Scottish Championships 2011

[frog]

A couple of club members were heading to Drummond today to check out the relay area for storm damage. Auchingarrich had been checked.

[graeme]

There is some minor windblow at Drummond which will enhance routechoice . We have postponed printing the maps until today so that they can be updated to show it.

Graeme (planner)

[SIman]

Latest news on the SOA website

Storm Damage - All relay controls and obvious route choices have been checked. Though there has in places been extensive damage to trees including one really big swathe of larch windblow, the impact on the courses has been minimal and some last minute map amendments and the lopping of a few branches means the course quality has not been impaired.
Relay Parking – If the rain holds off, then it should be possible to park in the original location by Drummond Castle Gardens. However, the fall back option is to use the saw mill and a quarry area. The saw mill is 15 minutes walk from the start/changeover and runners with tents / families will be given priority. The quarry is a further 20 minutes.
If there is the need to use the fall back option, there will be a notice on Saturday at the Cultybraggan bus pickup /drop off.
Please car-share as far as possible – we expect all cars to have at least two occupants.

[Big Jon]

Well a bit of an epic Scottish Champs weekend........ Saturday was relentlessly physical and tough technically, today was tough physically. Both days looked to have, in general, overly long courses with many competitors out for 2 hours+ on Auchingarroch and many over an hour at the relays today.

[andypat]

I actually really enjoyed the relay today despite the worries about length of courses. The terrain today wasnt maybe as runnable as it had been publicised but a whole lot nicer than yesterday IMO.

I was wondering if we owe the length of the courses on Saturday to the recent debate on here about elite winning times?

[frog]

Yesterday the shorter courses seemed OK (those 6k and underish) The longer ones seemed too long and I think for boys the jump from 14A running light green to 16A running 7.5k of TD5 with winning time of just under 90 minutes is mad. My son has largely stopped orienteering, partly because he has gone off running, and partly because M16A is too much for him (was only 14 in December). M16B is still light green, so too easy.
I enjoyed my course yesterday and we had a sensible winning time. I enjoyed today, but did find it hard work and think relays should remember some club runners will run a relay who often run the short courses and we don't want to put them off.
My times for both were better than at Bigland the week before though, and that was supposed to be middle distance so for W45s the long course yest and C course today seemed fine, although I usually get round faster in relays than I did today.
I enjoyed running both areas and the buses and organisation of both worked fine, the campground at Cultybraggan was flat and quiet. The courses were interesting.

[AndyO]

I wasn't there, but scanning results there seems to have been quite a few mispunches recorded on individuals and relays - was this simply carelessness on the part of the competitors, or does this include effective retirals?

[andy]

does this include effective retirals?

includes (lots of) retirals

[SIman]

You can now analyse the Individual with lots of data.
The SOA website has links to RouteGadget, WInSplits and SplitsBrowser.

There was a mistake in W60L and the wrong name was announced as winner.
Congratulations to Hilary Palmer, winner of the class and Sheila Strain, Scottish Champion.

Provisional results for the relay need a little more work.

[graeme]

The terrain today wasnt maybe as runnable as it had been publicised but a whole lot nicer than yesterday IMO.

I'm sorry about that.

It really was that runnable a month ago when I test-ran B in 38. It was even that runnable two weeks ago when some EUOC-types ran and were predicting 6min/kms. Then came the storm, the fallen trees and branches, and explosive growth of grass and bracken.

As for the individual, although I usually try to be objective, this time I'll pass a personal opinion. It was my favourite course so far this year, variety of terrain, routechoice large and small, a full afternoon's entertainment and a 1:10000 map I could actually read.

And I don't even like that sort of rough terrain.

[andypat]

Graeme - no need to apologise to me - I really enjoyed it - and said so to you afterwards! That wasnt meant to be a criticism, more of an excuse for the longer times. I didnt really come across much in the way of fallen trees but the lush long grass under the deciduous trees did slow me down! Tough call when an area hasnt been used before but if I can still do 12ish min per k it cant be that bad!

[EddieH]

Graeme is not wrong. I can understand that it is hard for competitors to believe, but both Graeme and I were stunned by the change in runnability after the storm.

I think that whilst the undergrowth spurt wasn't really that bad, the problem was that there were branches everywhere (even in the open parkland ). Hidden in the grass this massively effected runnability and effort. The major climb was always going to be a bit of a pull, but when it was easy underfoot that's all it was - with all the rubbish about it made the whole thing a lot more effort. Even in the brashed area the going was far worse as there was so much extra rubbish around yesterday.

I think Dave Prentice has found and negotiated a wee gem of a new area with a beautiful setting. I hope the estate were happy with how it went as I'd love to run competitively there in the future.

[Jethro]

Agree with Eddie, I really enjoyed the area and courses. Tough courses the day before also possibly didn't help the times.

[AlanB]

After my concern regarding the wind damage I just wish the tree branch I ran into had been blown away. Never mind, it has been glued back together - the head, not the branch!

I really enjoyed Saturday's course (M50S - short blue), especially the variety of terrain, and, but for a couple of stupid and costly mistakes, would have got a reasonable time (ha! as ever). I will second the comments about the legibility of the map, although I didn't notice the tiny but knee-deep marsh.

[AncientFootsteps]

Thanks to all concerned for a very enjoyable and well organised weekend. My courses (at TD5) for both the Individual and Relay were very tough but enjoyable.

However I'm sorry to have to repeat my Auchingarrich complaint (from SOL1 in April 2009) about a friend’s miserable time on the Long Orange course. On that occasion the planner helpfully entered into a forum discussion of the lower TD courses - with a widespread feeling amongst contributors that the Long Orange wasn’t appropriate for adult novices.

This weekend I persuaded my friend to have another shot - assuming the lessons had been learnt. But again the Long Orange was too hard. There was a sequence of controls (3/4/5/6) in the dense forest and other legs without collecting features. Comparatively few legs gave an opportunity to stretch out and run!

I realise that the terrain here is mostly tough with few linear features - and that Long Orange is always a problem for planners as it is outside the normal difficulty/distance pattern. But Saturday's results speak for themselves - entrants averaged over 2 hours to get round and almost half did not complete.

Long Orange should be great way to lure in runners wanting a challenge - but this sort of experience can put people off orienteering for life.