British Night Champs - Bentley Woods

[Mrs H]

don't worry Bob - it's a bit like the tag line from Alien :"In space, no one can hear you scream" - wear what you like on this occasion

[Mrs H]

Thanks OD for a fantastic event - I enjoyed almost every minute of my fairly lengthy outing and never thought it was too long. Great area, great course and great organisation and the rain that had apparently been heavy just a few miles north, never got to us.

[awk]

Would echo Mrs H's thoughts - loved every second of it.

[IkeySol]

Ditto to that, was a fantastic event. Well planned and organised and I had a lovely night of repeatedly relocating!

[Liz P]

Routegadget is now available.

http://www.od.routegadget.co.uk/od/reit ... =22&kieli=

[Duncan]

Scores now uploaded to UK Cup website. Not very exciting yet as this is the only event so far in 2011!

[IanD]

Routegadget is now available.

Can I suggest a Routegadget link from the results on the OD website too - not everyone reads Nopesport!

(Ignore me if it is there and I'm being thick.)

[Carnage Head]

Thanks for a great event - a well organised, well planned event on an enjoyable, mostly runnable, well mapped area. I liked the inclusion of a long leg - often missing from courses. (The fact that I came second on M35 yet was beaten by a handful of M40s and ran slower mins/km than people decades older than me shows how this age category - which I have just joined - is surely the 'easiest' out there: thanks to superstar M35s for running up!)

I wonder how long it will be until every EMIT/SI card comes with a lightweight GPS tracker as standard, so we can see where we really went at night?

[Scott]

Yes, a really enjoyable event - thanks very much. And I certainly feel like I got value for money.

[eagh]

Ian D wrote "Can I suggest a Routegadget link from the results on the OD website too - not everyone reads Nopesport!

(Ignore me if it is there and I'm being thick.)"

Maybe not thick Ian but maybe not thinking through...

You wrote your post at 10.30pm Sunday at which point Webmaster had put results up, but Routegadget Master (different person) had not sent link.

Monday morning, webmaster gets routegadget link and puts it on results page... and then goes to work.

Webmaster has thought that he could save time by putting the link up before the event but somehow the controller always thinks that'd spoil things...

PS There is a permanent link to Routegadget from OD results page (by all the year tabs) so you can always access latest routegadget file from there

[buzz]

Fantastic event - best for ages - well done OD!

Somebody suggested that night events don't count towards rankings - if that's the case could somebody please get it changed or explain the reasons. A complete travesty!

[NeilC]

Somebody suggested that night events don't count towards rankings - if that's the case could somebody please get it changed or explain the reasons. A complete travesty!

I was told that some analyses had been done that indicated that because Night Orienteering was so different to daytime orienteering that the distribution of times was skewed differently and thus some competitors were getting "artificially" high scores.

I did ask whether the same analyses had been done for Sprint events but got no reply.

Given that I have no idea who is making the decisions about the ranking system at the moment perhaps another AGM motion is due (see thread on student levy)?

[IanD]

The problem with including night events in the rankings is that night events require a higher level of navigation skill. This penalises those who are fast runners but rarely get through a course without needing to relocate. Thus including night events in the rankings would skew them in favour of the better orienteers. This is perceived to be a bad thing!

(Yes, I am being deliberately provocative, but I don't think I am saying anything untrue)

[Scott]

As I think I've said on here before, it's fair to say that including/excluding night events was probably one of the issues on which both the Rankings Workgroup and the consultation responses we received were most evenly divided, with some quite strong feeling on both sides.

I don't know who has responsibility for the rankings now - Events Committee?

[Miner]

I'd just like to echo the compliments others have made. I found my course very enjoyable despite making some stupid mistakes. I too appreciated the longer legs, and it was nice for the route choice to be based purely on the navigational challenge rather than the more common 'Can I thrash through the green quicker than I can run round the paths?'

All the finishing touches added to the experience - the trail of twinkling lights to the start and the marquee complete with food, chairs and chandelier! The weather was very well organised too - probably the mildest night I've been out and no rain.

If this was anyone's first night-O just be warned - it is more usual to find yourself fumbling around in an unlit car park in the pouring rain!