Sheffield City Chase

[D,J,J&Ms Dad]

With reference to my early post regarding the overprint colour on the Sheffield maps
I've looked at the overprint on the Oxford, Cambridge and Venice maps and they are all much darker shade. Couldn't the overprint have been the same colour as Map title
eg 'C & D Prologue, Junior, M55+, W40+, W40+'?

You are quite right about the overprint colour. Unfortunately there was a technical issue too close to the event for the event team to correct with the result that the maps had to be printed direct from Condes rather than from OCAD. We always print from OCAD if at all possible as we find there is greater control over getting the overprint colour right (e.g. Oxford). Sorry if it caused you a problem.

[rob f]

Given the area of sheffield that is mapped, we found this was definetly the best format. A single race would have not given the fantastic element of me as the organiser walking back from the chase start to see people running around the arundel street area in all different directions. About the only way it would have been intresting is if you'd gone from the last few controls on the prologue straight onto the chase course, but the chase would not have been anywhere near as challenging. Kris Jones would have won the Men's Open but for switching off after getting ahead of GG and mispunching, after GG had followed Oli (who mapped the area) into a mistake. With a longer distance you would have more time to plan, be running at a slower pace, and without the chase element head to head, these errors are less likely to happen.

As with regards to the blown up version of the map, we'll see what we can do.

[Dave]

hows this guv:


we weren't able to map everything exactly, as even at 1:4000 there just wasn't space on the map. I struggled to fit the uncrossable boundary lines in as it was! so strictly, maybe it wasn't fair but at the end of the day it was good fun and it wasn't BEOC.

I have to agree with the boys too about the shorter distance/higher crontrol density making it more challenging, or at least adding something different to the race, but think yourselves lucky that SI cards have a limited capacity, the courses I wanted had 37 controls on the A and around 33 on B, with the same distances...

[Spookster]

VERY provisional results are online here.

Martin -- please let me know when the results are final (having been 'behind the desk' some of the time, I saw directly how chaotic it became!), and I'll then update the final Urban League standings.

Roger (and others),

Results have now been reviewed by the controller, and there are a small number of re-instatements due to some of the issues with SI boxes. But there are still a lots of DSQs in the Chase...

They're still here at present, but I'm sure Rob F will put them on the Shuoc page very soon.

I've also put the splits on Winsplits. Routegadget coming soon (but that will need the planners to re-plan their courses in OCAD to remove the legs that aren't in the splits).

[distracted]

Definitely a tricky bit to map clearly, as are most multilevel sections - you have to exaggerate/compromise otherwise it would be completely unreadable. Might have been a bit easier to work out whether you'd be going up or down in the car park were the contours visible 'through' the buildings as well as in the gaps, as the staircases were pretty confusing.

One question - could you get out of the southern underpass to the north? Just wondering what that 'extra' staircase by the uncrossable wall is.

[Dave]

One question - could you get out of the southern underpass to the north? Just wondering what that 'extra' staircase by the uncrossable wall is.

yes, however the exit of said route comes out above the northern underpass. so putting black dotted lines to show this doesn't work on 2 counts:
a) it makes the map unreadable in that area
b) the 2 underpasses would then be linked on the map by black dotted lines, even though one is above/below the other!

the extra staircase was just a small one on the 'top level' I think...

[Spookster]

the extra staircase was just a small one on the 'top level' I think...

These stairs, I guess.

This is the car park entrance tunnel that connects with the southern underpass (but isn't mapped), but it is above the northern underpass, as Dave says.

Local knowledge certainly helped in this area.

[graeme]

Given that
A) Its pretty well impossible to map fairly
B) You really don't want people to cross the road*

The sensible option would be to have a short taped route through the crossing.

Easy to say with hindsight of course. But we're still learning how best to do this, so worth thinking about it future.

Obviously I'm a big fan of the Chasing Sprint format, urban races in general, and using the best format for a given area. But I still feel that change of pace an important challenge in racing (i.e. getting into oxygen debt on fast easier bits), and so I don't believe that any single-technique race can be as hard (though it might be as much fun).

