SOL1

[EddieH]

Is there any information on how far away the start will be on Sunday? - I can't find any.

[smf]

No not yet, but I recieved this email earlier today,

"Apologies for the delay in getting the Final Information out to folks, should be available this pm.
In the meantime I can advise that it is 15 / 20 mins (max) to Start. Similar from Finish and they share a common route so it is possible to drop of clothing if required"

[mharky]

final details just go emailed round too

[andypat]

19 Primadonnas today then......

Think Mharkys legs were doing the talking today for once - nice one!

[Freefall]

Mharky is running extremely well at the moment and I really hope he gets selected for WOC. I'll probably use the other thread (no not that one) reminding folks to watch Mharky, Hilary and myself on the Adventure Show on Tuesday.

[frog]

I enjoyed this despite being unfit and slow and getting it wrong a couple of times. Thanks to all the Interlopers folk who stood in the cold for hours.

[Big Jon]

Forest felt as tough as any in Scotland and the black course was (mostly) good. Times of top guys were very impressive, wish my knees and legs could handle the tough stuff. Map is showing age already (windlown extended in many places...).

[mharky]

Great piece of terrain. One of the best in Scotland in my opinion. Yes it's very tough, but that's all part of it. I enjoyed the black, length pretty much spot-on. Thanks to the helpers who had to all hang around in such Baltic conditions. Great refreshments fund-raising for the Worlds Schools kids.

Vegetation mapping was rather suspect.

[mappingmum]

After all the prior warnings in the final details, I was VERY relieved to be able to drive into and out of the [soft] parking field without incident!

[graeme]

Routegadget and splitsbrowser now online. Winsplits and ranking points when I figure out how to do it.

http://www.interlopers.routegadget.co.u ... 4&kieli=en
http://www.splitsbrowser.org.uk/splitsg ... entId=4475

Notable how the brash in the section by the start has been beaten down in the last two years. MUCH nicer now! Elsewise still the same cracking area as at the 6-day. Half a dozen goes later, I still can't find a way off the moor without gettng stuck in windblow. (but then my knowledge of cardinal numbers beyond one was the main undoing today...).

[andy]

I really loved the SOL today, black was great fun. My only minor gripe was that it didn't go to the bit of forest all the other courses finished in, people said it was great but we got the steep hillside instead to finish

[EddieH]

I hate being critical because I loved it, but I'd like to quote Mharky's "It's not rocket science" thread regarding crossing points. Why oh why do planners NOT overprint walls and fences that MUST not me crossed with purple overprint?

I was not intending to go to the crossing point until I noticed that the descriptions said use marked crossing. The control sites at that point were so obvious that I might not have looked at the descriptions. The map that I have to read did not tell me they were compulsory.

Someone told me the details had said they were compulsory. Not everyone got those, and in fact they said no such thing. "All course use one or more compulsory crossing points" - I must have read that and promptly ignored it as it was not helpful to me - I'd find out when I get there - it definitely does not say to me that ALL crossing points are compulsory.

[AlanB]

I enjoyed this despite being unfit and slow and getting it wrong a couple of times. Thanks to all the Interlopers folk who stood in the cold for hours.

I also enjoyed it, especially the terrain, but found my stamina seriously lacking towards the end. Made a bad mistake at control 4 (125) but recovered reasonably well after that before making two dreadful mistakes near the end.

I went wrong at 14 (153) and, mainly through tiredness I think, went into meltdown when the control wasn't where I thought it should be. I found a control that I was sure was on the feature I was looking for but it was code 103. The O-devil started whispering in my ear at that point "the organisers have made a mistake; they've put the wrong code on; 103 is very similar to 153, an easy mistake for them to have made; go on, punch it, finish, and you can get some rest" .

Fortunately I came to my senses, retraced my steps a little and actually saw what the map was telling me!

Then, at the last control, the easiest one of all, I went into complete headless chicken mode: running to the first control I saw having convinced myself that it was the one on my map. It wasn't, neither was the one just up the hill from there, and when I found myself running into an area that was just so totally wrong I stopped and USED THE MAP PROPERLY.

So, two useful lessons from this weekend:-

1) I need to improve my fitness, especially my stamina. Belting around courses like John Muir Country Park, where the navigation is helped by well defined attack-points, is no problem for me. Coping with terrain like Dalrulzion leaves me physically drained and leads to serious lapses in concentration, especially when things go wrong.

2) Another thing I noticed yesterday is that I rely on compass bearings more than anyone else. Whenever a few of us got to a control together, I was always the last one to leave as I carefully took a bearing. Having read some of the stuff on the coaching forum, and with thinking about some of the mistakes I made, I now realise that I am relying on my compass too much and not using the information on the map enough. At the sprint event on Saturday I didn't use my compass once; I used what was on the map to guide me around the 'terrain', matching my progress to my position on the map. I know that was around easily identified structures but I have to do the same in the forest.

So, a very educational weekend for me, and time to stop using my compass as a comfort blanket.

[mappingmum]

Routegadget and splitsbrowser now online. Winsplits and ranking points when I figure out how to do it.

Hi Graeme - how are you getting on with the winsplits upload

Ah! It's done
http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/e ... sp?ct=true

Thank you!

[SIman]

Links to all the various versions of the results are now here.

I wish I had concentrated all the time, not just most of it. It seemed a very unforgiving forest.