Harvester 2011

[distracted]

The event is TOO difficult/tough for the bulk of British orienteers. It is very difficult to feel part of a 'race' when so few teams are involved over such a long timescale.

Disagree - it may be perceived as too difficult. Also, as seems to be the case in many UK races, if your team is not going to be competitive then the attraction for many appears to be diluted.

Compared to its much bigger cousin Jukola, the leg lengths at the Harvester are shorter and the terrain is, in general, easier physically and technically. But whereas the challenge in the former for many is to complete the relay, that doesn't seem to have the same attraction to the average UK orienteer... I understand that the Harvester A course did used to be equivalent to Jukola but this was scrapped, probably due to numbers.

I've also heard from some that the introduction of the shorter, easier leg 3 on the B course has led to many not bothering with the event any more. They feel it has been 'dumbed down' and the older/slower vets don't want to be, almost by default, running an orange course. So we can't assume shorter, easier courses will encourage more people to take part.

[FRBlackSheep]

I would disagree about the event being too hard, I am a very 'ish' Orienteer well know within the club for making huge navigational errors - however I have now competed in 3 consecutive harvesters and with the exception of last year where I got dropped to the second 'A team' the club captain has kept me in our very competitive A team and ensured that I always get a run....

So I think it is more about clubs educating people that the Harvester is doable by the majority and not just blame the 'difficulty' for the reason not to take part in what is an awesome event.

[SJC]

Also, as seems to be the case in many UK races, if your team is not going to be competitive then the attraction for many appears to be diluted.

It isn't just being competitive, it is the fact that with so few teams the gaps between them get so big that after the first few legs it isn't like a relay. There is very little competitive racing, it just becomes like any other run. More teams (a lot more) would be needed to improve this.
The leg distances are a factor - as pointed out earlier many runners had courses longer than they would in a normal individual event. Some are happy to take on such a challenge, but there are a lot more who won't.
Whether re-introducing the C course would attract more teams I have no idea, and it would have the affect of a number of teams simply moving off the B so making that less competitive.

[NeilC]

I agree that it's much more a perception thing. Due to the great accuracy of the map (and the small paths in particular) I found my course (lap 2 B relay) quite straightforward and only made mistakes when trying to a) keep up with or b) lose other competitors - but that of course is part of the relay experience. I was frustrated by the lack of interest by my club but you can only push people so far. I was very scared of Jukola when I did it for the first time a couple of years ago (now I'm just scared of meeting Becks again) but it soon became apparent that there were a lot of very average/poor runners there as well.

I'd like to add my congratulations to SHUOC for a brilliant weekend. We first met one of our club members (now at SHUOC) when she directed us to our car parking spot. Later that evening she was selling cakes and then on Sunday running the start at the urban event. I suspect that most of the others also had 3 or 4 jobs to do.

The middle/ultrasprint/harvester/urban combination was perfect. The middle got you into the mindset for the main attraction and the ultrasprint was great fun. I probably wouldn't have been so keen to go back into a forest on the Sunday morning but the urban race tempted us to hang around rather than head straight back home.

[ba-ba]

Regarding some peoples' perception of the Harvester and trying something out of their comfort zones (running up a level from normal in relays, nightO, the fear of letting the team down) I think many need to be a little less demure and a bit more sanguine and optimistic - actually I think this is a trait that all should take on board! As said previously, people of all abilities do Jukola on the same courses as Nordberg, Thierry et al.; in fell races of all lengths everyone races everyone else, from the rapid and strong to the definitely not rapid or strong!

If everyone could put their urban race routes up on routegadget it would be much appreciated - I was busy on a road crossing and didn't manage to get much feedback/info on where people went on RCs.

There was a lot of work to do throughout the weekend, with most of ShUOC carrying out multiple jobs and awake for the thick end of 30 hours, but it was tremendous fun. Ash even managed to persuade his dad (non-orienteer) to help out all day/night, I wonder what he thought of his introduction to Orienteering!

Do you reckon they'll let me wear my ShUOC top when I get cap n' gowned tomorrow?!

[SeanC]

On the face of it the ad hoc experiment didn't work as there was only 1 person who signed up for an ad hoc team (ie me). But thanks to SHUOC for trying.

I hope next year's organisers try again - it may be a habit thing. If club captains got into the habit of notifying the organisers that there are people in their club interested in running it might work next year. Perhaps it would be better if the ad hoc option was on the B course? I guess there will be small neighbouring clubs with 2 or 3 runners willing to combine, but unlikely to have enough for a 7 man team?

