Tinto Twin

[frog]

Have only done "fun" night events before like the FWTN ones ( where I usually trip over boulders and get stuck in thickets) and one at the white rose last year but am planning to enter the Tinto Twin next weekend.
I see it's all age classes. Do proper night events have a full range of courses and does running your age class course mean you get a similar standard of course to during the day? If so I may need to pretend to be a W12 as my son wants the best headtorch.

[EddieH]

It's all a bit of a mystery to me. On Saturday there seems to be no way of knowing how te courses will be combined, yet on Sunday it is impossible to enter the age class I desire - colour only and then the powers that be automatically place you in the age class of their choosing.

[frog]

The Sunday event is usual new SOL format of having the choice of running the recommended course for your age group or running whatever you want.
http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/so ... uidelines/ explains that and the link in it to Trevor's scoring system explains what happens if you run up re SOL league points. Don't think you get any points if you run down unless doing the short course for your age.
It allows more flexibility than the old system when you couldn't run up or down as easily. You just choose the course you want to run.
I had hoped more info on the Sat event would appear on the website, have emailed the co-ordinator. I really don't fancy 5k of a TD5 course with a dodgy headlamp but could get away with the one I've got if courses shorter and easier. I could buy another decentish headlamp I suppose, but we rarely both run night events and with postal strike it might not get here anyway.

[Gross]

I really don't fancy 5k of a TD5 course with a dodgy headlamp but could get away with the one I've got if courses shorter and easier.

It's Beecraigs... 5km of TD5 (even at night) is impossible

[frog]

Don't think I've been there, or maybe went once a few years ago and don't remember it. Remember travelling to Linlithgow, but that's about it. Might get away with dim headtorch then.

[EddieH]

I fail to see how it used to be hard to enter any paricular age class in te old days - simply state the desired class on the entry form. Now this is impossible - I am unable to appear in the results against Jethro, Dixie, Donald etc as the system simply does not allow it - Totally bizarre in my opinion.

Mind you I am probably going to do much better not competing gainst them

[awk]

I am unable to appear in the results against Jethro, Dixie, Donald etc as the system simply does not allow it - Totally bizarre in my opinion.

How? - Surely you just run Short Brown, which I assume is what they'll be running?
(Genuine question, as don't know what SOLs do with results that's different to other races).

[EddieH]

Each age class is not mearly lited, but scored separately. I am not allowed to choose which class I am put in

[frog]

If you run the same course as your friends though can't you just compare times? I don't get the problem. After all if I run an orange course it doesn't turn me into a W12, but I can compare my times with the W12s if I want as there's usually a bit in the results where you see all the entrants for a particular course in time order..

[awk]

Each age class is not mearly lited, but scored separately. I am not allowed to choose which class I am put in

But as I understand it, nowadays you simply enter the course you want, and give your age class (that's what I do). Results are listed as courses, so you'll be in the same results list. If you're running up from what your age class would score in the SOL, and you want to score, can't you just list the age class you want to compete in? That's usually quite legitimate.

[mappingmum]

There isn't an entry field on oentries to add your age class. I think the results/events team get this from the BOF database.

[EddieH]

No AWK I cannot choose my age class - and the scoring system works according to where I am put. Therefore I believe the scores are different than they would be if I were able to enter my chosen class.
In the end this is an age class league (NOT a colour coded one) and the new system disenfranchises me from the opportunity to compete with the M50s.
I don't feel strongly about it - I simply feel it very odd, and I suspect (in fact know) that there are others that do and feel thoroghly disenchanted by the changes.

[EddieH]

Furthermore it could be interesting this weekend what will hAppen in the unlikely event that I have a stormingly good event and beat everyone. I have entered M50 for the night event (age class entries) which I imagine will be the same course as M45. On Sunday I have entered that course but know that I will be allocated to M45. Now should I happen to beat everyone else on either of those classes over the 2 days what will be declared - I guess that I will simply be omitted from the 2 day results as not competing in the same class on the 2 days

If this doesn't clarify why I think the whole thing is a nonsense I'll need to go back to English classes.

[frog]

I presumed the scoring system just gave you points for that particular colour and you stayed in whichever was your "real" age class, but I see the SOL table at the top has classed Alexander Chepelin as an M14 when he's an M12 running up, so should be winning the M12 class not M14.
It would be more sensible if you kept your real age class and just got points if you ran up, in that case I wouldn't have thought it mattered which age class you wanted to put yourself in if you ran a particular colour, the points would be the same. It sounds odd and unnecessarily complicated to give different points depending on what age you are pretending to be.

[graeme]

EddieH.
To summarise...
You don't want to run the course allocated to your age group (M55) so you want to run up a course. The course you run up to is both M45 and M50. So are you now pretending to be 45 or 50?

For the SOLs it was at least made clear at the beginning of the series by the SOA Competitions Convenor that if you ran "up" you would be in the younger age group. You and I might not like that, but waiting till the last race of the year to complain is a bit odd.
As a serial runner-up myself I can assure you its not a new problem. In the past you chose a younger age group and hoped for a longer course (extreme case: I tried "run-up" to race my friends, found myself on the same course anyway, won, and was told I hadn't won because I hadn't entered my correct age).

The Tinto Twin night race courses are up to TINTO to organise. I don't understand why they're using age classes either. Nor can you get the online entries system to give the £1 discount for both races... it actually adds a pound over the advertised rate So it may be an OEntries problem rather than a TINTO one - try asking the entries person.

Frog.
It's always been argued that you can only compare results for people running the same course (e.g. Orange for M12). You might think its weird that you can compare people not-racing each other on courses on different areas, but not people not-racing on different courses on the same area. Running up has always been allowed for juniors, and by the same rule as above, M12s run up on LG as M14As, not M16B.