Guildford City Race

[IanD]

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed most of the Guildford City Race yesterday.

There were a number of really good long legs. In fact, I stood around like a lemon just after the start wondering to go west or east on the first leg - and splits suggest I still got it wrong!

There were some more good long legs later, interspersed with intricate bits around the castle, underpasses where the one-way system crosses the river, and a college. I was kept thinking all the time, except for a jaunt around the park at the end. I also appreciated not having too much climb - there are a lot of hills in Guildford and my course only went up one of them.

Unfortunately there were a couple of glitches too. One control was at the wrong end of a line of trees. More importantly, the final details said "busy and dangerous roads ... are indicated with the red cross-hatch symbol ... and are NOT TO BE CROSSED. Any survivors will be disqualified". But the map legend for the cross-hatch simply said "busy road - dangerous", whereas the next line of the legend identified the normal parallel red lines as being out-of-bounds. Thus the implication from the map legend was that cross-hatch meant dangerous but not out-of-bounds, corresponding with the IOF specification but not the final details.

On my course, people who hadn't read or remembered the final details, and I doubt those entering on the day ever saw them, and therefore felt allowed to cross the road were it was dangerous, had a considerable advantage over those who felt constrained to run around the cross-hatch.

To compound this, there were quite rightly breaks in the cross-hatch to highlight subways under the road which competitors were required to use, but also another break highlighting a crossing which was not usable. When you reached it, you discovered that it could not be accessed from the pavement, but only from out-of-bounds buildings (but there was no thick black line between pavement and crossing which would have indicated this).

I mention this not to have a go at the organisers, but in the hope that others can learn from the mistakes:
- if a map symbol which in the specification merely indicates 'danger' is being used to indicate out-of-bounds, then say so on the map legends and in the start lanes as well as in the final details
- it's good to highlight crossing points, but please only highlight those than can actually be reached!

On my course, one leg was quite rightly voided because of this confusion. It would be a great shame if people remember this, rather than the rest of the course, which was excellent. I've had a look at the other courses on RouteGadget, and they look pretty good too.

[drobin]

Excellent race! I too went to the apparently crossable bridge but failed to find a way up to it and so continued along the edge of the 'busy road', thinking it's a long way to the end of the red hatching! However, I found a pedestrian crossing before I got to the roundabout, and the green man was showing on both sides so I was able to cross safely! It was at that point that I thought maybe the hatching was crossable after all - we had (crossable) blue hatching last year which meant 'busy with people' .

[Paulo]

I agree with everything Ian says. It was a very enjoyable event, on great urban terrain, and the map was better than last year for not having the blue 'busy pedestrian' area overprint.

However it really was a pity that the race was ruined by the one leg crossing the 'busy' road with the light grey 'crossing point' that didn't exist. The men's open course had a similar leg to that on Ian's course (but in the opposite direction). I spoke to about 10 people on that course, almost all of whom had problems with that leg resulting in varying amounts of frustrating time loss, due to the map overprinting. I know of some people who just crossed the road (noting it was marked as 'dangerous' not OOB on the legend), others who crossed at the pedestrian crossing (as Drobin), again over the red hatching screen (supposed to be OOB?), and at least one person who decided to cross over the busy road directly underneath the canopy symbol (the overpass between the two shopping centres that couldn't actually be accessed without going into OOB buildings) - whilst again I am sure that the planner meant this to be OOB, I agree that according to the mapping this route does appear to be legal. Many others eventually took the long detour (that I think was the 'intended' route) but this has resulted in a very unfair leg affecting overall times quite a bit which could have been easily avoided.

What I find most bizarre of all is that course C has had splits for the affecting leg taken out of the overall results, but for some reason course A has not had this done - despite the leg affecting the vast majority of course A runners just as much (albeit on a longer leg). Surely this split removal should be for both courses or neither? Perhaps the course C runners were more vociferous in their complaints!

Shame, because as I said it was a very enjoyable event otherwise - many thanks to GO for organising what I hope will become an annual event.

[Paulo]

For those who are interested, it's on Routegadget now, complete with all the OOB / dangerous hatchings marked identically to the race maps.

http://www.go.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin ... =10&kieli=

[King Penguin]

I was told at download that leg 4-5 was being taken out of Mens Open, as well as 10-11 on course C, but in the splits it has only been removed from C not A.

[m4rk]

I agree with the above comments; the rest of the course was good, but I had the same issue with 4-5 on A. I can tell why the map was left as it was, ie - to catch people out, but when I got to the steps on the map which were supposed to lead to the 'crossing', they were behind closed/locked doors. Could the have been new since the area was mapped? They did look like new doors, and glass walls etc.

The long legs mentioned were excellent when constant navigation was required to keep you on your toes, but I'm not sure I see the rationale for 16-17 where either route is 1.5km+ along a straight road.

The area down by the castle, with lots of direction changes and route choice was very well planned.

[paul]

The problem red hatched area, and gap for the bridge, is identical to the area shown on last years map. Last year the hatched area was the edge of the map. It was extended this year to include the areas on both sides. Obviously the bridge should have been similarly hatched over but I'd suspect an oversight rather than it being deliberate. See last years routegadget.

