Compass Sport Cup

[OCM45]

As someone now of mid-table mediocrity, I often start at the bottom of the results and work upwards.

Looking at the Burbage results this way shows you exactly how much effort some people did make in support of their clubs. The longest times on each course in minutes are 193, 160, 161 (with 2 controls missing), 168, 161, 135, 181, 136, 102, 66, 92 and 114. Well done to all of them.

However, having (once) been a member of a winning club, I do know how much it means at the sharp end of the results. It's a great, all-inclusive competition and long may it continue.

[SJC]

The CSC does not have any place for club runners or even those good runners who are at the tail end of the age range.

It does if the courses are planned as colour coded as stated in the rules. Yesterday's were way over the top. What was the planner trying to prove ?

[70plus]

The control hanging seems to be a common complaint. My impressions were - superb weather, excellent map, decent courses, nice patches of woodland. Pity about the knobbly heather and bracken, and the control-siting which could depend so much on one's direction of approach. IMHO, the rough terrain was unsuitable for the older age-classes, and the control-siting exacerbated the bingo element on the moorland, which should have been minimised for a serious competition. Putting start and finish nearer the better bits might have helped.

If it had been a wet day things could have become quite unpleasant.

[greywolf]

wasn't there to experience the joys first hand, it being a closed competition and all that, but...
...compasssport cup rules say: "There shall be eight different CompassSport courses planned to the colour coded standards shown below" - there's no table of course lengths / ratios etc so the assumption has to be that the lengths & ratios of a normal cross-country regional apply, so the TD 5 courses should be defined relative to a notional black course to be won by a top elite in c. 67 mins..
Brown - course ratio 0.85 - notional top elite winning time 57 mins
Blue - 0.56 - 38 mins
Green - 0.39 - 26 mins
Short Green - 0.33 - 22 mins
These courses may be short compared to "championship" courses for some age classes, but they are what the rules specify, and looking at the results the courses do look rather on the long side...maybe the planner saw that it was an L1 event and decided to add 15%?

[awk]

The verdict from our family is we certainly wont return to that area again unless it is for walking on paths.

I can sympathise with that - physically tough but no strong technical interest except in a few places where the bracken will have been too high to take you.

and we will not enter the British as a matter of course this year.

Wharnecliff is a very different area to Burbage: I hate the Pennine moorland areas, typifying all that I dislike in orienteering (all slog and no interest), but whilst I have never done well at Wharnecliff, it's an excellent orienteering area.

Orienteering used to be fun, yesterday left us struggling to drive home.

Orienteering still can be! There are plenty of superb events where you can choose the distance you want to run, and which provide really interesting orienteering. I have to admit, it's one reason why we, neither of us particularly strong competitively, prefer sprint and middle distance events, and have got hooked on the urban scene (Even if Nopesport League has had its fair share of 'ordinary' races this year, there have been enough superb races both in and out of the league to hook us in). We have got a LOT pickier about the races we go to, especially in terrain (where, incidentally, I worry that an awful lot of 'ordinary' events are in danger of being slotted right back into the higher categories under the revamped structure, taking us back to square one, at least in England).

[andypat]

(Not sure why nobody is getting ranking points currently, but I'll fix it.)

Any luck yet Spookster?

I heard a fair few comments about the terrain and the control placement on Sunday, some of which I agree with and some of which i thought was OTT. I personally enjoyed the event and the brown course. It was physical but still doable for someone more used to the blue. As a 42 year old with glasses and the start of age related deterioration in my main request is with regards to the 1:15000 map. I did feel at a signficant disadvantage in the area between 11 and 13 due to this as i couldnt make out the fine detail (still cant to be honest) and I'd definitely hitch my colours to the 1:10000 bandwagon in future.

[GML]

...compasssport cup rules say: "There shall be eight different CompassSport courses planned to the colour coded standards shown below" - there's no table of course lengths / ratios etc so the assumption has to be that the lengths & ratios of a normal cross-country regional apply, so the TD 5 courses should be defined relative to a notional black course to be won by a top elite in c. 67 mins..
Brown - course ratio 0.85 - notional top elite winning time 57 mins
Blue - 0.56 - 38 mins
Green - 0.39 - 26 mins
Short Green - 0.33 - 22 mins
These courses may be short compared to "championship" courses for some age classes, but they are what the rules specify, and looking at the results the courses do look rather on the long side...maybe the planner saw that it was an L1 event and decided to add 15%?

It isn't the winning times that should be scaled by the course length ratio, it is the climb adjusted course lengths - see Note (b) to the tables in Event Guideline B.

