southern champs

[Mrs H]

Yes your last point is ery valid - Young Neville ploughs a lowly furrow on the short course

[ryeland of doom]

Those are long courses. I am of the odd number era and as M13, I rarely was given more than 4km. 6.5 at M15.

Forest looks wonderful though.

[IanD]

Just wondering, as alluded to in another thread, the big step ups in distances especially for the boys creates a drop off from mass participation because it becomes a slog not a joy.

Yes your last point is very valid - Young Neville ploughs a lowly furrow on the short course

But it is a long distance championship. The courses should be long.

Perhaps there should be area middle-distance and sprint championships too for the likes of Young Neville (and me!), although I hesitate to suggest yet more major events for our already cluttered fixture list.

At least it is now well-established that there is no need for anyone to run further than they want at non-championship events.

[Mrs H]

I was talking really in general terms (Oh and I meant to say lonely not lowly - must be a freudian slip)

[graeme]

The courses should be long.

Well, um, actually, they should be the same distances as we used to run before the invented middle and sprint. Only the planner is Long.
That's inflation for you.

This is meant to be a CHAMPIONSHIP event. The courses should be aimed at the best runners. England has three of these, compared with hundreds of other events to go to if you don't want to tackle something which challenges the very best. It is great that the stigma of "running down" is finally being tackled at other events, but that shouldn't mean there's nowhere for the top people to race.

[distracted]

The course lengths do seem a bit long given the climb. The course lengths for young male juniors in particular seem rather demanding.
M14 5.8km 175m/ M16 9.1km 280m, equivalent to 7.55km and 11.9km.

JK 2003
M14 5.7km, 165m climb; winning time 41 mins
M16 8.0km, 255m climb; winning time 49 mins

National Event 2005
M14 6.05km, winning time 37 mins
M16 8.45km, winning time 50 mins

So the 16s course might be a bit longer but the 14s looks pretty par given past events on this area. Why not wait until the day before passing judgement?

[HOCOLITE]

Urban - I've been down this route before Ash Ranges a number of years ago the event was early in January and the M14 course was very long. One young man took 2 hrs 30 minutes (by the way it wasn't my eldest son) he was not as young as some but the step up was a shock as it was length and technical standard. It's all very well thinking of winning times but you have to consider the others who may be less experienced this can hardly help keep youngsters in O. As far as I'm aware this lad did continue O until he went to Uni.

[awk]

JK 2003
M14 5.7km, 165m climb; winning time 41 mins
M16 8.0km, 255m climb; winning time 49 mins

National Event 2005
M14 6.05km, winning time 37 mins
M16 8.45km, winning time 50 mins

So the 16s course might be a bit longer but the 14s looks pretty par given past events on this area. Why not wait until the day before passing judgement?

I'm sure the planners have got it right as per guidelines - they've got the previous experience to go by - but that doesn't make the contention that these winning times and distances are long and in the long term very offputting for many young people any less accurate - it simply suggest that the problem lies elsewhere.

[mharky]

Another case of attacking the symptom on Nopesport without any consideration to the cause???...

[Mrs H]

Well whatever the reason - and I'm not disputing that the courses are per guidelines - we are feeling a bit out of our depth. We only entered because it was part of The Masters and I must admit I never saw the provisional lengths before hand or we wouldn't have we're not even eligible let alone capable of a championship standard run. We might just save ourselves a long and expensive drive and be more careful what we undertake in the future.

It might not be too bad if you can have a nice sit down at your desk on Monday - I've even heard of people pulling a sicky because of orienteering related after effects - but if we don't work we don't get paid so we have to be able to work - it's that simple.

[mharky]

Are you implying running the southern champs would make you unable to work?

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It's not a marathon, you're not going to be running at an intense pace non-stop for 3+ hours on tarmac. It'll be a 70 minute jog fest on soft ground. If you can't work after that you need to seriously MTFU.

[Mrs H]

Oh do shut up mharky - even you must have the brain to work out it rather depends on what kind of work you do and how fit you are to start with.- a 6.30 start on monday morning followed by 10 hours of manual work repeated for the rest of the week is not necessarily the best way to recover from a couple of hours orienteering (cos he isn't going to win it!) and a 5 hour drive - perhaps you'd like t come and try it - you couldn't even lift up some of the pieces of wood he works with

[Miner]

I don't think we'll be going to the Southern Champs now you've pointed out the M14 lengths. I misread the details to mean the Light Green 4.0k was the M14 when in fact that is the W14. My son was 12 at the end of 2010 and is only just getting used to running Light Green courses of 3.5k.

I'm sure the calculations based on predicted winning times are correct but course lengths have never been an issue at the JK and BOC events we've been to.

I think we'll forego the Southern Champs and sample a bit of MTBO and night O the following week - nothing like variety to enthuse the young orienteer. At least it gives us plenty of time to overhaul the bikes after our last trip when we got completely bogged down in clay and had to dig the bikes out.

[mharky]

The drive was always going to be 5 hours, work was always going to be manual. Presumably these aren't issues with "normal" length courses, else you'd never go orienteering at all. The courses aren't massively longer, which would imply that either someone runs on the absolute limit of their physical abilities most weekends, flirting with incapacitation, or you are exaggerating somewhat.

[mharky]

Compared to the Midlands champs, it is 2km longer with the same climb. It is definitely a faster area. So maybe equivalent of 1 mile more.