E. Scot Champs

[andypat]

I personally think urban O is a waste of space.....

Surely its a good use of space? Waste of time maybe.....

You'll not be going to Croeso 2012 then?

[Taybank]

A couple of "comeback" points -
1 This is an area championships and should be given that recognition. Not everybody is going to feature at the British (Is the British important when there are world championships?)
2 I'm all for new formats being used to build up a new interest groups but surely they should be tried at local and club level and when they are shown to have strong backing they can be used at championships level e.g ESOA urban champs separate from cross champs.
There is little use attracting new people into the sport for urban or even mixed orienteering if you lose those who have enjoyed cross orienteering for many years.

[awk]

2 I'm all for new formats being used to build up a new interest groups but surely they should be tried at local and club level and when they are shown to have strong backing they can be used at championships level e.g ESOA urban champs separate from cross champs.

If that approach had been used, the new formats would never have taken off.

There is little use attracting new people into the sport for urban or even mixed orienteering if you lose those who have enjoyed cross orienteering for many years.

On the other hand, there are people who would in all likelihood given the sport up if the new formats hadn't been introduced.

I guess other like Kitch don't want it & I personally think urban O is a waste of space

The great joy of having all this variety is that it can accomodate both you and those who would never have tried/continued/done the sport if it had stayed with the old formats/structures.

[AlanB]

Just to clarify AlanB's comment about "champion of Green" there are some very nice age-class trophies to be won and I'll be trying my hardest to keep the one I won in 2010. Make sure you run the correct colour of course for your age class if you want to be in the running.

As for low-key, yes it is - but it's the first rung on the winning ladder for juniors and adults so don't knock it. I still remember standing at Glentress on a cold dark afternoon waiting on the prizegiving and my first ever orienteering "title". I think it was the W21 trophy and was quite a long time after starting orienteering aged 10 !

The venue on Sunday looks good fun and I expect an interesting course, so looking forward to it.

Sorry, I'd forgotten about the age to course link. (I might still do green ).

[smf]

There are many threads on here about how we are losing numbers in the 20/21 age groups yet these are often the biggest classes at urban style events.

Maybe, but at this event M16's will have to do short green instead of the usual blue course and W16's also short green instead of green. This is likely to put off this age group before they get to M/W21.

M16's seem to be able to run green at this event now. There is now a revised trophy eligiblity list here

[graeme]

Dechmont & Deans is nowhere near the JK area.

Oleg's courses will test a wider variety of navigational and running skills than any other event this year.

The only road crossings on green are cul de sacs leading into housing estates. Hence OK for U16.

It became the ESOA champs after the original choice got snowed off and no other club could be found to put the ESOA champs on. Then D&D itself got snowed off and rolled forward a year.

It's a bit crap that the organiser is out of the country for the week before the event. Somebody else should surely have volunteered.

[AlanB]

I'm looking forward to it, although I haven't decided which course I'm doing. Blue is my age class but is further than I'm used to. However, if 40% is urban then this helps as I am better on such terrain. Green is my usual course but then this is a championship...

Decisions, decisions, and that's before I decide which shoes to wear.

[mappingmum]

Anyone made any decisions about shoes, yet or is everyone waiting until registration to decide?

After reading the terrain description I'm like Alan and can't decide what course to run either . . . . . coin required

[AlanB]

I was worried about all the warnings about the weather, the conditions, icy pavements, exposure...

Then I read Graeme's post about it being carried forward from last year.

[AlanB]

Decided on blue and I'm glad I did. As expected, I seemed to do better 'on the streets'. I made up the minute start fellow club member Elaine G had, and was just about in front when we left urban for the country; after that it was game over as I saw her speeding into the distance!

As for shoes I wore my trail shoes: fine for the urban with sufficient grip for the country, although it was touch-and-go on some occasions.

A great course, with an interesting combination of terrain types, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[andypat]

Agree with Alan B. I opted for brown which was mostly urban and really enjoyed my race. Made a couple of errors (one urban and one terrain based) mainly due to the intensity of having to change back and forth. I really like these mixed events (said so after Lossie too!) although I had a bit of difficulty with the 1:7500 scale on this occasion in the urban part with my glasses on - I guess theres a reason why sprint is 1:4000/5000, but obviously sometimes there needs to be a compromise.

Good use of last years postponed courses too - the map hadnt changed too much.

[AlanB]

Probably shouldn't admit this but I hadn't realised the scale was 1:7500 until the urban had come to an end. I obviously don't use distance as part of navigating around town, just counting off features as I go. On heading off into the parkland I thought I was coming across features quickly.

[graeme]

Good use of last years postponed courses too - the map hadnt changed too much.

The map hadn't changed at all

Results online here, courtesy of SIman...

http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/e ... 03&ct=true

[SIman]

... and other ways of looking at the results including RouteGadget are linked from the SOA site.

I was mortified when I realised that the start units were still on BST. Apologies for the queue at download while we sorted each entry individually and to Rachel for the extra stress.

[AlanB]

I've just been looking at the map and comparing the town part to a previous urban event I did (Strathaven) that was mapped at a scale of 1:4000, and a superb job has been done in getting the necessary amount of detail in.

I did notice one (fairly trivial) omission, though. Running along Deans South, ticking off landmarks as I progressed between controls 5 & 6 on Blue, I notice an enclosed football ground (Livingstone United, I believe) with a small covered stand/terrace. Checking the map, I panicked for a split second before realising that the boundary fence had been included but not the stand.

Not really a problem as there were plenty of other features to check progress against, but including both spectator shelters might be an idea next time the map is revised.