The change from 1:4000 to 1:5000 did make the map less clear in some places. The narrow passage to the west of the castle looked at first glance to be blocked, but it was just very narrow and short sets of steps. It must be tight on minimum width at 1:5000.

[maprun]

I really enjoyed running the C course. Despite knowing the area very well and studying routegadget before the event I hadn't anticipated some of the legs. At 10 I was frozen by indecision, north or south, neither looked very tempting. I'm not sure what the solution is to the road crossings - how do you show the same place is crossable/uncrossable at different levels on a 2-D map? To avoid abiguity, perhaps all competitors at the start should have the official interpretation explained again with a highlighted map. The other alternative is the 2010 planners approach, which was to have a compulsory crossing point and no gain on legs for those who ignored the cross hatching. Many thanks to everyone - looking forward to 2012 and having the Uni added!

[Sloop]

I thought the C course was extremely good fun until the dreadful trog round the field at the end (that extra distance could easily have been added in the areas around 11 or 12, for example).

I cannot see why the 10-11 leg has to be voided, and I certainly don't see why it should be voided on course C and not also on Course A, where hoping to use the grey block was definitely an expensive mistake.

Yes, the grey block should have hatching on it, and yes, hatching should be on the map as OOB, but in terms of course C ...
> the possibly-optimal route goes past the end of the grey block, so anyone reaching it and being disappointed could carry on with minimal loss
> legs 8-9, 9-10 and 11-12 are also affected by hatching, and surely we wouldn't want all of those voided too ?
> leg 3-4 was compromised by the control being on the wrong tree, and that hasn't been voided

Frankly, I was content with the results as they stood on the day. I think the spirit of the planner and mapper intention was clear enough, and voiding legs is slippery slope in terms of where to draw the line.

[FRBlackSheep]

I ran the A course at Guildford and although I am still not sure whether we could cross the red hashed areas or not - this is where the ambiguity lies not whether you could cross a 'canopy' which is what was mapped that is being termed as a footbridge.

The symbol used is correct as although it is a linked passageway, as it is inaccessable then it is marked as a canopy, so any protests being raised should consider whether they are in the habit of running on roofs?

All in all a good race, but more clarity on non standard symbols such as hashings please.

[Arnold]

I would also add that if the whole out of bounds (and how to get around / through it) situation is ambiguous - like it was at Guildford - then it's better not to have a route choice go right through it.

It just makes the risk of cheating very large - either on purpose because people can't be bothered to figure out the finer details of the map, or more likely by accident as people try and follow the rules but don't manage.

Of course whether it was cheating in this case doesn't seem clear (was the road just dangerous or out of bounds?) but the principle remains.

As a separate note it's the second time that Guildford had a special hashing symbol that was "for information only" but apparently not compulsory (last year they had two - "dangerous" and "busy with pedestrians"). I would argue not to have these symbols as it makes life confusing. Either something is too dangerous to cross, then make it out of bounds. Or it's safe enough, in which case why bother showing it on the map?

Nice event otherwise with some excellent route choices, though as others have pointed out it could have benefited from fewer controls in easy areas and more in the hard ones.

[mikey]

The Lincoln city map always seems to have this issue covered well by using the purple line overprint down the midde of roads that must not be crossed - with potential crossing points clear from the gaps in the purple line. As far as I am aware this has never caused any problems and it seems to have been well understood by runners. This might have avoided some of the confusion at Guildford.

[NeilC]

so any protests being raised should consider whether they are in the habit of running on roofs?

We might well be doing this at the Barbican in a couple of weeks time unless Ollie has found another way of mapping this area.

Is the cross hatching actually an ISSOM symbol? It doesn't seem to appear in the specs but OCAD allows you to use it.

I did course B on Saturday which from RG seems to be the best of the bunch with less long road runs and a more interesting finish.

[Spookster]

Is the cross hatching actually an ISSOM symbol? It doesn't seem to appear in the specs but OCAD allows you to use it.

It isn't. The cross hatching is symbol 710 from the ISOM Spec, and has the meaning "Dangerous Area: An area presenting danger to the competitor is shown with cross-hatched diagonal lines." It does not say it's forbidden to cross.

There is only one OOB symbol in ISSOM, which is 709 (the purple vertical lines). However you could perhaps also use the "closed area" symbol 714, which is a 50% purple screen, and also forbidden to enter.

[EddieH]

I've finally been tempted to add my all, but I hate to criticise people that make massive efforts to put on events.

We have had this discussion so many times but many never learn. There are plenty of proper ways of marking out of bounds - why oh why do people keep inventing their own. The FACT is that rot whatever reason not everyone reads final details, and of those that do not everyone can remember whether this is the event in which "all fences MUST be crossed at...." "such and such symbol is STRICTLY out of bounds" "you are strongly advised to avoid .... " ...........

Why don't controllers insist on standard IOF/BOF markings for all out of bounds, legal routes etc?