Graeme

* From the map clip, one could argue that you can cross it without going into hatch, while using the "underpass" requires you to go through a "forbidden to cross" wall.

[Mrs H]

I was a little unsure myself when I got to that point what it was going to look like but given that we had been specifically instructed to use the underpasses had faith that there had to be a way out.

Would there not be scope for using the grey "run through" on underpasses and a different tone/colour for the thick black line denoting that it was only an uncrossable barrier at one level? (Perhaps as mentioned with the Istambul circles a different colour for crossable from underneath or above).

[Roger]

I couldn't sort out this area at all. Part of the explanation seems to be that I was off the map... despite being within the mapped area!

[Rockaldo]

I think in that area you really had to take a step back and not just use the map but use your surroundings in conjunction with the map to find the best way to get to each point. Technically as i'm sure Dave would agree this area is not fair at all in an orienteering race as there are more than two levels in the area and would not be used in a British Championships or WOC. Saying that everything you need to find each control is on the map. It was used to create a different challenge and stimulate discussion which seems to have been successful.

[Safety]

Could I first say a big thanks and congratulations to all of Shuoc and SYO. It was a really enjoyable and exciting days racing.

I have to admit that regularly walking through this area whilst living in Sheffield probably gave me a bit of an advantage. Although I did make a mistake on this leg by overshooting towards #17. And I noted that several Shuoc / Spook members mispunched in this area so obviously local knowledge isn't all that.

The only problem seems to be that you cannot show the underpass leading north out of the Car Park without obscuring the lower underpass that appears again next to the control on the tree. Looking at the ISSOM the other day it says

"only the main ‘running’ level should be represented on the map"

This is obviously not possible knowing sheffield as the whole city is on a different level.

If we take the road as the main running level at this point on the map, the underpass out of the carpark is actually a building you can run through at running level. So as Mrs H says grey would be an appropriate colour choice. The problem therefore transfers up one level to the walkway around the outside of the academy where you can 'in effect' run on the top of a building. Could this be shown using a paved area hatching in the same way as an undergrowth screen is used on more traditional maps.

Anyway it was a great course on a great map and good to see orienteering getting close to public in the way other sports can.

I will definetly be attending more next year.

[Safety]

Sorry, another thing I ment to add.

A note about the control descriptions, obviously these become even more important in the urban environment. Do people think we should have another column (making 9 in total) or more symbols for the 3rd box so positions can be more descriptive. I feel this would have been useful in the area everyone has been talking about but also infront of the millenium galleries where I saw plenty of people milling at the bottom of the wall.

The description for 12 could become, either:
85, Top Wall, Southern Inside Corner.
i.e the symbol used to show stairs top in the third column

or 85, Wall, Southern Inside Corner, Upper part. Where an extra column is added

Discuss.

[Mrs H]

I think that is a very good idea and rewards people who may have to loose time looking at control descriptions (eyesight issues) by making sure they get it right. I have noticed that control descriptions are far more important in urban racing - when I was approaching the control on the fence in the prologue I couldn't decide from the map which side it was so took the time to check to get it right - lots of people obviously didn't and paid the price.

It could really add to the technicality of the event making it possible to use more controls sites in multi layered areas which might otherwise be just too hard/unfair to use.

A column to indicate which level the control is on - but then you must be able to tell which layer is which (access wise) from the map too.

[awk]

This has been mentioned in CS letters too, but as long as the current descriptions are precise (e.g. what side of the wall etc), then I don't see a need for another column - just gets distracting. Those caught out almost invariably have missed some information on the map or description sheet.

In fact, those descriptions could make the situation more confusing, as it's far harder to identify that information from the map than the 2-d directions/positions. The description is simply to enable you to identify which of the various features in the circle the control is on - it's the map you use to navigate to it.

Having said that, the occasional tweak of control siting wouldn't go amiss (e.g. no. 7 on course 2, which was used by others as well, which would have been better on the inside corner of the wall rather than north east side of the wall.