If the entry fee was a little higher for non student adults this might help encourage more clubs to put it on? £10 per competitor seems like very good value compared to regional events which are often higher and don't require organisers to stay up all night? It's a unique event (at least in this country) so people may be prepared to pay a little more.

[FRBlackSheep]

[/quote]It isn't just being competitive, it is the fact that with so few teams the gaps between them get so big that after the first few legs it isn't like a relay. There is very little competitive racing, it just becomes like any other run. More teams (a lot more) would be needed to improve this. [/quote]

Depends if you only class being 'competitive as being in the top three, I recall heading out on Leg5 within 30-60 secs of two other teams with BAOC closing a larger gap just behind. This lead to a whole race of nip and tuck competitive racing for a few places.

This continued all through to leg 7 where the whole team was on tenderhooks to see if we could hold BAOC off.. we did and it felt as exciting and competitive as if we were going for a win!

But I suppose it depends on what you want from your racing.... but then I'm used to fighting for places lower down.

[dch]

[*]The units we used were connecting to the mobile phone network but using Finnish sim cards, in future it would probably be better to use British ones and then the connection would be better as they wouldnt be roaming.

Actually the reverse is likely to be the case.

Almost certainly the Finnish operator has roaming agreements with all the UK networks and so the tracking units would be able to obtain service wherever there was coverage from any network. If SIMs from a British operator were used then they would only be able to get service where there was coverage from the network concerned.

Potentially using foreign SIMs could make the system usable in areas which it would not otherwise be. This would be the case if no single network had coverage over the entire area but different networks had coverage in different parts of the area together covering all of it.

[Laura]

Thank you all for the feedback, its very interesting to hear what people thought. It was our first time of planning and organising. We learned a LOT throughout the process and were pleased with the outcome, its been an eyeopening experience seeing the other side of events and the number of people involved in making it a success.

We had lots of help and advice from a very experienced controller (thanks dad!) and also from SYO, in particular Martin Ward who offered me and chris a HUGE amount of support throughout the last chaotic month!

Thanks again to all the ShUOCers who worked hard all day and night, all those nights of staying out drinking in preparation for this event have obvoiusly been worthwhile!

[ianandmonika]

Thanks to SHUOC for a really well organised Harvester. The starts looked like Heathrow with all the LEDs out. Many SHUOC people worked long hours to put this on, but set an event standard that was at a very high level.

[Spookster]

More Harvester pictures here

[rocky]

However, I reckon there may be more of an audience for TD3/4, shorter courses, with shorter winning times, but still with the seven leg concept. Start the relay for this group at 4am, giving one or two nightish legs, and have leg winning times of 30-40 minutes. Make the race much more doable for many more people. Even though each individual may not race for very long the feeling of being part of a team will more than offset that.

I did that race once. I was 15 and it was called the Peter Palmer.

[Adventure Racer]

Depends if you only class being 'competitive as being in the top three

Indeed - we were well down the field on A with only one runner who could possibly be described as M21E standard (most of us being never wassers rather than has beens), yet plenty of racing going on, with places being swapped every leg. I suppose we were in theory competing in the handicap competition - I set out on leg 3 in second place on that, with the 3rd and 4th place teams right on my heels - though never in with a realistic hope of winning that, and the racing would have been just as good either way.

Any chance of some results for the Ultrasprint (apologies - I appreciate the organisors are probably still busy catching up on their sleep!)?

[timsmith]

Thanks ShUOC for an excellent event - well organised, great to have the GPS tracking, well mapped/planned and the middle race was a nice warmup to get into the scale and terrain for the evening.

I uploaded a video of the start here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtUJNBPvDjg

[awk]

As has been implied/suggested, being competitive doesn't necessarily mean competing for the top 3. We put in what we thought were three competitive teams, i.e. able to compete against other teams. None were top 3 contenders, but that wasn't what we were there for (although it would of course have been nice....!).

It's no point comparing with the Jukola - the event is very different, as is the culture, as is the relative strength in depth. Equally, one can split hairs over whether it's about the perception or the objective difficulty, the fact of the matter is that the event IS too hard for most British orienteers to want to do it, however much those who post here enjoyed it. If people perceive something as too difficult, then it effectively is too difficult. The times people were recording at the weekend will have done nothing to allay the fears of those who didn't go for this reason.

I'm not saying that one should necessarily change the Harvester, but if people want to see it expanded or more competitive, then something will have to change. If people, on the other hand, are relaxed about it being a niche event, then it probably doesn't have to. My guess is that the night orienteering and the relay format won't attract large numbers in Britain in the foreseeable future, whatever one does about the distance. I certainly think thought that we will be more likely to turn out more B teams next time and less A teams.