does, Clydach Terrace does.

Looking overseas, Cocoladka, this year's WOC Middle Q area, did not meet the consistently technical criterion. The course Graeme cited at http://www.woc2008.cz/files/images/scontent/maps/middleQ/middleQ_MEN-B.gif is a mixture of Green and Middle and is not in my view a good example of a Middle race at all as a result. Unfortunately, you can't always rely on WOC providing perfect examples of the different disciplines, Sprint, Middle and Long ...

[Godders]

long legs are reserved for Long courses and should have no part in Middle races

wrong, wrong, wrong

A middle distance course with a route choice leg can be far harder than one without - otherwise you can just go into compass and continuous contact mode - surely a middle distance race should be testing as many techniques as possible. Also I would far rather that a course made the best use of an area than sticking to some stupid formula.

[DJM]

Godders: read what I wrote! I stated that a Middle race should have "small and medium scale route choice", so I don't disagree with you at all ... I'm merely saying that a long leg (of, say, a kilometre) is disproportionate in a Middle course and shouldn't be there. Shorter route choice legs are required instead.

The "stupid formula" originates from the IOF, who developed the Middle race discipline in the first place, in an attempt to give each of Sprint, Middle and Long their own characterstics so that one is not merely a shorter form of another. Surely quite a laudable aim I would have thought.

[awk]

Also I would far rather that a course made the best use of an area than sticking to some stupid formula.

So some areas will be better suited to middle distance, some to classic style, some to long distance, some to sprint....
The formula is surely only 'stupid' if one chooses the wrong area in which to apply it. But that's always been the case: get the wrong style of planning, and you don't make best use of the area. Having a choice of a range of formats makes no difference to that.

[graeme]

wrong, wrong, wrong

David can't be wrong - he writes the rules!

A middle distance course with a route choice leg can be far harder than one without - otherwise you can just go into compass and continuous contact mode

...of course...

- surely a middle distance race should be testing as many techniques as possible.

...apparently not - because that's what a green course is. "Middle" seems to be a green with major route choice and variation in technique taken out (and a pious hope that its only held on the very best areas). Just like "long" has the really technical bits taken out. If you want change of pace, significant route choices and detailed mapreading, you need to do sprints!

Unlike David, I don't see making things easy by taking out half the challenge as a laudable aim. Actually, more than half - I agree 100% with Oyvin Thon that there's no such thing as difficult orienteering, only incorrect speed.

Unfortunately there's no Dallaschyle routegadget. Would be interesting to compare the green course there with the LEI middle.

Leith hill is here: some cracking long route choices

http://www.jk.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin ... =13&kieli=


(Yes, I know elite middle are longer than green)

[mharky]

This is getting rediulous