I'll leave it for others to debate whether or not Matt Crane is a "top standard elite competitor", and hence whether or not the Brown course was of the right length (Matt had a winning time of 62:15 and splitsbrowser indicates that he lost about 3 minutes over the course, whereas the guidelines say that a "top standard elite competitor" should have a winning time of 57 minutes on a correctly planned Brown course). But comparing the climb adjusted length of the Brown course (9.8km + 265m = 12.45km) with that for the other TD5 courses we see the following:

Blue Men Cup: 7.3km + 265m = 9.95km = 21% longer than guideline (relative to Brown)
Blue Men Trophy: 7.2km + 255m = 9.75km = 19% longer than guideline
Blue Women: 6.6km + 200m = 8.6km = 5% longer than guideline
Green Men: 5km + 170m = 6.7km = 17% longer than guideline
Green Women: 4.9km + 150m = 6.4km = 12% longer than guideline
Short Green Vet: 4km + 90m = 4.9km = 1% longer than guideline

So on that basis at least, both the Blue Mens courses and both the Mens and Womens Green courses were significantly longer than guideline (or the Brown was significantly too short!)

[graeme]

the TD 5 courses should be defined relative to a notional black course to be won by a top elite in c. 67 mins..
Brown - course ratio 0.85 - notional top elite winning time 57 mins

Craney was the only GB squad person on Brown, running 62 mins and according to his blog he's "glad Oli and GG weren't there" (and lists several mins of errors), so I think we can assume 57 was possible.
Everything else scales from there (assuming the planner takes into account that Brown spent a disproportionate amount of time in the heather).

You may not have liked the planning, and you may not like the competition rules, and you may not like the colour coded guidelines, but you can't blame the planner for not following the rules and meeting the guidelines.

What to do? I don't think we should dumb down our main club competition for non-counters, what we need to do is make it possible for them to take part and at the same time run for about an hour. Which means breaking away from this age-obsessed idea of "You are a beginner/unfit 59-year-old so you have to run 7.3km". The way to do it would be to let people "run down" with a stiff penalty, such as doubling your time (this would put an M21 running at craney's pace 43rd on blue, so it wouldn't distort the competition, although it might allow more slow people to be part of the team in the heats).

[NeilC]

Everything else scales from there.

You may not have liked the planning, and you may not like the competition rules, and you may not like the colour coded guidelines, but you can't blame the planner for not following the rules and meeting the guidelines.

Do you disagree with GML's analysis then Graeme which suggests that the wrong scaling factors were used for at least some of the courses?

[JennyJ]

Thanks for your kind words about Wharncliffe Andy! Just to confirm the British Champs next year will be completely different to Burbage with no moorland. I recommend everyone comes, Oli and I are planning some great courses and since I hate tough slogs myself they won't be like that (apart from M21E since Oli loves courses like that...just kidding). Having said that I did really enjoy the Blue Wmns course at the weekend I thought it made really good use of the wood in the valley and Surprise View - unfortunately you do have to get between them somehow. Thanks to Monica for all her hard work planning.

[Mrs H]

I was sad to read Hoco's post - the use of the word "humiliated" was particularly unsettling as I had viewed some of those long times as positively heroic. How do other people see them?

Speaking from the oldest cohort on the green I actually really enjoyed the physical aspect of the course apart from the heathery bits at the start. There were plenty of easy places to cross the streams. If I hadn't messed up one control and lost my map for 10 mins I think I might have managed around 76 mins which means the women 10 years younger than me should have had no trouble in getting in within the hour. Indeed even the very out of practise Miss H who has very short legs did so from an early start.

We can't all score or even make a difference and some areas, some years, will suit some people more than others but the truth of the matter is that the good/fit people are always going to do better and surely that's the whole point. I don't actually see how you can make it more inclusive or why you should even try.

[graeme]

Do you disagree with GML's analysis then Graeme which suggests that the wrong scaling factors were used for at least some of the courses?

I assumed the planner took into account that courses traversed different amounts of the very different terrain types and aimed for the scaled winning times. e.g. climb was pretty much irrelevant as an obstacle compared with the heather.

I'm not a top elite, but I do run against them often enough to know I'm reliably 50% down on a good day: So if Scotia et al could run 38 on blue, I would be about 58 - which I was.

As many others pointed out, rough terrain slows older people disproportionately. But the guidelines dont allow that as a consideration: they should (IMO), but that's not the planners fault!

[SeanC]

One possibility is a rule change to have less scorers for the final than the heats. This would reduce the pressure on the less committed/fit to make up a full scoring team, and would help clubs from the more peripheral areas who may struggle to field a team of similar size to the heat as many may not be willing/able to travel.

[70plus]

Graeme wrote: Everything else scales from there ...

Well, yes - if you rely solely on the guidelines to give the 'correct' answers. An experienced planner who knows the area should be able to make adjustments to allow for (e.g) a greater proportion of a Brown course being on faster (or slower) terrain than shorter courses; or that on Burbage the older classes will be slowed down greatly by the heather and rocks. If the planner doesn't do that, the controller should use his experience to advise accordingly. I think there were some shortcomings in that direction, especially regarding 'hidden' controls, some of which (I gather) were checked in near-darkness.

[redkite]

I thought my course (blue trophy) was tough, but fair and felt my legs on Monday morning . If I discount time lost when I couldn't find a couple of boulders, my time was about what I expected on the tough terrain.

However, I agree with other comments that some of the less fit, (not that I am fit) running for the small clubs to make up numbers were out for a long time. I do not see what can be done about it other than hold the final on a good area that will not cause these kinds of problems.

Can I just say that I really enjoyed the day and thought SYO did a great job.